The Governance Code of Li River Bamboo Rafts

Hundred miles of the Li River, hundred miles of picturesque scenery. Passenger boats and bamboo rafts crisscross the winding waterways in an orderly manner, with an average daily traffic of about 2,000 vessels, reaching up to 5,000 vessels during holiday peaks.

Beneath the ultimate landscape of mountains and rivers lies the pressure of high-frequency, high-density waterway navigation. Balancing cultural tourism development, navigation safety, and ecological protection is the top priority in managing the Li River. Recently, the "Let's Go See the Sea Together" all-media interview team visited Guilin, Guangxi, to explore the meticulous governance secrets behind this lush green landscape.

The Li River's waterways are winding and narrow, with numerous shoals. The entire area currently has over 4,300 sightseeing bamboo rafts, receiving more than 7 million tourists annually. In the past, the rafts were mostly operated individually and scattered, leading to issues such as overlapping routes, regulatory blind spots, and ecological pressure on the waterway. To address this, Guilin Maritime collaborated with multiple departments to establish a refined governance system tailored to the Li River's characteristics through standardized, intelligent, and eco-friendly measures.

To manage the Li River, the first step is to set "rules" for the bamboo rafts. The Guilin Maritime Bureau innovatively established a long-term regulatory mechanism called "Three Limits and Four Standards." Through strict controls on quantity, areas, and time periods, combined with corporate, standardized, and regulated operational management, they have transformed scattered individual operations into centralized and compliant operations. Joint departmental rectifications, safety record assessments, certified crew operations, and mandatory life-saving measures have collectively eradicated the early chaos of unregulated and high-risk raft operations.

Digital and intelligent methods are also indispensable. The Guilin Maritime Bureau has optimized existing resources, setting up 69 CCTV monitoring points across the Li River, multiple Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) for vessels, and Very High Frequency (VHF) base stations. They have integrated monitoring signals from over 100 tourist vessels and ferry terminals, consolidating hundreds of shore-to-ship monitoring resources to achieve 24-hour uninterrupted electronic patrols in key water areas. Collaborating with universities, they developed the "Gui Zhi Eye" system, capable of identifying abnormal states like driver fatigue or absence around the clock. This system has been trialed on 134 Li River tourist boats. The application of intelligent sensing terminals for bamboo rafts is also progressing, integrating AI monitoring, Beidou positioning, and VHF communication to enable risk warnings, trajectory tracking, and one-click SOS. This has been field-tested in the Yangshuo section, turning the concept of a "Visible Li River" into reality.

Visible progress is also being made in green transformation. The noise and exhaust from fuel-powered bamboo rafts are incompatible with the Li River's natural beauty. The Guilin Maritime Bureau has made "Electrifying the Li River" a key demonstration project for green transformation, creating a benchmark for green governance in inland navigation. They have completed the full conversion of 1,246 sightseeing bamboo rafts on the main Li River route from fuel to electric power, completely eliminating traditional fuel-powered engines.

"In the past, fuel-powered rafts caused oil pollution, unpleasant odors, and loud noise. Now, the river is clean, and the mountains and water truly feel like mountains and water," said raft worker Huang Yuanjie. Not far away, the first pure electric inland law enforcement vessel of the direct maritime system, "Haixun 10765," quietly sailed by.

A law enforcement vessel and thousands of sightseeing rafts, each with its own mission, respond to the same landscape in the same way.

Looking beyond the Li River, the journey from chaos to order and from order to excellence in bamboo raft governance is a microcosm of the Guangxi Maritime Bureau's coordinated efforts to advance waterway safety and green development across the region. From promoting the "Three Limits and Four Standards" mechanism to building "Visible Li River" and "Electrified Li River" smart green initiatives, from supporting the construction of the Pinglu Canal to safeguarding the bustling Beibu Gulf, the Guangxi Maritime Bureau is delivering maritime solutions with higher standards and more practical measures, contributing to the accelerated construction of a strong transportation nation and the protection of the tranquil waters of Guangxi.