Original link: https://tyingknots.net/2022/05/corona-27/
In a previous tweet, “Let Poyang Lake breathe for a while” , the summary called for attention to the “Second Public Participation of Public Participation in the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Poyang Lake Water Control Project in Jiangxi Province”. The tweet sparked some discussion about how to engage with the public on a complex topic like a water conservancy project. Indeed, the Poyang Lake Water Control Project has undergone years of research and discussion. However, since the “Public Notice” calls for public participation, it must be a sincere attempt to promote public discussion of environmental issues. In the face of the complexity of water conservancy projects, even the 1,200-page EIA report attached to the “Public Notice” still has potential omissions. For example, the significance of Poyang Lake as an outpost of zoonotic infectious diseases.
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Water conservancy projects can have a profound impact on infectious disease problems. The previous discussion on dams in the Corona reading group mentioned the classic study “Rules of Expert” on the Aswan dam in Egypt: “The construction of the dam in Egypt changed the transmission route of diseases, including typhoid fever and malaria. The construction of the dam changed the temperature of the water body and affected the way mosquitoes move. These diseases were originally diseases of the upper Nile, but later entered the lower reaches through the green islands formed in the dam, causing more deaths from falciparum malaria than in North Africa. Battle of Mann.”
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Although the EIA discussed the prevention and control of schistosomiasis, it ignored the importance of Poyang Lake to zoonotic diseases closely related to the common destiny of mankind. The research of anthropologist Fang Li’an cited in this article pointed out that since the outbreak of bird flu in 1997, Poyang Lake has become the outpost of global bird flu prevention and monitoring due to the scale of migratory birds. On the other side of this outpost are poultry farmers in the Lake District. How water conservancy projects affect the complex relationship between people, birds, lakes, and viruses depends not only on how rising water levels affect the saucer lake that migratory birds depend on, but also on the livelihoods of local farmers and the impact of a stable disease control outpost on humans. important meaning. We call for more adequate research, inspection and reporting.
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This article comes from the discussion on Poyang Lake in the 27th issue of Corona Reading Club in 2020. The speaker starts from the core field of “lung”, connects many clues of Poyang Lake, and tries to propose a meaning framework for understanding contemporary Jiangxi.
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On May 9, 2022, the official website of the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Water Resources released the “Second Information Announcement of Public Participation in the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Poyang Lake Water Control Project in Jiangxi Province”, and the “Environmental Impact Report of the Poyang Lake Water Control Project in Jiangxi Province (solicitation for comments)” Draft)” (hereinafter referred to as the “EIA Report”) was released simultaneously as an important part of the information disclosure. Deadline for public participation: May 20, 2022. Such a major issue, leaving only ten days for the public to react.
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Although the daily news at all levels has been worrying recently, the summary urges everyone to pay more attention to the irreversible breathing rights of Poyang Lake. A template for a letter of willingness to participate in public participation can be found in this article “Natural Folding” attached to Article 2. Let’s study and write together. I beg you to retweet more. Welcome to leave a message for discussion in the background.
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Related Reading:
Corona Book Club Issue 6 | Animals, Viruses and the Anthropocene
Corona Book Club Issue 28 | Dams and Water Politics
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Corona This is a book club that originated during the epidemic. The background is social science, but the complexity of the epidemic soon overflowed the established disciplinary boundaries, and the book club has gradually transformed into an issue-oriented semi-public discussion platform. In addition to the epidemic and the secondary social phenomenon of the epidemic, Corona’s concerns include gender and LGBT, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, infrastructure, poetry, otherness, global disaster politics, etc., and also tries to respond to urgent issues, such as floods. Curated discussion of Poyang Lake critical historical geography and dam and water politics. Friends who are interested in joining or contributing to the theme, please leave a message in the background. For the book list see:
https://shimo.im/docs/jQWWW6WDqRC6h9Tp
The previous notes can be found in the graphite book list, and the sorted articles can be found in the official account of the knot. If you are interested in joining this discussion, please follow the link on the poster to join directly. For those who intend to join for a long time or contribute to the theme, please contact the host at the end of the event.
