Fishery Bureau in Gangcha County and Scaleless Fish Feeding Station in Qinghai Province are two main environment protection organizations. The interviewers areYu Guo-zhen, Ma Xiao-yue, Wang Jiang-bo, Zhaxi Nanjie, Jiahua Cairang, Zhang Guo-xia, and Man Li-kun. The interviewee is Ma Yue-ming(the president of Fishery Bureau in Shahe Village, Gangcha County)

Ask:“Huang”fishes bring to Qinghai Lake environment?
Answer:Qinghai Lake is the largest endorheic lake and salt-water lake in China. “Huang”fish is the unique species in it. More than one hundred migrant birds live on this fish. If people do over fishing, the birds will have no food eat. At that time, the Qinghai Lake will be dead. Every year, the fishes, which are eaten by migrant birds, amounts to 800 tons. In 1950s, there were one hundred and eight rivers integrating in Qinghai Lake. During 1960s and 1970s, the number reduced to seventy. Now, there are only eight. The living environment for the“Huang”fish is worsening. We’re quite worried about its future.

Ask:What threatens the“Huang”fish in Qinghai Lake?
Answer:It comes from two aspects: natural disaster and human destroying. As Qinghai Lake is on plateau, its environment is affected by efflorescence,deforestation and swamp shrinking. All these reasons lead to the declination of “Huang”fish production amount. Every year, the migrant birds eat nearly one thousand tons of it. Another point is that in 1960s, the grassland around Qinghai Lake was changed into farms. People build dams to prevent one hundred and eight rivers running into the lake, which blocked the way of “Huang fishes” copulate and reproduce. The total amount of “Huang”fish reduces from 320,000 tons at the foundation of China to 7,000 tons now. Nowadays, over fishing is still a serious problem

Ask: What’s the main reason of the reducing fish amount? Does it belong to over fishing or environmental declination?
Answer:Over fishing is one aspect, however, the environmental declination is the main reason. Too many cattle and horse are raised freely on the grassland, which leads to degradation of grassland. The climate here is very dry, so the water vaporizes quickly in the river. The natural environment for “Huang”fishes living is worsening.

Ask:What difficulty do you meet in protection of “Huang”fishes?
Answer: Quite a lot. When we enforce the law to forbid fishing in some periods, fish men don’t understand us. They make scurrilous attacks upon us, even beat us. The number of our staff is much smaller than the fisher folks. In winter of 1992, when we inspected on the lake, we found that about five hundred people fishing illegally. At that time, we just had six people. We tried to persuade them not to do so. They immediately encircled us. We didn’t know what do at that moment. Nowadays, the number of our staff is increased; however, the difficulty still remains.

Ask:We can see the achievement of your hard work. In recent years, less people sell “Huang”fishes. People begin to realize the importance of protecting natural resources. All these relate to your work. What the concrete achievement do you get?
Answer:It’s quite a lot. There is a famous old saying that no pain, no gains. You can’t imagine that many fishes were stepped death in summer in 1950. Nowadays, this phenomenon disappears. In recent years, our government orders to forbid fishing on Qinghai Lake and protect the natural environment. In 2008, we plan to achieve “Zero fishing”. We try our best to protect this rare species.

Ask:Besides protecting “Huang”fishes, what do you do to highlight people’s conception of protecting environment?
Answer: We do a lot of work in propaganda. In 2005, we held the first “Fish Appreciation Festival”, which highlight people’s conception of protecting environment remarkably. We plan to hold this activity in Jun and Jul in 2007. We believe that we will do a better job. What’s more, we make educational propaganda in “Protecting Fish Week” and “Protecting Fish Month”. In Jul, 2006, we intercepted the river to save the rare species-“Huang fishes”.

Ask: We often see people sell “Huang”fishes in Xining. Do they get “Huang”fishes” from here?
Answer: I think not all the “Huang”fishes come from our Gangcha County. In recent years, few large scale of selling “Huang”fishes exists. People may get it from Hainan or Hai’an. We don’t know. But I believe that with help of policemen, this phenomenon will decrease.

Ask:Whe is the most busy time for you?
Answer:We are busiest in “Huang”fishes reproducing period(Jun, Jul and Aug) and melting period of Qinghai Lake(Nov, Dec and Jan). All the staff in Fishery Bureau is stationed beside the lake. As there are no clues of fish men’s behavior, we always work day and night. We divided people into three groups: duty group, alternation group and relieving group. If something happens, all the people come to work. We have no weekend or holidays. Since we choose this job, we should do our best.

Ask:Have you ever complained about your hard-working? Have you ever accepted fish men’s bribery?
Answer: To be honest, we have complained about the difficulty of our work. Sometimes, our family members even don’t understand us. But we never accept any bribery. We have accepted acquaintances’ cigarette and wine to warm the body. That’s all. We never practice favoritism to anyone. (At that time, Ma praised student’s audacity and intrepidity. In the interview, students learned a lot of things. We really appreciated Ma’s communication with us.