Survival issues

Tang Daiqin, a fisherman in his 70s, recalled the locals' eventual withdrawal from Dongting Lake to rectify decades of abuse.

In the 1970s, when hunger and scarcity prompted China to prioritize food production, villagers inhabiting Dongting Lake zealously jumped into a dike-building drive to reclaim farmlands and fish ponds.

"Over 10,000 people gathered around the lake on the second day of the Lunar New Year in 1975, carrying sand on their shoulders and backs," Tang said. "Everyone worked from daybreak till late into the night to finish it before the water level rose in July."

While the massive reclamation driven by the survival instinct resulted in the villagers' increased vulnerability in times of floods, several rounds of the profit-driven poplar planting craze since 1977 caused greater ecological calamity.

Statistics show that the Dongting Lake area was occupied by 26,000 hectares of black poplars as of 2016. These tall, strong and fast-growing trees were blamed for killing the wetlands by hardening the soil and blocking sunlight for other plants.

In 1998, after a huge flood swept the Yangtze River, destroying houses and farms around the lake, the government decided to "return the land to the lake". Under the guidance of local governments, Tang and 5,800 other fishermen and farmers were resettled outside of the Qingshan Dyke that they had built.

It was not a smooth transition. Many villagers who failed to find other means of livelihood returned to the lake and engaged in illegal fishing and bird hunting, often by electrocuting or poisoning the water. The establishment of the reserve in 1998, and its implementation of a fishing and hunting ban, also ran into strong opposition from locals.