Seek development first and address environmental concerns later; or pay equal attention to both or even place environmental protection before development. In an increasingly environmentally-aware world, the choice is a no-brainer.

Yet, the first-ever joint inspection of the marine environment in coastal areas by nine departments of the central government raises alarm bells over the deteriorating coastal ocean environment because of the accelerated industrial development.

The inspection has found that the lack of attention to pollution treatment in construction of ports or building of industrial development zones or marine farms poses a great threat to the marine environment.

For example, the relatively underdeveloped Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is accelerating the construction of ports by reclaiming land from the sea. As a result, the pollutants discharged into the sea are on the increase. With the increase of cargo handling capacity, the pollution emitted into the sea by cargo ships is also on the rise.

In the developed Jiangsu province, many chemical industrial development zones along the coast are involved in the production of petrochemical products, drugs and fertilizers. The different types of pollutant discharged from them have increased the difficulty in treating them.

In addition, the inspection group found that some of the construction projects to reclaim land from the sea are already underway even before they pass the environmental impact test. The group also caught some enterprises discharging wastewater directly into the sea without treating it, a serious violation of environmental protection rules.

The message is that the awareness of environmental protection is one thing, and the degree of emphasis placed on it is another when it comes to an industrial project. What most local governments pursue is still economic growth which increases their revenue.

Balanced or sustainable development only sounds good for local government leaders who would rather see higher economic growth than more input in environmental protection of which they can hardly see the results in their tenure.

Given the fact that more than 70 percent of the waterways on the land have already been seriously polluted, we cannot afford to pollute the oceans along our coasts. The treatment of polluted major rivers and lakes has failed to make much headway in the past six years despite the input of 92 billion yuan. This clearly shows how hard it is to make the water clean again once it becomes too dirty to use.

It will be even more difficult to treat polluted seawater once it becomes badly contaminated. The more frequent occurrence of red or blue tides in coastal areas and the dwindling of marine resources is a sign that marine environment is being polluted at a fast pace.

The central government is drafting a plan to prevent coastal seawater pollution for the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15). We hope the plan will protect coastal seawater from being further polluted.