By Hua Hua (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-26 09:02

Tough challenges ahead for environmental protection

Officials from the State Environmental Protection Administration yesterday acknowledged some of the grave challenges facing the country's environment.

Zhu Guangyao, deputy director of the administration, told a press conference that China's environment is, on the whole, in a fragile predicament. He acknowledged that while investment in ecological protection has been hiked in recent years, damage still outpaces improvement.

The serious problem of river pollution is compounded by the fact that many areas also suffer from water shortages. Plagued by desertification, farmland is shrinking and grain yields are decreasing. The quality of forest and pasture is also declining. Biological diversity is threatened as more and more plants and animals become extinct.

These factors combined paint a grim overview of the country's environment.

The negative consequences from long-term negligence of environmental protection are becoming more and more conspicuous, Those in turn are manifest by the increasingly frequent and serious vengeance of nature.

The past two decades have witnessed a miracle in China's economic development, but they have also witnessed a rapidly deteriorating environment. To a great extent, economic achievements have been gained at the expense of the environment.

We pursue economic progress for a higher standard of living. But if material prosperity is achieved at the cost of a sound environment, and if we are surrounded with dirty water and air, we are advancing in the opposite direction to the goal of improved living quality.

Furthermore, when the ecological balance is broken and the environment is ruined, economic development cannot be sustained.

Though frequent warnings and the revenge of nature have alerted the country to the significance of environmental protection in economic development, and initial efforts have indeed been made, there is still a lack of serious commitment and practical efforts to curb the trend of environmental deterioration.

The water-cleaning projects tabled in the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05) period, for example, will scarcely be finished on time, officials from the environmental watchdog told yesterday's press conference.

In many places, pollution continues side by side with restoration projects, sometimes even outpacing them.

To alter the current situation much more aggressive and dramatic measures are needed.

When economic growth remains the major indicator in gauging the work performance of local governments and growth targets are consequently their main or even sole concern, they can hardly be expected to give serious consideration to environmental impact. When the rate of growth and environmental concerns are considered together, it is always the latter that takes the back seat.

A ray of hope comes when the concept of "green GDP" comes into play. While conventional indicators of economic performance have failed to take into account the actual scarcity of natural resources, the new system will tabulate environmental and economic factors.

The environmental agency, together with the National Bureau of Statistics, is working on such a system. Once finished, it will be cited as an important criterion to access the achievements of local officials.

For many far-sighted observers, it can't come soon enough.

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