However, public and state awareness about the need for conservation is growing. China has more than 2,000 nature reserves. "China has made an effort to do more but certainly economic development — which leads to changing eating habits, more dams and more roads — is a threat to many species," says Xie Yan, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which will soon assess how species numbers have changed in recent years. "The biodiversity of China will become an increasingly important topic for people all over the world."
But economics continues to take priority. As a member of the Yangtze management commission, Wang has proposed a fishing ban, but so far there is only a temporary halt during spawning.
Whether this is too little, too late for the baiji will not be conclusively determined by the expedition. But if the most advanced survey of the river yet comes up blank, the baiji's prospects are grim. "If we cannot find any baiji, the message to society will be that there is no hope for them," says Wang.
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