【Editor's Note】
"Jointly grasping great protection and not engaging in large-scale development" has become the primary rule for the construction and development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
The Yangtze River, the "Mother River", which originates from the roof of the world, flows from west to east for more than 6,300 kilometers into the East China Sea. 2019 is the year of implementation of the "Action Plan for the Protection and Restoration of the Yangtze River", which has found out the home of the ecological status of the Yangtze River and the restoration actions have begun to be implemented one after another; 2020 will be the year of acceptance of the effectiveness of the great protection of the Yangtze River. From now on, The Paper will present and record the changes in elements such as "people, water, fish, and fields" in the Yangtze River protection action through a series of reports, using text, pictures, videos, 360-degree panoramas, H5 and other forms.
Zhang Qirong, a 63-year-old fisherman, has finally decided to retire. In the face of the upcoming "leisure" life, she did not behave easily. In Zhang Qirong's consciousness, she has always felt that she must engage in fishing when she is alive, and "if she does not do it, there will be no food to eat."
In Zhang Qirong's fishing career of more than 40 years, she has experienced the hardships of rocking oars and casting nets on wooden boats and staying up late to catch fish, witnessing the changes brought about by the popularity of mechanized fishing. She is also a witness among many fishermen who have finally settled ashore through decades of "chasing dreams" and got rid of the dilemma of "taking the boat as home".
At the end of the 1970s, the role of diesel engines on fishing boats brought spring to fishermen like Zhang Qirong. Zhang Qirong recalls that the income of fishermen doubled overnight, and many fishermen got rid of fishing boats at that time and finally had their own houses on the shore, "but soon, more sand mining boats, engineering boats and cargo ships appeared on the river, fishing boats had to make way for these big boats, the operation area became smaller and smaller, and the income began to decline." ”
Ye Xiaowen, a 48-year-old fisherman in Hukou County, recalled that from the mid-to-late 1970s to the end of the 20th century, the fishermen of Jiujiang experienced a prosperous period of more than 20 years, and in 1998, poyang Lake developed sand mining, and the number of large boats on the river gradually increased.
In fact, in addition to time and space, fishermen have encountered other problems in the past few decades. A fisherman in Duchang County told the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that diesel engines have indeed had a certain impact on the ecology of the Yangtze River while changing the production methods of fishermen and bringing more profits, and now the number and variety of aquatic products in the Yangtze River Basin are decreasing. Before the ban on fishing, fishermen had already suffered a cold winter.
Boat with home
On December 29, 2019, the day before signing the withdrawal agreement with the county government, Zhang Qirong had been thinking about her fishing boat, and the relevant recycling plan had been distributed to the fishermen, and she estimated that all her fishing gear was worth about 10,000 yuan. Zhang Qirong was a little reluctant, she said that it was all her belongings, "I have almost nothing but these."
Zhang Qirong, a 63-year-old fisherman in Hukou County, Jiangxi Province, and her husband have been fishing for a living for generations, and after they got married, they jointly ran a small boat, which is known locally as a husband and wife boat. Zhang Qirong recalled that when they first got married, they would get up at two or three o'clock in the morning every day and start to be busy, at that time, every night on the river, the fishing lights would be lit up, and when it was almost dawn, the children would be sent to the shore to go to school, and she and her husband would continue to be busy until about four o'clock in the afternoon, one person rocking the oar, one person casting a net, collecting the net together, and the cycle began.
After the children grew up, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Qirong sent them all to work in other places. She said that for her generation of fishing families, she understood the hardships of fishermen better than anyone, and the older generation wanted to make a home on the shore all their lives without the family being crammed into a cramped cabin.
The cabin that Zhang Qirong is talking about, in an ordinary fishing boat, is usually only six or seven square meters, and the height is about one meter, and the family's bedding, clothes, cooking utensils and daily necessities are placed in this small space.
Fishermen generally live in cramped cabins. The pictures in this article are all pictures of the surging news reporter Chen Leizhu
For the first dozen years after marriage, Zhang Qirong's family spent time on a fishing boat. At that time, she said, fishing could only make ends meet, "eating a little." But the real difficulty, in addition to hard work and constraints, but also face unknown dangers, once encountered wind and waves, you will face the risk of losing your life, "if the ship overturns, the ship, the family and people, all gone."
By the end of the 1970s, with the spread of mechanized fishing, wooden boats were gradually eliminated. Fishermen built new iron boats and loaded them with diesel engines. The new mode of production has changed their way of life, and the most direct embodiment is the exponential increase in income.
For nearly two decades, fishermen made their homes on the shore. But the good times did not last long, and soon more cargo ships, sand mining boats and engineering boats appeared on the river, and the fishermen's working area became smaller and smaller. Since 2000, some fishermen have been forced to go ashore, looking for new ways out, and part-time fishing in their leisure time, but many more have stayed for objective reasons.
Zhang Qirong said that she has not been to school, nor can she read, although the income is not as good as before, but part-time work is almost impossible for her, and most of the fishermen who are still on fishing boats are like her, with no culture and no technology. Zhang Qirong originally wanted to spend the rest of her life with the fishing boat, she thought that as long as she was willing to pay time and energy, her life would always improve, "but now that fishing in the Yangtze River is banned, I have to retire early."
On the shores of Poyang Lake, fishermen dry small fish.
Love and hate Poyang Lake
Compared with Zhang Qirong, who is now facing the problem of changing jobs, the fishermen gathered on the shores of Poyang Lake in Duchang County, Jiujiang City, have a one-year transition period, according to the planning of the Jiujiang City Leading Group Office for the Prohibition of Fishing and Retiring Fishing, they will all withdraw from the lake by the end of 2020 to achieve a change of production and business.
