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 12 May 2008 05:46 BST

China's greenest railway

Friday, 27 Apr 2007 14:37
China's wildlife was protected as much as possible
Numerous painstaking steps went into creating China's 'greenest' railway, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway (QTR), scientists have said.

Measures taken by the Chinese government to maintain the environment around the QTR are outlined today in the Science journal.

The QTR is the world's highest-elevation railway and longest highland railway, extending 1956km from Xining in north-western China to Lhasa, the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

To ensure that the building of the line, which began operating in July 2006, did not harm the environment around it the Chinese government invested an "unprecedented amount" of money; 1.54 billion yuan was allocated to ecosystem protection.

Steps included building a network of tunnels under the new railway to ensure that the Tibetan antelope could continue on its seasonal migration routes and efforts were made to reduce noise disruption during building.

"If carefully managed, the Qinghai-Tibet railway will ultimately promote the sustainable ecological, social and economic development of western China," Chinese and Canadian researchers write in Science.

"We hope that it will be remembered as more than just an engineering accomplishment – that it will also be remembered as an ecological miracle and a successful example of a green railway that can be followed by other regions and developing countries."
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