Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Enters a New Era

3. Accelerate the restoration of ecological environmental protection

China’s ecological and environmental contradictions have a historical accumulation process, and it is impossible to expect complete changes in the short term. In this regard, it is necessary to establish a long-term combat concept, vigorously implement ecological protection and restoration projects, and gradually restore the overall function of the ecosystem.

Build ecological corridors and biodiversity conservation networks. Ecological corridors have various functions such as protecting biodiversity, preventing soil erosion, filtering pollutants, preventing wind and sand fixation, and regulating floods. Biodiversity is the material foundation for human survival, an important prerequisite for sustainable and stable economic and social development, and a reliable guarantee for ecological security and food security. In recent years, China has attached great importance to the construction of ecological corridors and biodiversity conservation, actively implemented the Convention on Biological Diversity and its protocols, and more than 90% of terrestrial natural ecosystem types and 89% of wild animals and plants under national key protection have been protected in nature reserves. To build ecological corridors and biodiversity conservation networks, we must adhere to the “two- legged” walk of the country and the region. It is necessary to promote not only national-scale ecological corridors based on the top-level design of the country, but also promote the construction of regional ecological corridors such as the Yangtze River Economic Belt. At the same time, from the perspective of building a community with a shared future for mankind, we should build cross- border ecological corridors such as the “Belt and Road.” It is necessary to strengthen biodiversity investigation and observation and scientific research, improve the network of nature reserves, strengthen the supervision of biodiversity conservation, increase publicity, and promote the participation of the whole society in biodiversity conservation. Delineate three control lines of ecological protection, basic farmland and urban development. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,

The Party Central Committee has repeatedly proposed to build a spatial planning system. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that it is necessary to “complete the delineation of three control lines: ecological protection red lines, permanent basic farmland, and urban development boundaries.” The three control lines are delineated and guarded, aiming to deal with the spatial pattern relationship between life, production and ecology, and promote economic and social development to adapt to the carrying capacity of resources and environment by building a scientific and reasonable pattern of urbanization, agricultural development and ecological security. At present, China has basically established a redline system for ecological protection. The delineation of ecological protection redlines is steadily advancing in accordance with the deployment of the Party Central Committee and is expected to be fully completed by the end of 2020. The delineation of permanent basic farmland has been completed overall; The pilot work of delineating urban development boundaries has progressed in an orderly manner. Delineating the “three lines” is the first step, and it is not just a matter of finishing things, but holding the “three lines” is the key. It is necessary to strictly implement and effectively supervise, form a corresponding management mechanism and supervision policy, and increase the degree of binding force. It is necessary to strengthen refined and efficient management. Due to the wide range of “three lines”, it is necessary to consider the integration and synergy with various policies such as land development and government assessment, and do a good job in the coordination of various policies to ensure the “three lines” authority.

Carry out land greening actions and promote the comprehensive management of landscapes, rivers, forests, lakes and grasslands. Carrying out land greening actions is an important measure to build an ecological civilization and a beautiful China. It is necessary to continue to carry forward the Chinese nation’s love for trees: the good tradition of planting trees and protecting trees, mobilizing the whole country, the whole people taking action, and the whole society participating together, continuing to promote the comprehensive treatment of desertification, rocky desertification and soil erosion, continuing to do a good job in land greening, sand prevention and control, and soil erosion control, continuing to promote the construction of forest cities and forest villages, focusing on improving the living environment, and achieving evergreen and evergreen in all seasons. There are flowers in the season, and the promotion of land greening continues to achieve tangible results. To make overall plans to promote the comprehensive management of landscapes, forests, fields, lakes and grasslands, it is necessary to plan from the perspective of system engineering and the overall situation. Promote the pilot project of ecological protection and restoration of landscapes, forests, lakes and grasses, comprehensively promote the monitoring and informatization of water and soil conservation, and improve the social management, public service capacity and industry development level of water and soil conservation. Strengthen wetland protection and restoration, ensure that the existing wetland area is not reduced, implement a wetland protection target responsibility system, strictly supervise wetland use, and prepare wetland protection and restoration project plans. Improve the protection system of natural forests, and expand the area of returning farmland to forest and grassland. Establish a market-oriented and diversified ecological compensation mechanism. Ecological compensation is one of the important ways to transform “green water and green mountains” into “golden mountains and silver mountains”, and it is also an important means for China’s poverty alleviation.

Through ecological compensation, ecological resources can be enriched, the production and lifestyle of ecological protected areas can be transformed, the income channels of farmers and herdsmen can be broadened, and ecological products and services can be effectively increased. In 2018, nine departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, jointly issued the Notice on the Action Plan for Establishing a Market-oriented and Diversified Ecological Protection Compensation Mechanism, which put forward nine key tasks, including improving the compensation system for resource development, developing ecological industries, improving green labels, and establishing a green benefit-sharing mechanism. To establish a market-oriented ecological compensation mechanism, it is necessary to highlight the leading role of the market, clarify market access rules, market competition rules and market trading rules, and establish market-oriented ecological compensation standards. At the same time, the government’s regulatory functions should be in place, maintain market order, resist speculative transactions in ecological compensation, and effectively play an important role in ecological compensation. To establish and improve the ecological compensation mechanism for multiple benevolences, it is also necessary to start from the aspects of the diversity of participants in ecological compensation and the diversity of compensation standards, allow non-governmental organizations and funds to participate in it, innovate ecological products, and use various methods such as kind, technology, and projects to promote ecological compensation work.

