Two scaled replicas of the rubber duck by Dutch conceptual artist Florentijn Hofman are seen floating in a lake at a national park. (Photo : Getty Images)
China's first official national park that is planned to be built in the Sanjiangyuan area will start this year. This will be administered by the central government and is scheduled to be finished by 2020.
Sanjiangyuan National Park's administration bureau said that the park would have a budget of 1 billion yuan for infrastructure construction. It is built to protect the headwaters of the Yellow, Yangtze and Lancang rivers.
Sanjiangyuan literally means "the source of three rivers." The ecology has degraded over time due to overgrazing and other human activities.
The bureau has started the trial operation of the management of the national park in April 2016. It was situated on a vast wetland and grassland area located in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The park will be built on the area of the Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve, which was established in 2000 in Qinghai Province, Northwest China.
The national park management will hire more than 10,000 wardens that are in charge of patrolling the 120,000-square kilometer park area.
The decision to turn the national reserve into a national park managed by the central government was made at the end of 2015 at a meeting of the Central Leading Group for Reform.
Herders and farmers on the reserve will be turned to the central forces of environment protection under the national park management. The management will boost the income of the farmers and give them an incentive for protecting the environment.
This year, the park would build roads, access control facilities, visitor centers, preservation stations and sewage treatment facilities.
"The park is massive and sparsely populated. Most areas in the park do not have roads. Herdsmen can only ride horses to traverse the land," said Zhai Jinquan, a planning official with the bureau.
He added: "In order to enhance ecological protection and law enforcement work, the park would build roads and install a network for remote monitoring."
