Word: yu
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...Yu Guifu's farmland is still above water, and for that he can thank China's environmental movement. For years power companies have longed to dam the Nu River, which flows flat and olive drab below the fields where Yu and his family earn $1,200 a year growing corn, rice and strawberries. So far they haven't succeeded. "That river hasn't changed in my lifetime," says Yu, 50, as he rolls a cigarette and squishes his bare feet in a soft embankment. "But I don?t know what will happen next...
...Yu's uncertainty is widely shared. The Nu - its name means "angry" - flows through one of China?s most remote corners, down from the Tibetan highlands through western Yunnan province, a few miles from Burma. It is one of China's last two rivers to not be blocked by dams - the other is Tibet's Yaluzangbu - and environmentalists want to keep it that way. But China is hungry for energy, and with the country choking on its addiction to highly polluting coal, Beijing has mandated that more power should come from renewable sources. The fast-flowing Nu offers vast potential...
...Beijing-based environmental groups, the loss of the wild Nu is unacceptable. Sheltered by the Gaoligang and Biluo mountain ranges, the Nu valley has fostered diverse human and animal life. More than a third of China?s 56 recognized minority groups live in the area. Many, like the farmer Yu Guifu, are Lisu, a Tibetan-Burmese group with a high percentage of Christians owing to the early 20th century work of British missionary James Fraser. In Nu prefecture the Han people, who are a vast majority nationwide, make up less than 10% of the population...
...Yu Xiaogang, director of the Yunnan-based environmental NGO Green Watershed, says he's not opposed to dams, but believes they can do more harm than good if they aren?t planned carefully. "If it contradicts scientific development and harms society, if it's a quick and dirty and even foolish decision, then that will be a pity," he says. And once the farmers' fields are inundated by the once-wild Nu, they will be left asking what happens next...
...Your excellent article speaks of a wave of nationalist fervour sweeping China ahead of the Olympic Games. The Western media seem to view love of country in different ways. In the developing world it is labeled nationalism, while in the West the same sentiment is termed patriotism. Frank Yu, Melbourne...