Lecturer / YL
Tidy up / Corona’s friends
Poyang Lake and Jiangxi’s Framework of Meaning: Towards a Critical Historical Geography
As a child of Jiangxi, I have never had much local feelings before. Until some time ago, I was very surprised to find that there is currently no minimum framework for talking about Jiangxi and understanding Jiangxi. It is not necessary to talk about it as a province with very distinct characteristics in various aspects, but for example, if something like a flood really broke out, if everyone wants to talk about Jiangxi, it is easy to fall into three modes: either self-deprecating , every year If there is a flood, Jiangxi will be flooded; or Jiangxi will be discussed entirely in terms of geography . Because Jiangxi is surrounded by Luoxiao Mountain, Wuyi Mountain, Wuling Mountain, and then the Poyang Lake Plain in the north, which is a very flat piece, and then this flood brought out the relationship between the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake; or it fell into the narrative of Jiangxi historical celebrities , And it is often a history that lacks effective connection with the present: the literati of the Song Dynasty, the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty, and the revolutionary fragments of the Soviet area . In short, when we talk about Jiangxi, we either come from undermining ourselves as our own people, or we completely erase people from the picture, leaving only geography or history. It seems that Jiangxi is a very difficult place to talk about, lacking a historical and geographical framework of humanities and social sciences.
Returning to today’s theme, we hope to dissect the floods of Poyang Lake from three segments, and also sort out a critical historical-geographical framework that can better discuss Jiangxi. I’m not trying to criticize the geography of Jiangxi’s history, starting from the floods and making some more conclusive conclusions, but throwing out some problem awareness and throwing out some frameworks, so that everyone can understand more critically and in depth. This time the flood and Poyang Lake, as well as the people, animals, and even the virus behind it. I will use a metaphor to connect the various characteristics of Poyang Lake.
Pneumonia in Poyang Lake: Virus Reservoir and Wild Goose Breeding
The metaphor I use is lungs and pneumonia . Of course, this word is not unfamiliar to everyone, but how is it connected with Poyang Lake? I start with the anthropologist Lyle Fearnley’s research on Poyang Lake geese and bird flu prevention. Why are geese in Poyang Lake the focus of international epidemic prevention? Because of the bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997, the international scientific community felt that Asia would be the origin of the next large-scale zoonotic epidemic, due to eating game and other reasons. This is first and foremost because of the biodiversity of East and Southeast Asia. In the context of anthropology, there is still a comparison scale based on “primitive” and “civilization” behind this set of epidemic prevention medicine. So if we see some American dramas, they talk about Ebola or Southeast Asia, there will still be a mindset that people, people, and wildlife in places like Asia and Africa interact frequently with wild animals, or in terms of zoonotic diseases. Animals are in very close contact with virus reservoirs.
Why Poyang Lake is particularly important in this zoonotic picture is that Poyang Lake is a wintering habitat for many migratory birds. Migratory birds are cross-border species, mobile. With rich biodiversity and considerable species mobility, Poyang Lake, as a virus reservoir in the sense of zoonotic disease, has a high risk factor.
But in addition to understanding Poyang Lake with the words “dangerous” and “virus database”, it can also be understood as a warning point. With the current level of globalization, in any place, the great plague that broke out in the animal kingdom may break out globally on the human side through some way of human-animal contact. Continued virus detection on the front line is a smarter approach than containment after the fact. Therefore, after the outbreak of bird flu in 1997, the international scientific community often cooperated with local Chinese scientists in China to do a lot of virological research in the nature of surveillance work.
