Plans to build the world’s tallest tower in Hunan province have finally been cancelled for good.
Work on the “Sky City” tower briefly began last summer before being postponed over concerns about its impact on its location, a wetland that is home to 135 species of bird, including some, such as the white crane, that are under “first-class state protection”.
The Daze Lake wetland is now listed as one of the 20 where no construction can take place.
According to reports on news site thepaper.cn, the no-construction zone will cover 200 square kilometres.
Sky City had been in development since August 2013, when China Grand Enterprises mapped out an 838m tower to be developed on the wetland.
The world’s tallest building is currently the 829.8m Burj Khalifa in Dubai, , while the Kingdom Tower which is being built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia will be 1km tall.
Daze Lake is located in the north of the provincial capital Changsha. It is a pristine wetland hailed as the last wetland in Changsha where many rare bird species take habitat. Shelter of these birds would be largely disrupted by the building of this tower.
As well as the white crane, the wetland is home to 10 species of bird that are under second-class protection: including swans, cuckoo-doves, circus cyaneuses, kestrels, black bazas, short-eared owls, circus melanoleucos, amur falcons and Asian barred owlets.
