(CFP Photo)

Nanjing has recently launched a citywide sping campaign for fishery protection.

The city's police will focus on key areas, including river ports, docks and estuaries to prevent illegal fishing while adopting professional measures and improving law enforcement coordination.

The agricultural and rural affairs department will further improve the grid-based management of the water bodies for targeted operations. This includes strengthening departmental collaboration and better response to illegal fishing in a timely fashion.

In addition, Nanjing's market supervision department will mainly deal with the sales related to illegal fishing in the Yangtze River basin.

Huang Mingchun, deputy director of the market supervision department, said that the department will strictly and quickly investigate and punish the illegal sale and purchase of precious and endangered aquatic wildlife and products.

Data showed that criminal cases of illegal fishing in the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River dropped significantly from 2020 to 2022.

Li Shaoxun, deputy head of the water police of Nanjing's Public Security Bureau, said the average monthly cases in the Yangtze River's main channel are in single digits amid the effective ban on fishing. In the first two months this year, police busted 11 criminal cases of illegal fishing, a decline of 35.3% year-on-year.