Non-governmental agencies to be called upon to help enforce environmental laws

The country's top environmental apparatus plans to explore mobilizing third-party organizations and resort to the use of more high-end technologies to assist its shorthanded grassroots law enforcement teams, according to a guideline.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment will explore buying services from non-governmental institutions to help enforce laws. In addition to screening polluting sources, they will also be expected to provide technical support in evaluating the performance of enterprises' pollution control facilities and in following up on the rectification of environmental violations, the document made public on Thursday said.

Experts and lawyers will be invited to help cope with major complicated cases, it added.

Cao Liping, head of the ministry's law enforcement bureau, said a key role these institutions are expected to play is to help collect evidence for environmental violations in accordance with the law.

He said the ministry will also improve a reward mechanism for whistleblowers to motivate the public to report more environmental violations.

Wang Canfa, professor of environmental law at China University of Political Science and Law, said it's an innovative idea to involve third-parties in law enforcement.

"Currently, environmental authorities rely on their own personnel to enforce laws. However, they have a very limited number of officers. The problem is especially outstanding in county-level areas," he said.

The guideline also vowed to roll out more off-site supervision in the ministry's law enforcement work.

"Intensified efforts will be made to seek more off-site supervision measures and approaches and make them key methods in daily law enforcement inspections," it said.

While the potential of the internet of things will be tapped based on the water and power consumption of polluters' environmental protection facilities, the ministry will resort to more unmanned vehicles, mobile environmental monitoring facilities and satellite remote sensing to help identify violations, it said.

The ministry will also make full use of big data technology to help alert officials of environmental violations, it added.

Li Yanfang, an expert on environmental law from Renmin University of China, said she welcomes the initiative to conduct more off-site supervision "as that could decrease interruptions to enterprises' operations and improve the business environment, and could also help conduct pollution control in a targeted manner".

"I think it will be of great significance to widely apply such off-site supervision in our law enforcement," she said.