Officials under fire for damage to environment
Print Edition
ZHANG Xuelong, a researcher at an observation center in the Qilian Mountains, removed an underground measuring pipe and noted a number.
“The depth of the seasonally frozen ground has decreased by 27 centimeters in the past 16 years,” he said.
The recession of frozen soil indicates the impact of global warming is having on the Qilian Mountains hinterland in northwestern China.
Over the past 50 years, more than 500 glaciers have disappeared.
The once endless prairie, wetlands and flowing rivers have become parched and dry after decades of exploitation.
The Qilian Mountains stand on the border of Gansu and Qinghai provinces. The nature reserve was designated a national protected site in 1988, but hundreds of mines in the area, and many kinds of construction projects, have continued to take a toll on the environment.
The Qilian Mountains basin contains over 150 hydropower stations, 42 of which are within the reserve, leading to severe disruption of the local ecosystem. Many of the projects have violated regulations in the processes of gaining approval and construction.
But problems exist beyond that. A central government inspection team found various irregularities in the area, including over-exploitation of mineral resources, illegal construction and operation of hydropower facilities, excessive emissions by local enterprises, as well as the failure of local officials to rectify existing environmental issues, according to a document released by the Party’s Central Committee and the State Council.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection and the State Forestry Administration have requested Gansu’s forestry department as well as the local government rectify the irregularities, but that work has been slow.
“The violations were fundamentally a result of a lack of environmental awareness by local officials and their failure to implement environmental protection policies,” the document said.
The central government said officials, including Yang Zixing, Gansu’s vice governor, will be held accountable for their failure to prevent and look into the environmental issues.
Scores of coal mines have been shut down over the past few weeks after the document was handed to local officials in June.
Reporters who visited the Qilian Mountains last month found all mining and tourism development projects had been suspended or closed, and a round-the-clock surveillance system was monitoring the water flow of hydropower projects to protect the lower reaches of rivers.
The provincial department of land and resources said all illegal mining activities in the reserve will be banned, and no new projects approved.
Gansu’s environmental protection bureau also said they will launch a pilot monitoring network that combines new technologies such as satellite remote-sensing and drones, with enhanced in-situ inspections to implement real-time supervision of local ecological protection.
Cities along the Qilian Mountain belt are also said to be working hard to get rid of outdated development processes, while embracing a greener economic pattern.
“We plan to spend three years returning farmland to forests or grassland and reducing the city’s reliance on mining and overgrazing,” said Yang Weijun, Party chief in the city of Zhangye.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