Fang Li’an’s research mentioned that in 2006, there were reports that many geese died on the edge of Qinghai Lake, which actually means a new wave of avian influenza outbreaks, although it is not known whether it will infect people. Scientists then come to do flow adjustment work, trying to figure out what’s going on. They found that many wild geese like Qinghai Lake would come to Poyang Lake in winter, so they gradually started monitoring work on Poyang Lake. But all these scientific researchers at this time will assume a very simple relationship between man and nature. For example, in their eyes, Qinghai Lake and Poyang Lake may all belong to the “natural environment”, and there may be certain human activities, which are also imagined to be relatively isolated from nature. People either obtain natural resources, such as fishing, or destroy the natural environment. For example, there is a very famous reclamation and reclamation on the Poyang Lake. Many news reports about floods have mentioned this. But in fact, the imaginary dichotomy between “natural environment” and “human society” is not entirely clear. Fang Li’an came to the lake area in order to participate in the monitoring of migratory birds in Poyang Lake, and found that there are not only migratory birds, but also many domestic birds, and they interact with migratory birds.
According to the “Poyang Lake Yearbook 1988” cited by Fang Li’an, Poyang Lake has been vigorously advocating wild poultry farming since the 1980s. You may find it very funny when you hear this word at first, how can wild animals be raised? But this policy has social and natural ecological tension considerations. And as long as game has its cultural connotation, and is market-oriented and has large-scale sales channels, wild animal breeding is completely conceivable, and it is often raised in some “wild” places to retain a certain wildness. Poyang Lake is like that. Wild geese farming by local farmers is not about keeping them in pens. It is very important to keep it wild characteristics, such as the ability of geese to fly. Local farmers adopt the so-called “natural wild stocking” method. Although geese will still be caged at night, they will mix with wild geese during the day. In this way, by stocking geese, the contact between people and wild geese is actually very intensive. This breaks the previous belief by many scientists that Poyang Lake can be regarded as a relatively simple boundary between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. The monitoring research of the virus post must be a comprehensive monitoring of the local natural and social ecology. Poyang Lake as a lung means a complex complex of people, birds, lakes and viruses.
The lake as process: Between throughput, pneumonia, news and history
In addition to the monitoring significance of “pneumonia” and “avian flu”, the characteristics of Poyang Lake itself are also very comparable to the lungs. Paying attention to flood reports, you will find a very important debate, that is, how big is Poyang Lake? How did Poyang Lake surpass Qinghai Lake in this year’s flood season and become the largest lake in China? But why do you often see photos of Poyang Lake during the dry season when it was particularly dry? Poyang Lake is a throughput-type lake. We can see from the figure below that the difference in water volume is very obvious between the wet season (spring and summer) and the dry season (autumn and winter) of Poyang Lake.
Because a very important point is why Poyang Lake has such a large throughput? In fact, because it has a lot of sources of water on the one hand. Almost all major and minor rivers in Jiangxi flow into Poyang Lake, and then from Poyang Lake into the Yangtze River. Different river flood seasons have certain differences, but they are usually in spring and summer, because the precipitation will reach its peak. Then another measured Yangtze River is also in the flood season, so at this time, the superimposed water volume will make the water volume of Poyang Lake reach its peak.
It has also been said that why not keep Poyang Lake in a state of more water? Or a more stable state? In the 1980s, there was a proposal to build a dam on Poyang Lake, and the proposal at that time was mainly for flood control. First of all, Poyang Lake’s characteristics of connecting rivers and lakes and continuous throughput are very helpful for the circulation of water, which is equivalent to continuous water exchange. And in winter, the receding water will leave a lot of wetlands and “dish-shaped lakes”, so many migratory birds from the north will come here at this time. It is Poyang Lake, which has both wet and dry periods, that has become a model of ecological diversity.
A corollary of comparing Poyang Lake to a lung is that we should not only focus on Poyang Lake at one time and one place, the lake is dynamic in its throughput, but also connected to other rivers, provinces, grasslands, land, humans and non-humans. When the lake attracted attention at an emergency such as a flood, if you want to compare this moment to pneumonia, you should also pay attention to the entire course of the new coronary pneumonia, from latent to critical, rather than just seeing a lot of phlegm from patients in the ICU The fluid accumulates in the lower respiratory tract, between the lungs, and then the entire lung becomes glassy, so that it may eventually suffocate and die. But the development of the whole disease includes the initial transmission, control, latent, interaction with others, accumulation of the virus in the body, possible attack, defense and consequences of many organs, as well as other diseases, the body’s resistance, and drugs of interaction.
