The Law on Environmental Impact Assessment is to come into
force on September 1. The law is considered a significant
development of China's environmental protection legislation.
According to the law, government planning on land utilization,
urban engineering, communication, and natural resource exploration
will have to go through the process of an environmental impact
assessment, like other construction projects do. An official from
the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said implementation
of the law is expected to reduce environmental disasters brought
about by government policies.
Key project causes 'white disaster'
Wu Bo, vice director of the Supervision Department of the SEPA,
said that many critical environmental problems experienced today
were caused by government mistakes in the field of environmental
protection. Although the regulation of environmental impact
assessment has been operating in China for over 20 years, it has in
the past only targeted individual construction projects, and has
not been binding on government-proposed projects. The environmental
impact of individual construction projects has been partial and
incomparable with that caused by government policies and plans,
which have always created wide-ranging environmental problems that
have been long-term and rather difficult to deal with.
A typical example of an environmental disaster caused by
governmental policies – "white pollution," has not yet been dealt
with effectively. In 1986, the government issued development
essentials for the national packaging industry urging a
considerable increase in plastic package products output. The
policy, without consideration for the environment, caused a
nationwide disaster of white-colored plastic refuse.
Priority industries become polluters
In the middle of the 1980s, mineral resource exploitation was
encouraged by government, creating a nationwide trend in
indiscriminate exploitation. The state then took strict measures to
shut down many minor mines, several years after the relevant
policies had been issued, because of acute waste and the
devastation of resources.
In 1989, some industrial policies gave priority to a few
industries, discharging serious pollution. Industries such as paper
making, leather production, dying and coking experienced rapid
development in the early-to-middle 1990s. In a short period,
chimneys were erected in towns and counties, and rivers, no matter
whether big or small, began to stink. In 1996, the State Council
decided to close down 15 varieties of minor enterprises due to
pollution. During the 1996-2000 period, 85,000 minor enterprises
within the category were shut down, causing huge losses not only to
those enterprises themselves but also to individual investors,
local governments and the state.
Drainage development results in source of sands
Areas around the Juyan Lake, composed of two parts in the east
and west respectively and located in Ejin Banner, Inner
Mongolia, were once rich and prosperous lands, providing a
natural protective screen along China's northwest border.
Due to drainage development around the lake which was conducted
without considering the overall environmental impact, the Juyan
Lake in the west began to dry up after dams were built to reserve
water in the upper reaches of the lake, and its east part began to
run dry then in the 1990s.
As a result acres of oasis in Ejin Banner decreased dramatically
from 6,440 to 3,200 square kilometers, while the gobi desert
increased by some 460 square kilometers. The former sacsaoul
forests (Holoxylon ammodendron) with acreage of 17 million
mu (1.1 million hectares) deteriorated to only 3 million
mu (200,000 hectares), while forests of diversiform-leaved
poplar (Populus euphratica) shrunk by 12,000 mu (800
hectares) annually.
Contributing to the deterioration of natural resources of the
area, Juyan Lake has become a source of sandstorms in northern
China. In 2000 alone, 19 sandstorms were experienced, previously
occurring only once in 30 years.
Development along the Tarim River valley in Xinjiang made water
runoff in the lower reaches of the river decrease by over 80
percent, and the local eco-environment worsen.
The Tarim River valley once boasted the world's largest
distribution of virgin forests of diversiform-leaved poplar.
However, due to water shortages, the forests have withered to death
in stretches. According to statistics, the forests along the
middle-lower reaches of the lake have decreased from 5.8 million
hectares in the 1950s to 1.52 million hectares, and sand-encroached
areas account for 80 percent of the total valley area, rising from
60 percent.
Lessons from around the world
It is not difficult to find ecological disasters caused by
policy faults in other countries around the world. In 1954, the
central government of the former Soviet Union began an ambitious
project on Central Asia development.
Having not made a scientific assessment of its environmental
impact, the project began to build a 1,400-kilometer-long canal in
the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan in order to establish an
agricultural base along the canal, with cotton as its main
agricultural product.
The project planned to divert water from the Amu Darya to
irrigate 3.5 million hectares of desolate prairie and 1 million
hectares of newly-reclaimed farmland and to improve water supply
facilities on seven million hectares. However, excessive amounts of
water were diverted from the Amu Darya and underground water was
also overly exploited, causing coastlines on the Aral Sea to
retreat by 10 to 20 kilometers. Lands besides the sea became
barren, and saline "white windstorms" were common. Finally, the
mammoth project ended in failure.
In the 1960s, the UN organized and carried out an international
anti-sand activity to tackle the water resource problem for humans
and livestock in the African Sahara region. In some 20 years,
international organizations donated a total of US$625 million to
the program. The money was spent on drilling deepwater wells.
People in nomadic societies altered their living styles to settle
down in areas around the wells. Less than five years of
exploitation, desertification circles appeared with the wells at
their center; the eco-environment deteriorating severely. Related
international organizations stopped the program.
Bind government to environmental impact assessment
In specialists' view, the soon-to-be-implemented Law on
Environmental Impact Assessment is China's first law giving
priority to prevention of an environmental disaster. They consider
environmental impact assessment a strategic regulation. The most
significant breakthrough of the law will be to expand the
regulation's target scope from individual construction projects to
government planning.
In a sense, the legislation will act as a lock to restrain
government activities. As policies for major development have to go
through the procedures of planning, guaranteeing the steps of
environmental impact assessment during the planning can prevent
adverse environmental effects brought about by bad policies.
The Law on Environmental Impact Assessment stipulates: when
relevant departments of the State Council, local people's
governments at or above municipality level
(where districts are designed), and other related departments work
out plans concerning land utilization, construction and development
of regions, river valleys and sea areas, environmental impact
assessment should be carried out, and a chapter compiled or
explanation provided as a necessary part of draft planning
documentation which should be submitted to relevant competent
authorities for approval.
Environmental impact assessment involves analyzing, predicting
and evaluating the possible adverse environmental impact once the
plan is carried out, and putting forward solutions and measures to
prevent or alleviate the impact.
In respect to special plans concerning industry, agriculture and
animal husbandry, forestry, energy, water resources, communication,
urban engineering, tourism, and natural resources exploitation, the
law stipulates that related departments should make an
environmental impact assessment and write reports and submit them
to relevant competent authorities before the draft special plans
are submitted.
Public opinion
This law stipulates that departments responsible for special
planning, which may create possible environmental problems and
involve the public's environmental interests, should hold appraisal
meetings or hearings or apply other methods to solicit opinion from
related institutions, experts and the public, on the draft
environmental impact reports. Whether this opinion is accepted and
related explanations should be added to the submitted reports.
It is the first law concerning environmental protection to
stipulate that public opinion is a necessary part of the report on
environmental impact.
It illustrates that the state attaches importance to the
public's environmental interests and values their participation in
and supervision of environmental protection policies.
Environmental protection experts highly commend the Law on
Environmental Impact Assessment, saying it's the greatest
development in environmental legislation in the past 10 years.
The law strives to prevent environmental pollution and
ecological devastation deriving from policy sources. If the
regulation of environmental impact assessment could be implemented
smoothly, eco-environmental problems could fundamentally be put
under control by preventing them from becoming a real problem,
according to experts.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, August 15, 2003)