From MSNBC
GENEVA – Hoping to raise awareness about the state of the world’s great rivers, the World Wide Fund for Nature on Tuesday released a report on what it called the 10 most endangered rivers — five of which are in Asia.
The conservation group said that pollution, global warming and rampant development could destroy some of the world’s most iconic rivers in the coming decades, threatening to wipe out thousands of fish species and cause severe water shortages.
The Asia rivers on the list are the Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Ganges and Indus. Also on the list are Europe’s Danube, South America‘s La Plata, North America‘s Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, Africa’s Nile-Lake Victoria and Australia’s Murray-Darling.
In China, pollution in the main stem of the Yangtze River has increased by more than 70 percent over the last 50 years. Almost half of the country’s industrial waste and sewage is discharged in the river, the report said.
The full report on MSNBC here.