Based on the logic of emergencies, the attention and reports on the Poyang Lake disaster since March have partially achieved this process. From the beginning of the flood season in the entire Yangtze River Basin, to the precipitation and water level of Poyang Lake, the flood control of the surrounding smaller rivers . But in the later stage, it may be due to the guidance of public opinion and the inertia of narrative about the flood, and the focus of news is gradually narrowed to the narrative of the tragic disaster and the disaster relief of officers and soldiers.
On the other hand, the narrative of Poyang Lake also exists in the research of historical geography and environmental history for a long time. For example, Mr. Tan Qixiang wrote a famous article examining the area of Peng Li and Poyang Lake. But many times it is also difficult for ye to see the shadows of the people and the non-human actors. For example, what is the approximate area of Poyang Lake in different periods of history? At the end of Mr. Tan, he attributed the problem of the shrinking Poyang Lake to its sedimentation. There is not much mention of large-scale reclamation since the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Under this narrative inertia, we still need to find a more relevant and in-depth understanding scale for Poyang Lake, and find a suitable body for this lung. What kind of connection does it have with these local people and with the larger human geography, history, and economic structure in the local area.
Flood, Jiangxinzhou, Jianghu relations, inter-provincial relations
On the one hand, flood reporting may be too focused on one current event, while ignoring the larger structure. On the one hand, if it is a very large environmental history, there are not many specific stories of people in it. Can we find a middle point to further complicate the whole relationship between lakes, people and animals? In fact, we mainly want to make such an attempt today, and I want to show you a picture. This place may be very impressive if everyone pays attention to flood news. Around July 10, the flood in Jiangxinzhou Town became more and more dangerous in Jiangxi. Then on July 13, the mayor of Jiangxinzhou Town sent an open letter to all the Jiangzhou children on the Internet, saying that they now need people to come back to guard the embankment and defend their homeland.
That’s a bit abstract. If we look at this picture, we can clearly feel that Jiangxinzhou happens to be a sandbar in the middle of the Yangtze River. On the opposite side, people like Xiaochi and Huangmei have reached Hubei, and then this is actually Jiujiang. Let’s zoom in on this picture a bit, and then everyone can find out, is there still a large piece of water here? Because the Yangtze River enters Anhui from here, and then downstream, and there is a Hukou County here. If you have an impression of middle school Chinese, you should remember “Shi Zhong Shan Ji”, which is actually written as a connection like Hukou. Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River. And then there’s Stone Bell Mountain over there, and it makes sounds, and that sort of thing. Under today’s Shizhong Mountain, lakes and rivers of different colors can be clearly seen merging into each other. The same is true for Jiangxinzhou, with the Yangtze River on one side and Poyang Lake on the other. This flood spreads across the Yangtze River Basin on the one hand, and affects many tributaries that flow into Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province on the other. Jiang Xinzhou can be said to be the enemy. But on the other hand, we can also find that Jiangxinzhou itself is just a sandbar on the Yangtze River. If it is a natural sandbar, its area will actually vary greatly in different water periods. Including some photos we saw this time, for example, the Xiaogu Mountain in Susong, Anhui will appear smaller than usual. But for a sandbar like this, we can now see on the map that the vegetation is already very dense, and various things are planted. This is human resistance rather than natural advance and retreat.
If we look further, we can see that the depth of Poyang Lake is very long. This should be such a photo when the water is relatively dry. So there has always been a theory about Poyang Lake, that is, it is sometimes a lake and sometimes a river—it is a lake during the wet season, but in its dry season, you can often think of it as a lake More in depth, such a very wide river surface in the lower reaches of the Ganjiang River. The width of its lake may be several times that of the Yangtze River. The so-called high water is a large area, and the dry water is a line.
