The 'Harmony between the Heaven and Human' and the Ecological Protection of Yellow River

摘要

As the mainstream of Chinese traditional philosophy, the philosophic term "harmony between the heaven and human" was paraphrased as "Kismet Theory" and "charity for nature" by Confucius; and "reveal your naked self and embrace your original nature" and "the world from nature, nature from the way, and the way from what is beneath abstraction" by Lao Tzu that reflects the soul of harmony between people and nature. Thanks to the water and soil conservation and protection of natural ecological system, the Chinese glorious civilization has a long history 5,000 years. The Yellow River that is deemed as Mother River of the Chinese nation has bred the splendid Chinese civilization. In consequence, the economic developments in the Yellow River Basin and its governance over the past five decades have been the focus of public concern. However, achievements are always accompanied with challenges. In other words, the great change on the Yellow River also triggers ecological crisis that leads to the worsen ecological system of the river basin in consequence of dry-up of the river, water pollution, intense arterializations of the river and descendent in biological diversity. The unified management of water quantity, water and sediment transfer toward curbing decline of biological diversity has reaped preliminary fruit in recent years. The philosophic theory of river restoration can be traced back to " the world from nature, nature from the way, and the way from what is beneath abstraction" according to Lao Tzu. For the purpose of river restoration, we still has long way to go. It' s recommended to improve the network of monitoring ecology of the Yellow River, the restoration of water regime, the pollution control, the habitat and the wetland protection, and planning and study on the development of cascade hydroelectric power stations on the upper stream of the Yellow River.