Tourist city of Dali protects its "mother lake"

At about 8:30 a.m. when the morning sun is shining on the rippling Erhai Lake, Yan Bingqian arrives at the lakeside and starts to clean trash and dead seaweed on the beach.

Erhai, with an altitude of 1,972 meters and a coverage of 252 square km, is one of the largest plateau lakes in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Known as the "mother lake" by local residents of Dali City, the ear-shaped lake attracts tens of millions of tourists every year.

"Decades ago, Erhai was so clean that villagers could directly drink from it while they were harvesting seaweed and fishing on the lake," Yan said.

However, the lake became polluted with the start of urbanization in the 1980s and tourism in the 1990s. During the past few years, hotels and restaurants mushroomed barbarously around the lake, intensifying the pollution problem.

In 1996, 2003 and 2013, the lake saw three major outbreaks of toxic blue-green algae. "At that time, we could smell the stink near the lake and see a layer of oily substance covering the water," said Yan.

Alarmed by the worsening water quality, governments of different levels intensified efforts of pollution control and ecological restoration at the lake.

Born in Gusheng village of Dali, Yan was a farmer who grew garlic on his 0.13 hectare of farmland. "Growing garlic brought us handsome profit, but we used a lot of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer which polluted the lake," said the 60-year-old.

In 2017, Yan leased the land to the city government, by which he could get 4,000 yuan (about 597 U.S. dollars) each year. Then he was employed by the township government as a lakeside cleaner.

"We would rather make less money than depriving our children of a beautiful lake," he said, adding that if the water quality continued to deteriorate, tourists would be unwilling to come.

Yan's choice was echoed by Zhang Lianhui, a hotel owner in the lakeside town of Shuanglang in Dali.

Zhang's parents once ran a factory processing preserved plums, a type of tourist snack. "Responding to the call of the government, they stopped the business in 2008 because the salty water the plant discharged was a severe pollutant to Erhai," she said.

The following years saw tourism surrounding Erhai Lake booming, transforming Shuanglang into a "must-see" destination which receives millions of visitors every year.

Zhang joined the tourism industry without hesitation. In 2013, her family borrowed 7 million yuan in loans and built a lakeside hostel with 32 guestrooms.

"Our rooms were often fully booked and the lake-view guestrooms were the most popular," said Zhang.

With the tourism expanding rapidly, over 200 restaurants and more than 400 guesthouses appeared in the town, affecting the lake with wastewater and garbage, according to Shi Guodong, vice director of the scenic spot administrative committee of Shuanglang.

In 2017，all the restaurants and guesthouses in Shuanglang were asked to suspend business to upgrade sewage treatment facilities.

Zhang's guesthouse had 14 rooms dismantled because they were located too close to the lake. "We owe our business success to the lake, and it is our duty to contribute to its protection," she said.

Arduous efforts pay off. The quality of water in Erhai was much better last year, according to the environmental monitoring authority of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture.

Li Zixuan, from Chengdu, is a frequenter to Dali. "I have been visiting Dali every year since my first tour here in 2014," she said. "I can see the water in Erhai becoming clearer and the beach cleaner."

Editor: John Li