China’s largest water diversion project(引水工程) may start supplying water to Shandong Province by 2007 and Beijing by 2010, an official confirmed Tuesday.

The worsening water shortage in the two areas, caused by decades of drought, may be alleviated with water from the mighty Yangtze River in the South which will be diverted into the parched North, he said. The water diversion project consists of three 1,300-kilometre canals that will carry water from the Yangtze   along   the eastern, middle and western parts of the country.

Zhang Jiyao,director of the state Concil’s office in charge of the South to North Project, told a national conference that ground will be broken in more places along two of the lines of the ambitious water diversion scheme,the largest of its kind in the world.

Before next year’s flood season, construction of four new sections along the two lines will push the project further along the fast track. That would bring the total sections under construction to 13,since construction started in 2002 with an estimated investment of 124 billion yuan(about US $15 billion).

When finished, the two water diversion canals will be capable of transferring 13.4 billion cubic meters of water a year.

In the shadow of Kenya’s Mount Kilimanjaro, nine Rothschild giraffes, the rarest giraffes on the planet, are free to wander at the English-style manor (庄园). Every day shortly before 9 a.m., they come up to the house and stick their heads through the windows and doors in search of morning treats. The manor’s owners, Tanya and Mikey Carr-Hartley, share their dining table with them. And now the couple are sharing the fantastic experience with the public by opening the manor gates to guests at the giraffe hotel, the only hotel of its kind in the world. Now, guests can feed the giraffes at breakfast but can also get up close to them from their second- floor bedrooms.

Mr and Mrs Carr-Hartley, both 38, spent their childhood living close to the house in Nairobi and have always been enthusiastic about the animals. Tanya said, “Mikey and I grew up near this manor house when we were children. We are both the third generation Kenyans and have always wanted to work in conservation. Mikey’s family have been related to the protection of animals for many generations, His grandfather helped the removal of giraffes as far back as the 1930s because the Rothschild giraffes lost much of their natural living space. When the house came up for sale, we jumped at the chance to buy it as we had always dreamed of owning it. Now, we were absolutely overjoyed to do something for the giraffe protection. Having the giraffes so close is very special and something which people can now experience by staying in one of the ten rooms at the hotel.”

A conservation project to save them was started at the manor in 1974 by the previous owners. “The previous owners ran a very successful breeding (繁殖) programme, where many giraffes were set free into the wild and we hope to continue,” said Tanya.

A woman and her friends were lucky enough to see wild Amur tiger, an endangered species, for two days during the New Year holiday. They spotted the rare animals while driving on mountain-climbing trips in Hunchun, Northeast China’s Jilin province.

The woman, surnamed Zhao, was driving with two friends when they first saw a cub tiger near the Sandaogou village of Hunchun on Jan. 1st, CCTV News reported. Zhao said the young tiger looked chubby and cute. When the tiger saw them, it turned and ran. “We wished to see a wild tiger once, and I didn’t expect our wish would come true on the first day of the new year!” Zhao said.

The next day, when Zhao and her friends drove to where they saw the young tiger a day before, they found an even bigger one. Compared with the cub, the adult did not rush to run away after seeing their car but sat there and watched them for a moment before it “walked slowly into the woods”, Zhao said.

“How lucky they are!” many netizens commented. The year 2022 is the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese lunar calendar.

According to reports, local residents in Hunchun have come across wild Amur tigers more than 30 times since the beginning of 2021. A large area in Hunchun is part of Northeast China’s Tiger and Leopard National Park, which is one of the country’s first five national parks. The parks will be partly open to the public and serve as “classrooms” for nature conservation education. The Amur tiger population in China saw a sharp decline in the 1990s. Thanks to preservation measures, the wild Amur tiger population has been experiencing rapid growth.