SHANGHAI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The French schooner Tara is on a two-month visit to China, engaging in cultural exchange to increase environmental awareness among the public, especially the young.
Romain Trouble, executive director of the Tara Expeditions Foundation, said Tara had visited Sanya, Hong Kong, Keelung and Xiamen since Feb. 24, before arriving in Shanghai during its first China visit. It will leave Shanghai on Apr. 29.
In the activities in Xiamen and Shanghai, some 3,000 Chinese teenagers are expected to board the science expedition vessel.
The China visit is a part of the schooner's 100,000-km Pacific expedition focusing on research on coral reefs and climate change. The science vessel had traveled 60,000 km on the trip since 2016, collecting 25,000 research samples.
Trouble said it was alarming that most of the coral reefs that Tara had visited in the Pacific Ocean have degraded due to factors ranging from global warming and overfishing to pollution discharge.
He said coral reefs were not only the ecosystem nurturing one-third of marine creatures, but also absorbed carbon dioxide to curb global warming. The policy of countries in the region on climate change is important to protecting the ecosystem.
The Tara Expeditions Foundation has set its next expedition goal to the Arctic Pole by 2020. It hopes to team up with partners in China, Russia, Japan and European countries to build a new expedition vessel for the purpose, and jointly build a floating laboratory for studying the melting of glaciers there.
The foundation has approached Chinese higher-learning institutes and tech firms for cooperation during the visit.
