Still safeguarding his home waters

Without his walking stick and mud-soiled shoes, it would be easy to mistake the silver-haired, softly spoken Qin Boqiang for a professor of literature. Instead, he is the chief ecologist for Lake Taihu.

The 54-year-old, who was born and raised on Xishan Island in the southern part of lake, said the pea-green eyesore "smells like dead fish".

Qin graduated in hydro-engineering from Hohai University in Jiangsu province, China's top school for water studies, and studied physical geography at Lund University in Sweden as part of a fellowship exchange program. In 1996, he began working for the Taihu Laboratory for Lake Ecosystem Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.