Dongying advances ecological protection, economic prosperity

Dongying, a coastal city in East China’s Shandong province, has been making big steps in environmental protection and economic growth over the past decade, which has laid a strong foundation for the city’s high-quality development.

Dongying sits where the Yellow River flows into the Bohai Sea, and has put a major focus on preserving the ecology of wetlands and the biodiversity in the Yellow River Delta region in the past 10 years, according to Yang Guoqiang, Party secretary of Dongying.

During the 2012-21 period, the city completed 16 wetland protection and restoration projects with 6,192 hectares of wetlands developed or restored.

A strong emphasis was placed on protecting habitat for key species such as cranes, black-billed gulls, and Oriental white storks, as well as preserving native flora like wild soybeans and restoring aquatic life to increase biodiversity.

With the restoration of environment, a growing number of wild birds have taken shelter in the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve in the city. The reserve stretches for about 153,000 hectares, with wetlands making up more than 70 percent of its total area, making it an important wintering and stopover site for migratory birds.

The city is also constructing a Yellow River estuary national park, which will be the first in the nation to have both land and marine areas. It will concentrate on preserving and restoring the ecological environment in the Yellow River Basin.

Currently the city has wetlands spanning an area of 4,580 square kilometers. According to Yang, Dongying has become one of the first international wetland cities in the world and also been included into China's 2021 most competitive city list in terms of ecology, demonstrating that the city has achieved great success in ecological protection.

Furthermore, Dongying saw steady growth in its economic growth during the past 10 years. The city’s gross domestic product reached 344.17 billion yuan ($47.78 billion) in 2021, with an average annual growth rate of 6.8 percent.

More than 70 percent of its budget has been invested in improving people's livelihoods over the past decade, with the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents increasing by 82.9 percent and 93.7 percent, respectively, Yang said.