Toughest rules yet to regulate illegally reclaimed land use
Print Edition
CHINA has introduced its toughest regulation on land reclamation along the country’s coastline, vowing to demolish illegally reclaimed land and stop approving general reclamation projects.
The State Oceanic Administration said yesterday that it would demolish or shut down all illegally reclaimed land and illegally established waste discharge outlets that damage the marine environment.
Lin Shanqing, deputy director of the SOA, said at a press conference that reclamation projects that did not concern the national economy and people’s livelihoods would not be approved in future.
“Reclamation projects that have been approved but have not started and do not comply with the current policy will all be stopped,” Lin said, adding that the administration would also stop giving annual land reclamation quotas to provinces.
“Using reclaimed land for commercial real estate development is prohibited and all reclamation activities in the Bohai Sea area will be banned,” Lin said. “Reclaimed land that has remain deserted for a long time will be confiscated.”
Furthermore, the power of granting administrative approval for land reclamation projects must not be delegated to lower authorities and administrators, who have behaved improperly in project approval, and supervision will be held accountable.
Since the law on administration of maritime space use was put into use in 2002, China legally approved a total of 158,000 hectares of land reclamation by the end of 2017, accounting for about 12 percent of the newly added construction land area in coastal areas over the same period.
Gross ocean production accounts for 9.5 percent of China’s GDP, statistics show.
The State Oceanic Administration yesterday disclosed the findings of a nationwide survey on land-based sources of marine pollution.
A total of some 9,600 such sources, including about 740 rivers, 7,500 sewage outlets and 1,350 emergency flood outlets, were identified in the survey.
Among the sewage outlets, only 8 percent were licensed, and about a quarter were established in ecologically sensitive areas such as protection zones, offshore wetlands and fisheries, according to the SOA.
It found, on the basis of the data in the past five years, the marine environment near more than 80 percent of sewage outlets failed to meet standards.
In addition, about 80 percent of the marine ecosystem under watch was rated unhealthy or sub-healthy.
To address the issue, the SOA will strictly supervise sources of pollution to seawater and introduce real-time monitoring.
More will be done to close the illegal sewage outlets and control the number of those used by aquaculture.
- 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
- |
- 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.
