Fisherman Wu Huashan sighed but felt relieved when he had to end his fishing career on Poyang Lake after the largest freshwater lake in China started a 10-year fishing ban.

The 42-year-old fisherman was from a family of three generations engaged in the fishery in eastern China's Jiangxi Province.

Wu was born on a boat and learned fishing skills from his father when he was just 10 years old.

For Wu, nothing is more precious than his fishing boats and nets, which he relied on for a living over the past 30 years.

However, things started to change since the beginning of this year.

To make the Yangtze, China's longest waterway, recover from dwindling aquatic resources and degrading biodiversity, China instituted a 10-year fishing ban on 332 conservation areas in the Yangtze river basin starting from this year.

The ban will also be further extended to the major tributaries and lakes connected to the river, including Poyang Lake, from no later than Jan. 1, 2021.

To this end, registered fishermen living on the lake are being encouraged to hand in their fishing tools and give up their fishing activities.

Wu, head of a local fishery association with over 30 households of fishermen and 150 fishing boats, took the lead in putting down his fishing tools and moving ashore.

Saying goodbye to what you once made a living on is quite heartbreaking, he said. Some of my fellows even cried.

However, Wu's decision won the support of his family.

In the eyes of his family, abandoning fishing is a good idea considering the sharp fall in fish stocks, unstable income and the risk of the disease of bilharzia, which could cause severe harm to the liver.

I saw a plummet in fish catches in recent years. Wu remembered that in the early 1990s, his father and he were able to catch over 500 kg of fish a day, but now only a few hundred at most.

According to a survey on fish varieties conducted by Chinese fishery authorities in the 1990s, there were 158 species of fish in Poyang Lake. However, the latest report in 2008 showed that there were only 122 kinds.

Wu attributed the sharp drop to overfishing activities, illegal poisoning captures and extended drought periods of the lake.

The fishing ban is estimated to affect more than 100,000 fishermen from over 300 villages around the lake like Wu.

To maintain their normal life without relying on fishing boats, the central and local governments have promised to provide social security services, financial support and vocational training for fishermen who have to find new ways of living.

For instance, fishermen moving ashore could work as patrollers and protectors of the lake as members of the team executing the fishing ban.

After bidding farewell to his life braving the wind and waves, he contracted nearly 27 hectares of paddies to raise crawfish and plant rice, with a compensation of more than 70,000 yuan (about 9,900 U.S. dollars) from the government.

I put about 5,000 kg of crawfish seedlings into my rice paddies this spring. After they go into the market in May, I could earn about 200,000 yuan, much higher than the income in fishing, Wu said.

In June, I will grow rice, which could generate an extra income to cover the land rent cost, Wu added.

Standing on the flood bank of his paddies, Wu overlooked a wharf of Poyang Lake in the distance. In contrast to the previous hustle and bustle of fishing scenes on the lake, only several boats were docked there.

Poyang Lake is home to us fishermen. We stopped fishing to protect our home. It's time to move ashore, said Wu.

(CHINA.ORG.CN)