Asia’s Water tower draws extensive ecological red lines

XINING: China’s Qinghai Province has drawn ecological “red lines” for over 40 percent of its territory, putting the areas under stringent environmental protection.
Located on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the northwestern province is known for its fragile ecosystem and for being home to the Sanjiangyuan area, where the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang rivers originate.
Lancang is known as the Mekong River as it flows through five Southeast Asian nations.
The “water tower” province has now designated 296,400 square kilometers as areas within ecological protection “red lines,” said a recently issued document on Qinghai’s spatial planning toward 2035. –Agencies