Good ecological environment is the fairest public goods shared by everyone and the most common and beneficial source of happiness for people. The green hills and blue water, the blue sky and white clouds are the basic needs for people in their living environment, as well as the minimal standards in the development progress of human beings.
“Building a new Yichang with waters, hills, a beautiful ecological environment, and a suitable place for living and travel” was explicitly required by the theme of improving the ecological construction in urban area and building Yichang into a pleasant city on a meeting regarding “overall deepening the reform, transforming the development mode and accelerating the construction of the modern megacity” held by the Municipal Committee on December 10th and 11th, 2013.
On January 28th, 2014, Opinions on the Overall Improvement of the Ecological Construction in Urban Area was issued by the Municipal Committee and the Government, which clarified the objects, standards and measures. Yesterday, Yu Yuejin, Vice-secretary of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Congress and who is also one of the people who are responsible for the drafting, was interviewed by the reporter and explained the background and highlights of the proposal.
【The Background】
The ecological civilization is very fundamental for people’s living.
Why does the ecological civilization attract the worldwide attention? Yu explained that the ecological disasters in history were always unforgettable. The environmental pollution cases caused by the western countries were a lot as they only focused on the economic development and neglected the ecological protection, such the Great Smog of 1952 in London killed as much as 1,2000 people because of its air pollution.
In China, the ecological problem has already become a vital problem which limits the sustainable and healthy development of economy and society. Now, China has ten major environment issues, of which the air pollution ranks first. As early as October 2009, the Provincial Government published Opinions on the Overall Improvement of the Ecological Construction in Urban Area and proposed that the “ecological Hubei” should be constructed and that the objective of building cities into the national ecological gardens, including Yichang, should be fulfilled. Yichang’s ecological environment aroused the general concern from home and abroad in that Yichang is one of the 113 key cities of environmental protection, the main area of acid rain and the major pollution controlled city in the Three Gorges area. How to have a better ecological construction in Yichang, how to have high standard construction with synchronized planning and propulsion as modern mega-cities and how to reach the provincial and domestic leading level, are not only responsibilities but also the priorities.
【The Highlights】
Highlight one: The general objective of Yichang’ ecological construction is practical and feasible.
Abstract: the general objective. By 2015, we will comprehensively fulfill the mission of energy conservation and emission reduction of the “twelfth five-year plan”: the construction of the water-efficient city and ecological mechanism is finished; the unit of GDP consumption will fall below 1.134 TCE / million RMB and that of GDP water consumption is not exceeding 14.4 tons; the green coverage ratio will reach more than 41%, the processing rate of city domestic sewage will exceed over 93% and the harmless processing rate of domestic garbage will reach more than 93%. The quality of the ecological environment will be improving obviously.
Reporter: During the process of improving the ecological construction in urban area, Yichang is faced with a lot of challenges, such as the priority of industrial structure, the fragility of ecological environment, the obvious contradiction between supply and demand in the extension of urban lands and the limitations from the landscapes and climatic condition of Yichang’s urban area on the urban layout and industrial structure. Is it difficult to realize the general objectives in the Opinion?
Yu: Although the ecological construction work is stressful, it also has some advantages: firstly, Yichang possesses the good economic and social foundation, whose overall strength ranks after Wuhan. Now, the City is making efforts to speed up the construction of modern megacity and the promoting of construction in New Area is a good opportunity to develop the ecological construction. Secondly, the City possesses good natural resources. Embraced by the mountains and rivers, its natural resources in mountains and rivers are richly endowed by nature. Thirdly, for the ecological construction in Yichang, the foundation was laid by different city construction projects. For example, in recently years, Yichang has won many titles such as the National Civilized City, the State Exemplar City of Environmental Protection, the National Hygienic City and so on. Most requirements of the above city construction projects are similar to the construction of ecological city, making the city closer to the ecological city. Fourthly, people’s ecological awareness and their participation passion have increased.
Highlight two: The Government pays more attention to the top-level design and carefully plans the construction of the ecological system in urban area.
Abstraction: Adhering to the principle of the balance among population, resources and environment and the principle of the unity among economic benefit, social benefit and ecological benefit, we should build urban ecological space system, industrial system, environmental system, cultural system and institutional system with overall planning and scientific construction.
Reporter: Environmental problem is a big problem, and we cannot solve this problem only by one department or one power. We can see from the “Opinion” that, “top-level design” has been stressed and it should be completed as a system construction, why?
Yu: environment issue is an ecological problem which is related to the overall situation. The Municipal Committee highly valued it and compiled the “The Plan for the Ecology and Civilization Construction in Yichang’s Urban Area” and “The General Plan for Environment in Yichang” from five systems, which pave the way to the ecological construction in urban area and will guarantee the promotion of the work. The implementation of the rules can protect the ecological environment.
Highlight three: the Opinion mentioned that the implementation of the ten major ecological engineers will bring obvious results for the ecological construction in urban area obtain within three to five years.
