Ministry campaign comes to the rescue of mountain range in crisis
Print Edition
THE vast Qilian mountain range in northwest China is starting to recover from decades of over exploitation, under the largest ecological restoration campaign in more than half a century.
A Ministry of Environmental Protection campaign that began more than a year ago has closed illegal mines and unlicensed hydropower plants, increased monitoring of sewage treatment, halted tourism construction, and corrected over 90 percent of environmental violations, according to local authorities in Zhangye in Gansu Province.
The Qilian Mountains, stretching between the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai, have long been designated a significant shelter zone helping to hold the ecological balance in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, blocking the invasion of the northern desert.
Rivers, along which more than 5million people live, depend on the snow and glaciers on the mountains for water.
Excessive and disorderly development since the 1960s had plunged the area into crisis, with water sources contaminated and grassland degraded, until officials moved to tackle the problems.
However, despite the progress, the situation remains grim and more efforts are needed, according to a ministry inspection, citing illicit mining and hydropower projects that still exist throughout the region.
Emphasis on environment
In response, local officials promised that all man-made pollution and disruption will stop by the end of the year.
Qilian represents the country’s ongoing shift from an obsession with GDP to more balanced growth that puts equal, if not greater, emphasis on the natural environment.
More energy has been channeled into cleaning up the economy, which had long been powered by polluting heavy industries. Stricter rules have been imposed on both factories and officials, and violations receive tougher penalties.
The ministry has expanded its inspections to include greenhouse gas emissions and energy saving, and as well as to wider geographical areas, including the smog-shrouded northern Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the less-developed northwest.
Chen Jining, the former environment minister, said earlier this year that more than 6,400 officials had been held accountable during inspections of 16 provinces.
“All 31 provinces will be covered this year to prompt local governments to fulfill their duties,” he said.
In its drive for economic success, China was confronted by serious environmental issues, some still lingering.
Qiao Qingju, a professor with the Party School of the Party’s Central Committee, said: “Modern industrialization was pushed forward when we were unaware of the capacity of the environment in the world, which resulted in an ecological crisis.”
During a senior Party meeting last month, policy-makers agreed that China should reject development models that damaged or destroyed the environment, and bade farewell to practices that boosted short-term economic growth at the cost of the environment.
“The country should speed up transformation from over-reliance on resource consumption, high energy use and high emissions to innovation-driven growth,” according to a statement released after the meeting.
The move to a more sustainable growth path has been steadily advancing for years.
While polluting industries have been downsized, high-tech and green sectors are being given stronger support.
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