Praise for decision in desert waste case
Print Edition
CHINA’S environmental protection minister yesterday praised a Supreme People’s Court ruling in a public interest litigation case about pollution in northwest China’s Tengger Desert.
An environmental group filed a suit against eight companies for dumping unprocessed waste in the desert last August but Zhongwei Intermediate People’s Court in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region refused to hear the case.
The SPC ruled on January 28 it should take the case, Chen Jining told a press conference.
Several companies in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, which border the desert, were found to have illegally dumped industrial waste in the desert since 2007. Earlier media reports said the contamination threatened groundwater in the area.
Although the companies were shut down, with some executives prosecuted and several local officials punished, restoration of polluted areas has made little progress, according to the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation that filed the public interest litigation case.
Some firms even misappropriated public funds designated to restore the desert, evading their responsibilities, according to the foundation.
It hopes legal means can force the polluters to restore the land or compensate victims. The case serves as a typical example of a public interest lawsuit and a warning for other polluters.
China’s environmental protection law, revised in 2014, introduced public interest litigation and expanded the definition of who can be the plaintiff in these cases.
Last year, Chinese courts heard 53 public interest litigation cases, in six of which environment departments were sued for their failure to carry out the law.
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