Scenes from the new six-episode documentary, The Yangtze River, which plots the river from its source in Northwest China's Qinghai province to its end in Shanghai, and tells stories of people who live in cities and towns along it.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"In recent years we have prioritized environmental protection, and this documentary aims to show the changes and what we have achieved," Liu adds.

Chen Zhao, the documentary's director of cinematography, says green spaces have replaced factories in many cities along the Yangtze. "Locals feel closer to nature and the river now."

A Douban user named Dongtian comments: "The ordinary people shown in the documentary who have protected the Yangtze day after day touched me the most."

Liu echoed these sentiments while she was making the documentary.

"We focused on the ordinary people whose life stories reflected the changes in their relationship with the river. They may not be able to use big words, but they have done good work."

He Daming, a former fisherman who now works on protecting Dongting Lake, the second-largest freshwater lake in China that lies in the middle reaches of the Yangtze, used to make his living from fishing. Speaking in the documentary, he said he realized the lake had been adversely affected by overfishing and volunteered to organize an ecological protection association to help local authorities make inspection tours of the lake and control illegal fishing.