Chinese government axes jailed party chief Bo Xilai’s Yangtze dam project

China's environmental protection ministry has officially overruled a controversial dam project in a critical national fish reserve on the Yangtze River, widely seen as a pet project of disgraced former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai.

The ministry issued a document on March 30, seen by the yesterday, barring construction of any dam or sluice gate in the mainstream or tributaries of the Yangtze River between Xiangjiaba Dam, on the Sichuan and Yunnan border, and the Three Gorges Dam.

The document, which named plans to build Xiaonanhai hydroelectric power station, and two others, was addressed to the China Three Gorges Corp, developer of the project, and also sent to other government departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Administration and local environmental authorities.

Mainland environmentalists view the official ban as a rare victory as they have been lobbying for nearly six years to scrap the project, which could have wiped out several endangered fish species, including the Chinese sturgeon and Chinese paddlefish, and dealt a huge blow to the Yangtze's biological diversity.

The environmental ministry's document also called for an "ecological red line" to be respected, and admitted major hydroelectric projects had dealt a heavy blow to rare fish reserves on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Zhang Boju, director of mainland environmental group Friends of Nature, said the decision to scrap the project was welcome, but the environmental ministry needed to work out the "ecological red lines" for all rivers and lakes across the country, to avoid harm from similar projects.