A couple of wild whooper swans have been found to reproduce naturally in the Manas National Wetland Park in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which is the second time that whooper swans have successfully bred in the wetland.
Whooper swans, listed as second-class protected animal in China, migrate to the wetland during the winter and leave for breeding sites in the north in March.
But, for a second year, the bird was discovered nesting and hatching in the wetland.
Local officials and researchers have been tracking the status of the newborn swan baby.
"Whooper swans usually reproduce in Siberia and further north, or places of higher altitude, where the weather is cooler, and the environment is better. But in our wetland park, the bird bred last year, and bred again this year. It is no easy task for swans to continuously breed here, and, especially, hatch successfully. The altitude here is just around 400 meters," said Ma Ming, a professor at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
After years of protection, the wetland has expanded from 2,600 hectares plus to around 7,300 hectares, attracting more than 10,000 birds to stay and breed every year.
"The recovery of the Wetland is vital for the migration of birds. We have found many birds breeding here, not limited to swans, but also grebes, black-headed gulls, and so on, totaling dozens of species. This is proof of the fascinating environment here," said Ma.
Whooper swans reproduce in Xinjiang's national park
The China-Africa Industrial Cooperation Conference was held in Beijing on Saturday, drawing over 500 attendees, including Chinese and African business leaders and diplomats.
Themed "Sharing Development Opportunities of Modernization", the event sought to foster collaboration between China and Africa across various sectors following the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the largest diplomatic event hosted by China in recent years, which concluded on Friday.
"Certainly, we expect a lot more cooperation, particularly in the areas of energy. We have a serious challenge in terms of energy in my country Zambia following the effects of climate change and the droughts. The electricity generation capacity has been wiped out, so we need to diversify our energy sources with the expansion in solar and wind," said Ivan Zyuulu, Zambian Ambassador to China.
Abubakar Hassan Abubakar, assistant minister at Kenya’s Ministry of Trade, Investments and Industry, emphasized the importance of China's vast market to Kenyan producers who would benefit from strengthening trade ties between China and Kenya.
"Of course, we are expecting more cooperation because, as I had said, China is the largest trading partner in Kenya and now, we want to position ourselves for Kenya to be the largest investment partner. We want them to invest in and produce either agricultural or industrial products and serve the rest of the world, but also serve China itself because you can see that President Xi Jinping is opening up this market, and we want to take advantage of that market," he said.
The Alliance of Chinese Business in Africa for Social Responsibilities (ACBASR) published a new Blue Book at the conference about the "One Hundred Enterprises and One Thousand Villages" initiative, estimated to have benefited 10,000 people in Africa by supporting work to protect the rights and interests of women and children and promote environmental sustainability and community development.
China-Africa Industrial Cooperation Conference held in Beijing
