Local people evicted and livelihoods at risk in Barguna district, as civil society group warns plant will damage important hilsa fish populations.

Fear of China fueled the activism, though frustrations had accumulated over stagnant living conditions in the provinces.

Yang Zeqiang's boat chugs across the Yangtze ferrying a few people and sacks of grain -- his new source of income after all fishing was halted along China's longest river in the name of environmental protection.

As a boy, Yang remembers seeing his father and grandfather head out in the early morning dark to earn a living fishing the upper Yangtze in China's southwest.