On December 28, 2019, in the waters of Duchang County, Poyang Lake, dozens of fishing boats docked on the shore, all connected by cables, and one of the fishing boats hung a sign that read "Zhan Family Fishing Company" on it. Zhan Kaibao, 52, is one of the "fishing companies" that are part of the group.
A fish caught by Zhan Kai leopards
Zhan Kaibao said that the fishermen gathered here are all from Duchang County and Hexiang Aquatic Village, a total of more than a thousand people, they are not actually registered in the industry and commerce department, the "fishing company" brand, more to the outside world to announce that they are a collective, but also let the fishermen of their respective fishing can feel some warmth from the collective when the boats return from fishing.
Hehexiang Aquatic Village is about half an hour's drive from the fishing point on the shore of Poyang Lake, Zhan Kaibao said that although they have a house in the village, but because the size of the house is small and too far from Poyang Lake, he and his wife rarely go home, still maintaining the original state of living on the fishing boat, "Now that the children are older and have their own jobs, it does not seem too crowded for us to live on the boat."
Like Zhang Qirong, Zhan Kaibao did not let his son inherit his career as a fisherman. He said that being a fisherman is risky, making little money, and it is still very hard. Zhan Kaibao's brother once encountered wind and waves while fishing, and eventually sank the boat. He still clearly remembers that it was the twenty-fourth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar in 1999, when his brother set off from the Laoye Temple to Duchang County, and when he was less than ten kilometers on the boat, he encountered a strong wind. When the wind and waves hit, my brother's fishing boat was in the center of the lake, and when a wave hit, the boat overturned. After the shipwreck, Zhan Kaibao's sister-in-law and niece were swept away by the water.
On that day, Zhan Kaibao's brother floated to the other side of the lake from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. Because of the good water quality, he recovered a life, but his family and fishing boat were all gone. Zhan Kaibao said that in the face of strong winds and waves, many times even if they witness disasters, they can only watch the ship destroy and die, which is a danger that every fisherman must experience, "but some people have escaped, and some people have lost their lives."
Zhan Kaibao said that he grew up on a fishing boat and had no culture, because he would not know anything but fishing, "but the children are different, if there is a choice, few fishermen of our generation are willing to let the next generation of wind and sleep and continue to live on the fishing boat."
For Poyang Lake, Zhan Kaibao said that this water has fed generations of fishermen in Duchang County, and many people have lost their lives here for their livelihood, some people are grateful for it, some people hate it, but no matter what, they can never do without it.
Survival "Conflict"
Zhan Kaibao's brother is now fishing with Zhan Kaibao and his wife in Poyang Lake, three people in two boats and a net, and they support two families.
Zhan Kaibao, his wife and brother collected the nets together on a fishing boat.
In fact, the tragedy that Zhan Kaibao's brother had suffered before had rarely happened now. Zhan Kaimei, another fisherman of the "Zhan Family Fishing Company", said that fishermen living in Poyang Lake are very common to encounter wind and waves, and with the replacement of boats and machinery, the safety factor of fishing boats is now much safer. This kind of upgrading began about the second half of 1970, because of the maturity of saltwater mechanized fishing, during that period the state advocated the development of freshwater mechanized fishing, and tried to do a point in Duchang County, "At that time, the state funded two fishing boats for me."
The pilot work soon allowed fishermen to see the advantages of mechanized fishing. Zhan Kaimei said that in the following two or three years, some family fishing boats have also been equipped with diesel engines, and by the end of the 1970s, they had basically become popular. While advanced technology brings economic benefits, it has also achieved the replacement of old and new fishermen, some old fishermen are gradually left behind because they do not adapt to new production methods, and some young people join in after seeing the huge profits.
Zhan Kaimei said that since then, some fishermen have blindly pursued profits and adopted the method of grid fishing, causing damage to the ecology, and when they find that there are fewer and fewer fish in the inherent waters, they will go to other waters to grab land, and there will be conflicts between fishermen for a time.
However, the real conflict does not only occur between fishermen. With the popularization of mechanized fishing and the emergence of electric fish, the species and number of aquatic organisms in Poyang Lake and even in the main stream of the Yangtze River are declining.
A fisherman of the "Zhan Family Fishing Company" said that in recent years, it can be clearly felt that the size of the fish has begun to become smaller, and the contradiction of getting poorer and poorer is becoming more and more prominent, and a survival conflict between fishermen and nature has gradually emerged along with the realization of freshwater mechanized fishing.
The fishing boats of the "Zhan Family Fishing Company" on the shore of Poyang Lake are neatly parked.
Fishermen began to realize the problem, around 2000. Ye Xiaowen, a fisherman in Hukou County, told the surging news that the changes in the aquatic life of the Yangtze River itself did not attract the attention of fishermen at first, but after the development of sand mining in Poyang Lake in 1998, many sand mining boats entered Poyang Lake, and since then, with the construction of various bridge projects on Poyang Lake, the fishermen's operating area has gradually been occupied by large vessels such as engineering boats and sand mining boats. In 2000, a fisherman collided with a sand mining vessel while fishing at night, and all three grandchildren fell into the water and died. Since then, many fishermen have been afraid to fish at night.
With the reduction of the operation area, the shortening of the fishing time, the fishermen's income is not as good as before, at this time the ecological problems of the Yangtze River have attracted the attention of fishermen, and some fishermen have begun to consider changing production and business after realizing the crisis. In 2003, Ye Xiaowen and eight other fishermen raised money to buy a engineering boat, and since then, fishing has become his side business, he said: "The voluntary departure of some fishermen has opened up a 'way of life' for more fishermen who cannot change their professions, but in fact, as early as ten years ago, fishermen have begun to encounter cold winter." ”
Editor-in-charge: Ren Xinke