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Polluters being made to protect the environment
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AUTHORITIES in southwest China’s Yunnan Province are making polluters fund environmental protection projects.
Yesterday, a forest was unveiled in Kunming’s Dongchuan District that had been created with money paid by polluters who appear at special courts.
Wang Xianghong, head of one of the provincial capital’s “environmental resource court,” said the city started to explore such methods in 2010.
“The first forest was unveiled in 2010, alongside a fund collected from fines of defendants in environment cases,” Wang said.
The latest forest was mainly funded by money from defendants who poured industrial waste into a river in the district in 2013. They paid 490,000 yuan (US$74,500) to secure lighter sentences.
“More of these forests will be planted in the future,” said Wang. “For example, one forest is being planted in Xundian County and will open to the public next month.” Wang said the forests will serve as educational bases.
In December 2008, the first environmental resource court was established in Kunming, and more followed in other Yunnan cities. The courts can not only punish those who violate the law, but also get them to take part in environmental restoration work.
So far, 15 such courts have been set up in the province, dealing with a variety of pollution cases.
In June, a man surnamed Chen was sentenced for dumping pollutants in a waterway, and ordered to do 24 hours of work repairing the environment.
In another case, people who had gone fishing in Dian Lake despite a ban were ordered to restock the lake.
Another saw people ordered to plant trees as punishment for illegally occupying land.
“In the past, polluters were either fined or sentenced, but the damage they did to the environment remained,” said Zheng Tianzhu, a judge at one of the courts. “Now they also have to help repair the environment they damage.”
The defendants’ work and their attitudes toward the work will be an important factor influencing sentencing decisions, Zheng said.
Despite the judicial progress in environmental protection, stumbling blocks remain.
Zheng said the new courts are still in the initial stages of development, meaning that there is more work to be done.
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