Society

Film crew expelled for damaging nature

By Xie Jingwei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-01-08 16:39

The shooting of a TV serial was halted Thursday due to its degradation to the environment in a wetland reserve in Central China, reported the Dahe Daily Thursday.

The crew was filming Water Margin, a TV adaption of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature and a remake of the 1997 version.

Grass is burned by the shooting crew of Water Margin. Photo taken on Jan 7. [Dahe Daily]

The 300-member group was accused of behaviors such as treading on precious flowers and scaring migrant birds away with noises.. More than 40,000 square meters of wetland was ruined, according to local law enforcement officers.

"The shooting crew entered the Yellow River Wetland Reserve without permission and refused to accept law enforcement officials' inspection. It's a violation of Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Nature Reserves, " said Wang Haiyang with the Administration Center of the Yellow River Wetland Reserve Thursday, when shooting members were urged to leave the reserve or receive punishment.

A Dahe Daily report said actors were setting fire to the wetland while shooting when he arrived at the scene with law enforcement members Thursday.

Chinese web users were irritated by the serial producers for damaging the environment, urging related authorities to impose severe punishment and demanding an apology from the producers.

Film and television production companies were prohibited from shooting in 'core' areas of nature reserves under a limit jointly issued by four central government departments in March, 2007.

The rule came out following a series of scandals over serious environmental damages caused by film production, including "The Promise" which severely destroyed the vegetation near pristine Bigu Lake in Shangri-la in southwest China's Yunnan province.