Turning 'destroyers' into eco 'guardians'

Improving governance

Adopted on March 12 by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, the code is the country's second one after the Civil Code. Its enactment represents a landmark in the country's environmental protection and low-carbon development efforts.

The code comprises five sections and 1,242 articles and establishes six fundamental principles: prevention first, systemic governance, ecological priority, green development, public participation, and polluter pays.

For grassroots judges, the changes are tangible and profound.

Li Jiangang, a judge's assistant at the Dongxing People's Court in Guangxi, completed a five-day training session on the code organized by the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, in July. "I had been awaiting the code since learning of its legislative plan, as it will be a guidebook for my work," he said.

Li said the legal liability section is what he's most focused on, as it provides a tool kit for handling cases.

"It specifies how to coordinate administrative penalties with criminal prosecution and how to determine ecological damage compensation standards. It directly affects the judgment of every case," he said.

Feng Jianhua, a colleague of Li's on the environmental adjudication team, once handled a case involving the trafficking of 166 endangered lesser whistling ducks. Twenty-one of them died during transport.

The defendant was held criminally liable and ordered to pay ecological compensation.

"Previously, environmental laws and regulations were scattered across many different documents, which sometimes led to inconsistent application," Feng said. "The upcoming code weaves these rules into a single framework, making legal application more consistent and reducing inconsistent judgments for similar cases."

Rather than simply compiling more than 30 existing laws or creating an entirely new legal framework, the code integrates, revises, and elevates the country's existing ecological and environmental legal institutions, mechanisms, rules and standards.

Feng said this represents a shift in judicial philosophy.

The code organizes environmental laws into a coherent system and advances adjudication from protecting individual resources — such as a single species or a specific forest — to protecting entire ecosystems and their functions.

"This marks a significant upgrade in how we think about environmental protection," Feng said.

Deng said courts across Fangchenggang have already organized training sessions to ensure proper application of the code. The innovative practices explored earlier — labor substitution and experts assisting as judges' aides — align well with the code's principles, she said.

"In the Xu case, for example, the marine debris cleanup and community supervision reflect the principles of 'polluter pays' and 'public participation' that the code advocates. These are not just abstract concepts — they are concrete measures that have already been tested in real cases," she said.

With implementation of the code underway, Guangxi's courts are prioritizing ecological restoration and extending judicial protection both upstream — coordinating with law enforcement agencies and prosecutors — and downstream, toward ecological recovery and long-term monitoring.

From harsh penalties for damaging mangrove coastlines to diversified ecological restoration approaches in offshore waters, a distinctive path for environmental judicial protection is emerging in Guangxi.

The region's courts are not simply applying national laws mechanically; they are taking into account local conditions, unique ecosystems, economic circumstances and community needs.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn