Species beginning to recover in Yangtze

Mo noted that currently, efforts to find other work for fishermen who had to give up their jobs have been successful, illegal fishing has effectively been curbed, and fishing boats and nets in rivers and lakes have been mostly cleared.

As a result of these actions, aquatic biodiversity is showing early signs of being restored.

The municipal public security bureau, agriculture and rural affairs commission and market regulators have made joint efforts to crack down on the illegal fishing industrial chain — fishing, transportation, processing and sales.

The report said that as of June this year, the city has handled 3,465 administrative fishing cases, 1,206 of which were related to crimes. A total of 2,390 suspects from 198 criminal gangs have been arrested, with more than 7,200 kilograms of illegal catch seized.

Furthermore, the number of illegal fishing cases in the Chongqing sections of the Yangtze and its tributaries — the main streams of the Jialing and Wujiang rivers — has declined significantly.

It said cross-regional cooperation between Chongqing and the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou, as well as technological measures, including an AI warning and monitoring system that helps detect illegal fishing activity, have helped strengthen the ban's effectiveness.

"A total of 957 early warning points in key mainstream areas in the Yangtze, Jialing and Wujiang rivers have been set up using the technology," said Li Qifan from the Chongqing Agricultural Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Corps. "Its biggest edge is that, besides data recording and analysis, it can carry out smart monitoring, identification of suspects and illegal fishing alerts."