The planned Xiaonanhai dam on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River will destroy the region’s last reserve for rare fish, according to an article in Chinadialogue, a London-based bilingual website devoted to China’s environment. It quoted the geologist and environmentalist Fan Xiao, who has written an open letter calling for a public hearing on the project in Chongqing municipality and is urging the government to reconsider the decision to shrink the area’s protected fish habitat.

“The Xiaonanhai Dam will ruin the reserve,” Mr Fan wrote. “Removing the dam site and nearby stretches of the river from the protected area is a decision to wreck a nature reserve to suit the hydropower industry, and to disregard national laws on environmental protection.”

In his open letter, Mr Fan claimed that 189 species of fish are known to live in the reserve, many of which are protected at the national or global level. This stretch of river is the last place these rare fish can live and breed.

The letter also cited Qin Weihua, an expert with the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, who concluded that if the scheme is allowed to proceed, the dam will inundate seven spawning grounds for rare fish, prevent migration and may even lead to extinction of certain species.