Once-dwindling freshwater lake on grassland regains vitality

Hou now gets 20,000 yuan ($3,116) of government subsidy a year from the grazing ban on his 100 hectares of pasture.

Hou's new house in Jibholengt Township, New Barag Left Banner, is equipped with a flushing toilet, running tap water and heating. Hou has rented a couple of pastures near his house to raise cattle and sheep.

"It took me some time to adjust to the new environment and facilities. This place is warm in the winter, unlike my previous home. And it is more convenient for me to buy forage as the road is next to my house," he said.

He often drives his mother to see the lake. Wetland vegetation such as reeds and willow shrubs have been restored, providing a good habitat and breeding ground for birds. The once dwindling lake has regained its vitality.

"My mother is so happy, and I feel 20 years younger when seeing the lake ecology is restored. There is no sand, and the birds and fish have returned to the lake," he said.

"The primary target of the lake's ecological protection is to reduce human interference and allow it to recover by itself," said Dou Huashan, deputy director of Hulun Lake National Nature Reserve Administration.

Since 2013, the number of bird species has increased to 345 from 333. That of fish species in the lake has risen to 47 from 32, and the number of mammals species increased to 38 from 35, according to the reserve administration.

Liu Cunwang and his three colleagues are now responsible for patrolling wetlands in the core area of the lake reserve where herders like Hou used to live. Their work is to protect birds and fish from poaching.

Liu said in the first year, they trekked the whole area and set up camps in key places, but with the help of a digital monitoring system set up in 2018, the patrol has become more efficient.

Using video monitoring, whenever Liu finds someone getting near the river, the team immediately drives there to check it out. "To be honest, the work is still hard. We are on call 24 hours a day, and we quite often operate at night," said Liu.

Liu has developed a hobby of monitoring the birds' activities.

In November last year, he watched from the monitors that five hungry mute swans were trapped on the ice.

Liu and his colleagues drove to their rescue. The birds were taken back to the protection station and fed till this spring, when Liu released them back to nature. Liu and his colleagues rescued about 40 migratory birds last year.

"When we surveyed swan geese in the reserve in 2013, there were fewer than 500, but now there are nearly 5,000, and the total amount of fishery resources has increased by more than 30,000 tonnes during the period," said Dou.

"The cameras also caught eight wolves this spring, which was unusual in the past decade," he said, adding wolves, a main predator on grassland, reflect the positive development of the ecological environment of the reserve and the effective control of human disturbance.