Anji saves Xitiaoxi River from sand mining

The rare Taihu whitefish, a species unseen in the Xitiaoxi River in Zhejiang province's Anji county for more than a decade, has returned, the result of local government moves to stop sand mining.

To meet surging demand from the construction industry, locals began mining sand from the river in the late 1970s.

The business reached its peak between 1999 and 2009 when 30 million tons of sand was removed from the Xitiaoxi riverbed.