College students from China and Russia have taken part in a program sponsored by the WWF to protect the ecological system of the Heilongjiang River Basin, according to a Xinhua News Agency report today.

The "Heilongjiang Green Belt Protection Forum" was launched to improve people's awareness of the importance of the system.

The Heilongjiang/Amur valley has been listed by the WWF as one of its five top global ecological priority areas. With rich biodiversity, the valley is 1.84 million sq km in size and its Chinese part is 940,000 sq km.

Eugene Simonou, advisor from the WWF Amur/Heilongjiang River Basin Program, said that nine teams of university students from China and Russia have taken part in it.

They will investigate the ecological environment and social circumstance of the Heilongjiang River Basin.

A group of Chinese and Russian college students attended a recent forum in China's State Lake Xingkai Nature Reserve on Sino-Russian border. The border lake is famous for its abundant biodiversity.

Zhu Chunquan, forest program director of WWF China, said protection of biodiversity should not be hindered by boundaries, and governments, companies and institutes in the region should work with international organizations to promote biodiversity conservation and build the "Heilongjiang green belt."

Without irreversible human damage to the ecological system of the Heilongjiang River Valley, experts said key species and their habitats in the region are threatened by commercial logging, forest fires, wetland irrigation, over-fishing and pollution.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2005)