Experimental zone blazes through 2016 ecological to-do list

East China's Fujian province completed 80 percent of its goals for 2016 in the construction of a national ecological experimental zone.

The general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council released the Guideline of the Construction of National Ecological Experimental Zones in August, selecting Fujian, Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces as the first batch of experimental zones.

"Fujian is rich in ecological resources and has gone ahead in the reformation of ecological civilization. That's why it was selected," Wang Yi, deputy director of the Institutes of Science and Development at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Fujian Daily.

Fujian released its own implementation plan, comprising 26 tasks to complete within three years, including a compensation mechanism for ecological protection, spatial planning and resource management.

"Fujian's plan is comprehensive and practical, targeting key problems," Wang said. "However, because it put forward many innovative ideas, it's a challenge to complete them within such a limited time frame."

According to the Fujian Development and Reform Commission, 15 of the plan's 18 goals for 2016 have been achieved, to be followed by further action in 2017 and 2018.

The plan mainly focuses on the difficult areas of ecological protection, such as the trade in energy rights and the formulation of a balance sheet of natural resources, officials from the commission said.

Fujian wants to be the first province to try new methods in less-noticeable fields to exemplify effective modes for other cities and regions to follow, they said.

The environmental efforts aim to construct a better environment for residents, officials said, while maintaining a balance between economic development and ecological protection.

Wuyi Mountain, located in Wuyishan, a city named after the mountain in northwest Fujian province, is known for tea growing in the crevices of rocks. Locals cut down many of the original forests on the mountain to grow tea in the past.

Yet the small tea trees cannot prevent soil erosion, which in turn caused the pollution of the Jiuqu River at the foot of the mountain.

Sun Jianyou, who has run a tea planting and processing business for more than 10 years, said the quality of tea from Wuyi Mountain diverged during these years.

"The difference lies in the natural environment," he said. "Ecologically friendly areas tend to grow high-quality tea, otherwise the rate of defective tea will jump no matter which variety we plant or how much fertilizer we use."

Now that the mountain has become one of the ecological experimental zones in Fujian province, the director of the Wuyishan Forestry Bureau, Yang Lizhong, said the local government will spend the next 15 years transforming a 44-square-kilometer commercial tea forest into ecological forests.

Deforestation was forbidden in 2008, and construction of new tea gardens was forbidden in 2011, Yang said.

Since Wuyi Mountain was listed as one of nine pilot national parks across the country for ecosystem restoration and operational reform in 2015, the local government has since earmarked 20 million yuan ($2.9 million) every year for the purchase of land on the mountain.

According to the Fujian Development and Reform Commission, a total of 3.2 square kilometers of tea forests in Wuyi Mountain have thus far been replaced by green seeding, while 53.5 square kilometers of land has overcome soil erosion.

Beyond the protection of forests, the control of contaminating emissions was also involved in the province's environmental plan, through the remediation of rural sewage and waste, control of emission in the rivers and oceans, and the construction of a platform for carbon and contamination emission rights trading between enterprises.

Sanming, a production center for steel, chemical fertilizer and paper, has played a leading role in emissions trading rights in Fujian.

Zhang Faliu, deputy Party chief of Qingshan Paper Industry Co Ltd, a listed State-owned company located in the city, said its emissions used to account for about 50 percent of Sanming's entire industry.

"If we hadn't reduced the emissions, the industrial development of our city would have gotten stuck," he said.

Increased investment in technological innovations and environmental facilities resulted in a sharp drop in industrial emissions from the company, enabling it to trade in its emissions rights.

According to Zhang, it became the first enterprise in Fujian to engage in emissions trading in 2014, resulting in a net income of about 40 million yuan.

"The income helped to boost development of new production technology (in the company)," he said. "If it succeeds, waste water will decrease by 90 percent."

The company released its self-monitoring report on the Information Release Platform of Key Pollution Sources in Fujian Province in August, showing that it has one sewage plant and four exhaust gas boilers to reduce contamination.

None of the four major pollutants surpassed national environmental standards in May, according to the company's official website.

According to the Fujian Development and Reform Commission, six enterprises in Sanming have profited from emissions trading, gaining about 56 million yuan, ranking the city first in the province.

Contact the writers at chenmeiling@chinadaily.com.cn and humeidong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/25/2016 page11)