4. Reform and improve the ecological environment supervision and assessment system

To promote green development and build an ecological civilization, we should focus on establishing rules and regulations and improving the institutional system of ecological civilization. Through strengthening the overall design and organization and implementation of ecological civilization construction, we should strive to break down the institutional barriers that restrict the construction of ecological civilization, continuously improve the ecological environment management system, and form an institutional guarantee for building a beautiful China. Establish state-owned natural resources asset management and natural ecology supervision institutions. For a period of time, an important reason why the overall deterioration trend of China’s ecological environment has not been fundamentally curbed is that the ecological management system cannot meet the needs of the objective situation, which is prominently manifested in the overlapping of functions, resulting in problems such as the dispersion of law enforcement subjects and monitoring forces, and multiple law enforcement in the field of environmental protection. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to strengthen the overall design and organizational leadership of ecological civilization construction, and set up state-owned natural resource asset management and natural ecological supervision agencies. The deployment of this institutional reform is in line with the needs of the protection of the “community of life” system of landscapes, forests, lakes and grasses, and reflects the comprehensive ecosystem and comprehensive supervision, which can overcome the problems of multiple supervision and “fragmented” supervision in the past.

At present, the reform of the national ecological civilization system has achieved remarkable results, and the functions and personnel of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment have been adjusted in place, and it is necessary to further rationalize their functions, divide labor and cooperation, and promote the formation of a governance pattern of unified management of natural resource property rights, effective supervision of the ecological environment and orderly management and control of land and space as soon as possible. Build an all-round development and protection system for land and space. Building a land space development and protection system, improving supporting policies for main functional areas, and establishing a nature reserve system with national parks as the main body are major measures to follow the laws of nature and rationally develop and utilize nature. The strategy of main functional areas focuses on the scientific layout of production space, living space and ecological space, balances the contradictions between population, resources and environment, and improves the efficiency of resource utilization, which is the fundamental way to solve the problems in China’s land space development. The establishment of the national park system is to strengthen the protection of natural ecosystems, highlight the strict, holistic and systematic protection of natural ecosystems, and protect the most vulnerable, beautiful and most in need of protection. The key to implementing the main functional area strategy lies in strictly implementing the main functional area planning, realizing the multi-level decomposition and implementation of the national, provincial, municipal and county levels, strictly guarding the bottom line for prohibited and restricted development areas, and at the same time implementing accountability mechanisms to punish acts that undermine the delineation of national main functional areas. On September 26, 2017, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued and implemented the Overall Plan for the Establishment of the National Park System, which reasonably divided the central and local powers, established a coordinated management mechanism between the central and local governments of national parks with clear subjects, clear responsibilities and mutual cooperation, and clarified that other constructive activities such as development are prohibited except for the transformation of indigenous people’s production and living facilities and natural tourism, scientific research, education and tourism that do not harm the ecosystem. The establishment of a nature reserve system with national parks as the main body is a complex reform task, which requires strengthening the top-level design, introducing an overall plan for the national nature conservation system as soon as possible, and building a national protection network.

Establish a governance system with the participation of the government, enterprises, society and the public. Comrade Xi Jinping stressed: “The construction of ecological civilization is closely related to everyone, and everyone should be a practitioner and promoter.1 The construction of ecological civilization should shift from a government-led situation to a model of “government responsibility, enterprise implementation, social coordination, and public participation.”

And form a pattern of shared responsibility and participation of the government, enterprises, society and citizens. Only by cooperating and interacting with each other and supervising and restraining each other can governance entities jointly protect the ecological environment. With the joint participation of multiple subjects, it is necessary to clarify the responsibilities of each subject in the construction of ecological civilization. Give play to the functions of various government departments, promote the implementation of environmental public welfare projects, and improve environmental supervision mechanisms. Give full play to the role of the market and guide enterprises to implement ecological projects. Actively cultivate the strength of social organizations, stimulate the vitality of social organizations, promote social participation, effectively guide the role of social organizations in the provision of environmental protection volunteer services, make up for the lack or inefficiency of government supply, and improve the level of ecological environment governance. In addition, it is necessary to further deepen reforms in the transformation of government functions, the cultivation of corporate environmental awareness, and the participation of multiple channels in society, and continuously improve China’s ecological civilization governance system.

Reform and improve the ecological environment inspection, assessment and evaluation system. Reforming and improving the supervision and assessment system of ecological civilization is an important guarantee to ensure that the construction of ecological civilization achieves practical results. As a major institutional arrangement of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on promoting the construction of ecological civilization and environmental protection since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the central environmental protection inspectorate links environmental issues with political achievements, liberates environmental protection from the siege of local protectionism, and provides a strong driving force for fighting the battle against pollution. Central environmental protection inspectors should strengthen their authority, strengthen their strength, develop in depth, grasp the principle of “being strict, accurate, and to the point”, effectively give play to the supervisory role of the long-term mechanism of environmental protection inspection, and further increase the intensity and intensity of environmental protection inspection; improve the overall planning of the environmental protection inspection system, further expand the scope of supervision to all fields of production and life, and achieve pollution prevention on a global scale.

The assessment of ecological civilization construction is an important basis for the reward, punishment and promotion of leading groups and leading cadres at all levels, and an important part of the performance assessment of cadres of party and government organs in the new era. In December 2016, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the Measures for the Evaluation and Assessment of Ecological Civilization Construction Goals, after which the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the Central Organization Department formulated the Green Development Index System and the Ecological Civilization Construction Assessment Target System. It is necessary to refine the responsibilities of the main functional areas of the region, further improve the assessment system, and implement the assessment work.