Aerial photo shows the scenery at Mt Nyanpo Yutse in Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Golog of Northwest China's Qinghai province. Qinghai province, located in Northwest China, much of which lies on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is the home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers. [Photo/Xinhua]

The ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has gained historic, comprehensive and watershed changes, said Chen Ruifeng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Qinghai Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, who is also Party secretary of Xining city, the provincial capital, at a media conference in Beijing on Thursday, which was held during the ongoing 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Qinghai is home to the headwaters of China's three major rivers: the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Lancang. As a result, protecting the ecological environment of the province is of vital importance.

"We have safeguarded the ecology of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with all our efforts, trying to build it as a nationwide or even worldwide example of ecological system conservation," said Chen.

According to him, over the past decade, water conservation in the Sanjiangyuan(Three-River-Source) area has increased by six percent on a yearly basis, and it has transported 90 billion cubic meters water to the lower reaches every year.

Now there are about 108,000 metric tons of Gymnocypris przewalskii, a fish species unique to the water in the Qinghai Lake, 42 times compared with the number before the protection. The number of snow leopards, Tibetan antelopes and Equus kiangs (wild donkeys) have continued to increase.

"The most symbolic achievement in Qinghai's ecological and environmental protection is its building of national parks," said Chen.

In 2021, the Sanjiangyuan National Park was officially established in Qinghai. At the same time, a pilot task in the Qilian Mountain National Park was comprehensively completed. The province is also trying hard to establish the Qinghai Lake National Park.

"The construction of nature reserves, with national parks as the main body, has achieved remarkable progress," said Chen.