The Chinese State Council has approved 29 new nature reserves nationwide under state-level protection, increasing the number of reserves under such protection to 226.

Among the newly-approved reserves, six are located in northeast China's Jilin Province with the Longwan volcano crater lakes perhaps the most spectacular.

The Longwan reserve is located in Huinan country in the Changbai Mountain Range, covering an area of 15,061 hectares with over 75 percent of forest coverage.

The crater lakes, the largest in terms of number in China, create a unique environment which have been an ideal home for 462 species of plants and more than 700 species of animals including many endangered species.

In the 1960s, a permanent base was set up in Longwan for scientific research, and in 1991, it was put under provincial protection.

(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2003)