Institutionalized supervision needed for long-term environmental health

THE FOURTH BATCH of Central Environmental Protection Inspection teams started informing eight provincial-level regional governments of the results of their inspections on Friday. A total of 6,471 people are being held accountable in 335 environmental pollution cases that are under investigation by the judicial and supervision authorities. Guangming Daily commented on Sunday:

The two-year inspection organized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which was initially termed "environmental storm" to check serious environmental pollution and deal with some local governments' malfeasance, has come to its end.

True, the inspection has awakened local governments to the urgency and necessity of environmental protection because of the intensive pressure from the central authorities and the public. But there is still a long way to go for many of them to take the initiative and sacrifice short-term economic gain for long-term environmental benefits.