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The Law on Environmental Impact Assessment is to come into force on September 1. The law is considered a significant development of China's environmental protection legislation. According to the law, government planning on land utilization, urban engineering, communication, and natural resource exploration will have to go through the process of an environmental impact assessment, like other construction projects do. An official from the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said implementation of the law is expected to reduce environmental disasters brought about by government policies. Key project causes 'white disaster' Wu Bo, vice director of the Supervision Department of the SEPA, said that many critical environmental problems experienced today were caused by government mistakes in the field of environmental protection. Although the regulation of environmental impact assessment has been operating in China for over 20 years, it has in the past only targeted individual construction projects, and has not been binding on government-proposed projects. The environmental impact of individual construction projects has been partial and incomparable with that caused by government policies and plans, which have always created wide-ranging environmental problems that have been long-term and rather difficult to deal with. A typical example of an environmental disaster caused by governmental policies – "white pollution," has not yet been dealt with effectively. In 1986, the government issued development essentials for the national packaging industry urging a considerable increase in plastic package products output. The policy, without consideration for the environment, caused a nationwide disaster of white-colored plastic refuse. Priority industries become polluters In the middle of the 1980s, mineral resource exploitation was encouraged by government, creating a nationwide trend in indiscriminate exploitation. The state then took strict measures to shut down many minor mines, several years after the relevant policies had been issued, because of acute waste and the devastation of resources. In 1989, some industrial policies gave priority to a few industries, discharging serious pollution. Industries such as paper making, leather production, dying and coking experienced rapid development in the early-to-middle 1990s. In a short period, chimneys were erected in towns and counties, and rivers, no matter whether big or small, began to stink. In 1996, the State Council decided to close down 15 varieties of minor enterprises due to pollution. During the 1996-2000 period, 85,000 minor enterprises within the category were shut down, causing huge losses not only to those enterprises themselves but also to individual investors, local governments and the state. Drainage development results in source of sands Areas around the Juyan Lake, composed of two parts in the east and west respectively and located in Ejin Banner, Inner Mongolia, were once rich and prosperous lands, providing a natural protective screen along China's northwest border. Due to drainage development around the lake which was conducted without considering the overall environmental impact, the Juyan Lake in the west began to dry up after dams were built to reserve water in the upper reaches of the lake, and its east part began to run dry then in the 1990s. As a result acres of oasis in Ejin Banner decreased dramatically from 6,440 to 3,200 square kilometers, while the gobi desert increased by some 460 square kilometers. The former sacsaoul forests (Holoxylon ammodendron) with acreage of 17 million mu (1.1 million hectares) deteriorated to only 3 million mu (200,000 hectares), while forests of diversiform-leaved poplar (Populus euphratica) shrunk by 12,000 mu (800 hectares) annually. Contributing to the deterioration of natural resources of the area, Juyan Lake has become a source of sandstorms in northern China. In 2000 alone, 19 sandstorms were experienced, previously occurring only once in 30 years. Development along the Tarim River valley in Xinjiang made water runoff in the lower reaches of the river decrease by over 80 percent, and the local eco-environment worsen. The Tarim River valley once boasted the world's largest distribution of virgin forests of diversiform-leaved poplar. However, due to water shortages, the forests have withered to death in stretches. According to statistics, the forests along the middle-lower reaches of the lake have decreased from 5.8 million hectares in the 1950s to 1.52 million hectares, and sand-encroached areas account for 80 percent of the total valley area, rising from 60 percent. Lessons from around the world It is not difficult to find ecological disasters caused by policy faults in other countries around the world. In 1954, the central government of the former Soviet Union began an ambitious project on Central Asia development. Having not made a scientific assessment of its environmental impact, the project began to build a 1,400-kilometer-long canal in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan in order to establish an agricultural base along the canal, with cotton as its main agricultural product. The project planned to divert water from the Amu Darya to irrigate 3.5 million hectares of desolate prairie and 1 million hectares of newly-reclaimed farmland and to improve water supply facilities on seven million hectares. However, excessive amounts of water were diverted from the Amu Darya and underground water was also overly exploited, causing coastlines on the Aral Sea to retreat by 10 to 20 kilometers. Lands besides the sea became barren, and saline "white windstorms" were common. Finally, the mammoth project ended in failure. In the 1960s, the UN organized and carried out an international anti-sand activity to tackle the water resource problem for humans and livestock in the African Sahara region. In some 20 years, international organizations donated a total of US$625 million to the program. The money was spent on drilling deepwater wells. People in nomadic societies altered their living styles to settle down in areas around the wells. Less than five years of exploitation, desertification circles appeared with the wells at their center; the eco-environment deteriorating severely. Related international organizations stopped the program. Bind government to environmental impact assessment In specialists' view, the soon-to-be-implemented Law on Environmental Impact Assessment is China's first law giving priority to prevention of an environmental disaster. They consider environmental impact assessment a strategic regulation. The most significant breakthrough of the law will be to expand the regulation's target scope from individual construction projects to government planning. In a sense, the legislation will act as a lock to restrain government activities. As policies for major development have to go through the procedures of planning, guaranteeing the steps of environmental impact assessment during the planning can prevent adverse environmental effects brought about by bad policies. The Law on Environmental Impact Assessment stipulates: when relevant departments of the State Council, local people's governments at or above municipality level (where districts are designed), and other related departments work out plans concerning land utilization, construction and development of regions, river valleys and sea areas, environmental impact assessment should be carried out, and a chapter compiled or explanation provided as a necessary part of draft planning documentation which should be submitted to relevant competent authorities for approval. Environmental impact assessment involves analyzing, predicting and evaluating the possible adverse environmental impact once the plan is carried out, and putting forward solutions and measures to prevent or alleviate the impact. In respect to special plans concerning industry, agriculture and animal husbandry, forestry, energy, water resources, communication, urban engineering, tourism, and natural resources exploitation, the law stipulates that related departments should make an environmental impact assessment and write reports and submit them to relevant competent authorities before the draft special plans are submitted. Public opinion This law stipulates that departments responsible for special planning, which may create possible environmental problems and involve the public's environmental interests, should hold appraisal meetings or hearings or apply other methods to solicit opinion from related institutions, experts and the public, on the draft environmental impact reports. Whether this opinion is accepted and related explanations should be added to the submitted reports. It is the first law concerning environmental protection to stipulate that public opinion is a necessary part of the report on environmental impact. It illustrates that the state attaches importance to the public's environmental interests and values their participation in and supervision of environmental protection policies. Environmental protection experts highly commend the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, saying it's the greatest development in environmental legislation in the past 10 years. The law strives to prevent environmental pollution and ecological devastation deriving from policy sources. If the regulation of environmental impact assessment could be implemented smoothly, eco-environmental problems could fundamentally be put under control by preventing them from becoming a real problem, according to experts. (China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, August 15, 2003) |
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