More than 1.3 million hectares of wetland will be transformed this year into habitats to protect the bio-diversity of Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, local authorities announced on Tuesday.

With an investment of 15 million yuan ($2.4 million), the project will include returning vegetation to wetlands, dredging aqueducts, setting up boundary markers, building patrol trails and weather monitoring facilities in Poyang County in central China's Jiangxi Province, said an official with the provincial government.

Another 50 million yuan ($8 million) has already been pumped into environmental protection of the Poyang Lake wetlands, including radioactive assessment and water quality improving, the official said.

Poyang Lake, known as paradise for migrant birds, is Asia's largest winter destination for winter migrant birds. About 95 percent of the world's white cranes, 50 percent of its white-naped cranes and 60 percent of its swan geese spend the winter here every year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2012)