Abstract: 1. The protection and rehabilitation engineering of the ecological protected areas marked by red lines will be carried out and the forest barrier around the City and the green belts along both sides of the Yangtze River will be built. 2. The industries will be transformed and upgraded. The Government will lead industries and enterprises in the downtown area to move in the special industrial park. 3. The green transformation will be put into effect. The efforts will be made to build the green and low-carbon transportation city by improving the construction of cycle lane, avenue and waterfront greenway, and advance the construction of the public bike system and perfect the urban slow traffic system. 4. The areas of drinking water sources from urban use will be protected. 5. The comprehensive treatment and protection engineering “Three Rivers and Ten Reservoirs” will be built. The ecological park for people who can play in the water, the canal through the city and the ecological wetland park nearby the city and bridges will be built. 6. The Blue Sky engineering will be implemented. The air quality monitoring and early warning and the comprehensive treatment of air pollution will be boosted. 7. The city reorganization engineering will be put into practice. The urban boutiques --- ecological landscape avenues will be built. 8. The planting and beautification engineering will be constructed. Before 2015, all kinds of the newly increased green land areas like parks, petty street gardens and so on will reach more than 5 million square meters and the newly increased planting area of mountains will be 2 million square meters. 9. The green and low carbon ecological construction in the New Area will be launched. The green and ecological layout with “mountain, water and city” will be integrated. 10. The comprehensive treatment and control of urban environment will be implemented. The directly emission of waster water into the river will be banned and the industrialization of the rubbish reclamation will be advanced.
Reporter: Just as Huang Chuping mentioned at the meeting of ecological construction early this year, the urban ecological construction issue is the key to deal with smog and environment pollution. The Municipal Committee will regard the urban ecological construction as a overall and major issue by top-level design. What measures do we have to take to guarantee the implementation of the Municipal Committee’s decisions?
Yu: The overall promotion of urban ecological construction should focus on the actions and implementation by solid construction and concrete projects. Therefore, the ten major engineering constructions proposed in the Opinions are big and significant investments. Those projects focus on the construction of forest barriers around the city and the green belts along both sides of the Yangtze River, the clearness of polluted enterprises downtown offering a green environment for people to travel, making Yichang to be a water-loving city and the capital of ecological wetland, which is embraced and crossed by water. Some projects will establish a pair of “God’s eyes” in the air to supervise waste emissions; some are going to beautify the city; some will increase the greens to purify the air, some will integrate the landscape, city and people; and some will put an end to the discharge from the enterprises to the river and reuse the industrial and domestic rubbish. Although all of them are big projects, each of them will renew the environment and make Yichang full of hope.
Highlight four: The urban ecological construction in Yichang has strong leadership, supportive policies, diversified investment, continuous evaluation and social supervision.
Reporter: The ecological construction cannot be completed in a day and it needs long-term unremitting efforts. With the past GDP-driven mindset, I’m afraid the resistance must be big in the process of promotion, isn’t it?
Yu: It is for this reason that the Yichang municipal party committee took strong measures to ensure the municipal urban ecological construction will meet the requirements. The first is the leadership guarantee. We have set up a special leading group, whose team leader and vice team leader are the principal leaders of the municipal party committee and government, members of the leadership team are chief persons of each district and relevant departments are directly under the government; the second is the policy guarantee. We have planned a number of major ecological construction projects by pinpointing the policy direction to strive for the national, provincial and project financial supports; the third is the system guarantee. We have established a diversified investment system, which can work as a key point of public expenditure as well as an encouragement for guiding social capital, external capital and credit financing to participate in the infrastructure management of urban ecological and environmental protection; the fourth is the assessment guarantee. We have carried out strict assessment to inspect the executive situation of the construction; and the fifth is the social supervision guarantee. We have promoted environmental information disclosure, carried out prize-giving activities to report the ecological environment damage behavior, held ecological and environmental protection press conferences regularly, and implemented information and hearing system of major decisions, plans and environmental impact assessment to effectively guarantee the civil rights.
【People’s voice 】
Ge Yun (an entrepreneur of Yichang’s Three Gorges Logistics Park): I am not a native citizen in Yichang. We moved to Yichang because of its beautiful mountains, rivers and people. To be honest, I love Yichang because of its development potential. Now, more than 30 members of my family had bought houses and were employed in Yichang. The city plan and the construction of the megacity are attractive. However, the urban ecological environment is falling behind which will limit its development prospect. I heard that the Municipal Committee and Government highly value it and launched relevant policies and all my families are supporting it.
Chen Zhongxiao (an old Yichang citizen, 86 years old.): as an old local people living here for many generations, I am pleased to see the rapid and well development in Yichang, so I want to live longer. However, with the rapid development and the growth of cars and plants, the air quality turned bad. It is good that the Government pays attention to it and there is still time. Yichang has such good natural conditions.
Li Yang (Sectary of the Party Committee and Municipal NPC member): As a primary-level officer, I fully support the Opinions on the Overall Improving the Ecological Construction in Urban Area. The key of the good policy lies in the implementation. We believe that under the leadership of the Municipal Committee and the Government and with people’s active cooperation, Yichang’s ecological environment will be obviously improved within three to five years. (Reporter: Zhang Liang, Xiao Min)