China's environmental watchdog will launch a trial of a national
ecological compensation system for natural reserves, mineral
resources, and rivers, an environmental official said on
Tuesday.
"The ecological compensation system is an important economic
policy on environmental protection that adjusts the interest
between ecological protection and economic construction," said an
official with the State Environmental Protection Administration
(SEPA), who declined to be named.
He said the pilot program aimed to help people living around
natural reserves to change their lifestyles so as to reduce the
environmental pressure caused by human activities. China has 2,349
natural reserves, covering about 1.5 million square kilometers, or
15 percent of its land area.
An overall evaluation on the impact of surrounding construction
on natural reserves would also be conducted, he said.
Government departments would draft a scientific ecological
compensation system on mineral resource exploitation and establish
an "inter-regional coordinated mechanism" to protect river
networks, the official said, adding local governments should select
areas to implement the system.
SEPA has studied the compensation system since the 1990s and
piloted an ecology compensation fee collection system in 24
state-level natural reserves in 685 counties of 11 provinces.
Last year, Chinese film director Chen Kaige was fined 90,000
yuan (US$11,250) for littering and destroying vegetation while
shooting his US$42 million film The Promise at a scenic
nature reserve in Shangri La, in the southwestern province of
Yunnan.
The local authority said the fines were used to restore ecology
damaged by the film shooting, although complete restoration became
impossible.
(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2007)