But for Jiangxi, Poyang Lake is still quite abundant. This aspect is reflected in the vastness of China’s largest freshwater lake during the flood season, with a lake surface area of 2,383 square kilometers when the water level at the mouth of the lake is 21.71 meters. On the other hand, it is also reflected in the species diversity brought about by the phenomenon of the Poyang Lake huff and puff, which we mentioned earlier.
In addition to these two points, Poyang Lake brings together most of Jiangxi’s water veins at the geographical level. In this sense, even if its area is small, it is rich in Jiangxi. Combined with our previous picture, we can see that outside the Poyang Plain, Jiangxi is mainly a mountain, which is the hinterland of a circle of watersheds. Most of the water systems originating from Wuyi Mountain, Luoxiao Mountain, and Wuling Mountains that surround Jiangxi, east, west, and south will eventually flow into Poyang Lake. From this point of view, although Jiangxinzhou is a town, it can very well ask the pulse of the whole Jiangxi. Including the hinterland of Jiangxi extended by Poyang Lake, the relationship between the rivers and lakes where it is located is at the forefront. And the first line of the Yangtze River where it is located is also very good at showing the priority relationship between provinces during flood control. For example, in 1998, there was a saying: should we give up Jiujiang to keep some places such as Nanjing and Shanghai further downstream? But further upstream there are also particularly important cities like Wuhan. Therefore, we will have a discussion on the Three Gorges later, which is actually very related to the inter-provincial relationship between the entire upstream and downstream provinces. So like this time later, many people said that Jiangxi and Anhui are constantly flooded, and then constantly poor, and they continue to fall into this very bad vicious circle.
But the logic of this self-circulation is flawed. To what extent is the dry water of Poyang Lake in recent years related to the Three Gorges Project? Isn’t rainstorm a slice of global environmental change? Jiangxi’s poverty and weak inter-provincial relations are the more fundamental reasons behind the country’s inclination of resources and the concentration of capital in surrounding provinces. Whether it is Jiangxi’s underground resources or Jiangxi’s above-ground food, manpower and talents will flow to the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta to a large extent.
Multiple lungs and cisterns of public opinion
Our discussion today seeks to move beyond a simple disaster narrative. Our initial narrative focused on Poyang Lake as a zoonotic outpost, involving multiple ecological relationships such as humans and birds. The lung metaphor is multiple. Because if we look at the longer history, like Jiangxi, including two lakes, Anhui and other surrounding provinces, the economy, agriculture and industry are closely related to rivers and lakes. Poyang Lake, as a lung, is not only the breathing between rich and dry water, but also the breathing in the sense of transportation. Flood discharge and water circulation between rivers and lakes, as well as the important shipping function of Poyang Lake connecting the Yangtze River, Ganjiang River and Jiangxi water system. Sun Yat-sen’s “Outline of National Founding” mentioned that a feature of Jiangxi is that all county towns can be reached by waterway. Of course, not only human traffic, Poyang Lake is also the foothold of migratory birds and finless porpoises, which is a larger and more important traffic.
The lungs are dynamic, which does not mean eternal smoothness and harmony. The history of Poyang Lake is also full of the struggle between man and nature, and then the interests and politics of man and man. Historically, there have been many fights in the fishing grounds in Poyang Lake, and people died around 2006. Then there is Caozhou. In the process of continuous farming, farmers need grass piles to restore fertility. They have to cut grass from the grassy island on the lake and go back to burn compost. In more recent history, we can see that from the founding of the Communist Youth League to the May 7th Cadre School, there were politically driven struggles between man and nature, which also transformed man. The development of contemporary Poyang Lake is also full of economic and environmental engineering pull. In many cases, Poyang Lake is also a reservoir of policy or public grievances. But this actually narrows the relationship between Poyang Lake and other actors. Just like lung and pneumonia, many issues must be viewed in detail and at multiple levels (such as people, lakes, provinces, birds, viruses), and promote public participation and Communication is the solution.
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