One of the most biologically diverse regions in China and the world, Yunnan province is home to a disproportionate amount of China's animal species – many of which are endangered. According to the Yunnan Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau, Yunnan is home to more than 59 percent of China's endangered animal species.

Not surprisingly, most of landlocked Yunnan's endangered animals such as the red panda, the Yunnan golden monkey, Asian elephant and the black crested gibbon are terrestrial creatures. However, Yunnan is covered with lakes of varying sizes and altitudes – these lakes also contribute to the province's biodiversity.

Unfortunately, many of the fish species found in Yunnan's lakes – many of which are only found in Yunnan – are also endangered, primarily due to overfishing and pollution, especially pesticide runoff. Yunnan's lakes are home to 60 species found nowhere else in the world.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) recently released a joint appeal to protect the remaining fish species indigenous to Yunnan. Surprisingly, many of these alpine fish species can only be found in pools located within the thousands of Buddhist temples throughout the province.

For example, according to a study by KIZ – a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences – all 25 indigenous fish species in Dianchi Lake are extinct within the lake itself but still exist in the pools of Buddhist compounds bordering the lake. Dianchi is Yunnan's largest lake and the sixth-largest freshwater lake in China.

In an unusual mix of religion and environmental protection, the KIZ report calls upon provincial authorities to protect the pools at Buddhist temples in the area and the fish which populate them. As Xinhua puts it:

"On the basis of the survey, the shrines should be made a protection sites for rare and indigenous aquatic life and protective measures should be drafted in an early date. And a publicity drive has to be launched so as to beef up the public's awareness of the conscious protection and all society's participation."

Dragon pool image: Xinhua

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The People's Government of Dali has banned all fishing activities on Erhai Lake from January 1 of this year "in order to guarantee Erhai's ecological recovery and the sustainable development of the fishing industry", according to a Yunnan Daily report.

Not unlike Dianchi Lake in Kunming, Erhai Lake has seen its water quality drop severely in the last couple of decades, especially with the rapid development of Xiaguan (aka 'New Dali') and its accompanying pollution.

Pollution plus heavy fishing have taken a toll on the quality and quantity of fish in the lake. There is also a tourist element to fishing on Erhai Lake, as many foreign and domestic tourists make it out to witness a traditional local fishing method using cormorants.

The Dali government also declared that the 2.1-square kilometer Erhai Aquatic Life Protected Area between Hong Mountain and Ao Mountain in Shuanglang Town will be closed to the public for the entire year.