RELATED EXPEDITION: Great Bend of the Yangtze - Yunan, China

     A raft trip down one of the wildest river stretches on Earth offers some important lessons about the need to protect our waterways in the new millennium.

    Three years ago, while kayaking in Nepal. I met a fellow paddler who told me about a raft trip he had taken down the “wildest part” of China’s Yangtze River- the “Great Bend”, where the upper Yangtze makes a hairpin turn to the northeast and the rapids create waves up to 20 feet high.

As a long- time whitewater enthusiast, I has heard stories of this legendary stretch of whitewater. I also know that perhaps no more than 100 people had paddled it, far fewer than have climbed Mount Everest.

The area also intrigued me as a river conservationist, because of the plan to eventually dam this part of the Yangtze once construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the lower river was completed.

This past fall, I finally had the opportunity to go. My trip was arranged through Earth River Expeditions, an outfitter based in New York and currently the only one licensed by the Chinese government to run this part of the river. Our seven day trip would be the only rafting expedition this year through the Great Bend.

At more than 6,200 kilometers in length, the Yangtze is the world’s third longest waterway and almost 500 million people live and work within its basin. The river’s lower half, which many westerners are familiar with, is relatively placid and slow moving as it flows towards Shanghai and the East China Sea.

But the upper half, running off the high Tibetan Plateau, is much more rugged and remote. It is also wilder and faster because, while the Yangtze drops more than 17,000 feet over its entire passage, most of this occurs in the river’s upper reaches. For centuries, Chinese mythology has referred to the Yangtze as “the dragon”, which symbolizes a great arousing force. Because the Great Bend is the river’s most powerful section, it is known as “the dragon’s back.”

To get to our destination, we flew from Kunming to the town of Lijiang. From there, we drove for several hours on a narrow gravel road to a riverside beach where we would start our journey. Located just downstream from the famed Tiger Leaping Gorge, we put our boats in the water and began our descent through the canyon.

Nearly twice as deep as the American Grand Canyon but only a third as wide, the Great Bend is one of the most stunning and dramatic settings in the world. We couldn’t admire the scenery for long. Almost immediately we were paddling into whitewater, and discovered that the stories of 20 foot waves were true. In our first rapid (appropriately named “Baptism”), we flipped two of five rafts. Fortunately no one was hurt so we paused to gather our gear and our composure and continued on our way.

It was one of the great river trips of my life. Few places in the world offer such a mix of impressive scenery, exotic culture, wild rapids, and beautiful, insect-free weather. When the canyon walls tapered, we would hike up marvelous side streams or visit ancient Tibetan stone villages.

The very traits that make the steep river canyons like the Great Bend so special also make them attractive to the power industry. The Chinese government’s “economic development vision” involves a massive hydro- electric dam not far away from where our raft trip ended. Early signs of this are already evident, including rock stability surveys and the presence of water- flow meters.

Although the damming of this part of the Yangtze will probably not occur for a decade or more, it saddens me to think this part of the river may eventually be lost. The remoteness of the Great Bend will allow the building of this dam with far less scrutiny and criticism than has been leveled at the Three Gorges Dam, which requires the forced relocation of 1.3 million people.

Many of the world’s greatest rivers, particularly in developing countries, have been dammed in recent years. Among these are the Bio-Bio, Mekong, Zambezi, Narmada, Nile, Indus, Danube and Niger Rivers. And many more are threatened by proposed impoundments ranging from the Coruh in Turkey to the Futaleufu in Chile. However, while the dam- building business is flourishing elsewhere in the world, the era of large, new dams in North America appears to be behind us. We are certainly fortunate to be in that position, but its important to note that we didn’t get there until there were more than 2,000 dams in British Columbia and more than 70,000 in the entire United States.

In B.C., many of these dams were built amid great fanfare in the decades that immediately followed the Second World War. We now have a much better understanding of the severe impact dams have on the health of our rivers and fish stocks. It is unlikely most of them would have been built had their environmental and social costs been adequately considered at the outset. Yet our past mistakes seem destined to be repeated elsewhere.

The beginning of the new millennium will probably bring a mix of good and bad news for many of the world’s rivers. It may well be a time when further environmental damage is inflicted on China’s greatest river. By contrast, the start of the new millennium may turn out to be a time of environmental renewal for British Columbia, ushering in an era when our rivers are revered, protected and restored.

It may also be a time when we, as citizens, insist that our province lead the world in river conservation initiatives and that we do everything to protect our river heritage while we still can.

Mark Angelo is head of the Fish, Wildlife and Recreation Dept at the BC Institute of Technology, and chair of the BC and Canadian Heritage River Program.