The southern city of Guangzhou is stepping up its wetlands protection by providing better education for its residents.

Guangzhou boasts abundant resources which cover 78,280 hectares and account for 10.7 percent of the city's total area.

In recent year, the city has adopted various measures to preserve its wetlands and provide a better balance between human activity and nature.

With the joint efforts of nine national wetland parks including Guangzhou's Haizhu Wetland Park and Hangzhou's Xixi National Wetland Park, an alliance led by China Wetland Conservation Association was set up on May 25. It aims to strengthen protection and recovery of wetlands and nature.

Haizhu Wetland Park, as one of the units launching the alliance, delivered a keynote speech focusing on wetland education at its first annual conference. The report said that Haizhu Wetland Park, with various and rich ecological and cultural resources, received more than 10 million visitors in 2016, highlighting nature education among the public.

The landmark Canton Tower stands outside the Haizhu Wetland Park. [Photo/gz.gov.cn]

In addition, other wetlands have also been experiencing remarkable results in protection, recovery or development. It's recorded that Nansha Wetland Park is home to 100,000 migrant birds spending winter there annually. The once-polluted Liuhua Wetland Park now boasts clean and clear water without any foul smell and was approved a state-level pilot garden last year.

Bevies of migrant birds frequent Nansha Wetland Park to spend the warm winter. [Photo/ nssd.com.cn]

In February, 2015, Guangzhou set up the Haizhu Wetland Nature School, serving as a government-led open education platform encouraging the participation of the whole society, according to Fan Cunxiang, director of the publicity and education center of Haizhu Wetland Park.

The park has initiated several featured courses on natural education, which benefited over 40,000 students last year.

To better preserve the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, seven new wetland parks will be in place by the end of this year, increasing the total number to 19.