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Visitors from home and abroad can visit China's largest urban wetland landscape park, based in Harbin, capital city of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, free of charge.

The park, which went into operation on Saturday, embodies China's increasing commitment to protect its wetland resources. The local government said the establishment of the 38-hectare Harbin Aquatic Park will help improve the city's ecological environment.

Located on the floodplain of Songhua River, one of China's major rivers, the park will also help to dredge floods, as local sand quarries were turned into a wetland landscape area, the largest of its kind in China.

The park's wetland landscape enjoys a water surface of 14 hectares which is divided into three lake areas of reed marshes, alotus pool and an area of grass-leaved sweet flag, a species unique to northeast China.

Inside the lake area sit three islands called Sunlight, Moonlight and Starlight where rare species such as red-crowned cranes stroll leisurely, black swans fly and play, fish swim and frogs jump.

The 24-hectare land area of the park is covered by dense forest,grass and about 100 kinds of rare plants unique to the region.

The establishment of new wetland parks in urban areas such as Harbin is hailed as a move showing China's increasing awareness of wetland preservation amid threats of blind land reclamation, unwise use of biological and water resources and serious pollution of wetlands.

In its first national inventory of wetlands, published in June,China vowed to protect 90 percent of its wetland resources in 713 special zones in the next two decades.

China currently has about 38 million hectares of major wetlands,including 36 million hectares of natural wetlands, accounting for 10 percent of the world's wetland resources.