Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The issue of the Yellow River hasbecome the biggest concern of members of the Chinese peoples PoliticalConsultative Conference. My childhood, in fact, is closely associated with theriver. My father is an engineering geologist, and he used to take me with him onhis trips to the hydropower stations on the river. I enjoyed those trips,especially the trip to Longyang Xia reservoir. Although ten years have passedsince my visit, I can still recall the scenery; I can still recall the water Isaw at the reservoir. It was pure, clean and blue, not like the water I saw inthe middle reaches of the river, which had turned brown and muddy after passingthrough the Loess Plateau.
Once during our stay at the power station, we were caught in athunderstorm. And when rain stopped, I could see trickles of water rolling downmountain slopes and flowing into the reservoir. It carried little mud or sand,because at that time, trees and grass still grew around the reservoir. And theyprotected the soil. At Longyang Xia I was struck by the beauty of nature, and asa child I wanted to stay there and to grow up with our Yellow River.
Li Bai, the Tang Dynasty poet, said praises to the flowing water in theYellow River. He saw it as coming down from heaven and nurturing the peoplealong her way to the sea. However, in 1997,for 330days, not a single drop ofwater from the Yellow River went into the sea. And droughts are not the onlypunishment by nature. A friend of my father's, a university professor, is doingresearch on the Yellow River. According to this professor, the Yellow River willsoon change its course if we allow this situation to continue. Because there isno longer enough water to carry away the silt and mud in the lower reaches ofthe river and the riverbed rises higher and higher each year.
We have taken too much from nature, but given back too little in return.And this is the cost of the unbalanced growth. If we had taken care of thevegetation in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, we would stillexperience the river as Li Bai described it.
While the developed countries are consuming proportionally more naturalresources than the rest of the world, they've also taken some good measures inprotecting nature. And as a developing country, China can learn from them inthis aspect.
Last year, when I was visiting Australia with a group of Chinese studentswho had won prizes in an English Skills Test, our Australian hosts invited us tojoin them for a horse-ride in the mountains. After two hours on horseback, wereached a valley, where there was a most beautiful meadow, with flowers in allcolors dotted on a huge blanket of green. When I began to praise the beauty ofnature, my friends told me that in this valley, there used to be a big mine andthe wastewater from the mine turned everything brown. When the mine wasabandoned, people made great efforts to restore the green vegetation. They alsoused the latest biological technology choosing the best grass seeds suitable forthe local soil. So the beautiful meadow is a result of commitment, hard work,and new technology.
What happened to this valley in Australia should also happen to our YellowRiver and, in fact, it is happening. I have seen farmers planting trees onmountains along the Yellow River. I have seen them climb the mountain tops withseedlings on their shoulders because they had no machinery. I have seen thempour on trees the water they had carried up in buckets from miles down thevalley. These farmers are quietly nourishing our Yellow River, just as the riverhas nourished them.
And these farmers, men and women I don't know, gave me the confidence thatwe and our Yellow River will grow together, and someday in the future, we willbe able to drink the clean water from our Yellow River again, because she is ourdearest mother.
Thank you