CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Rongliang Wu, Mei Wan, Qirong Huang and Xueqi Huang, Jin Mao Law Firm
• the Ministry of Transport is responsible for environ- mental protection within the transportation indus- try. 2.2 Co-Operation To ensure policy and law enforcement implementa- tion, China’s regulatory co-operation relies on two core pillars: vertical responsibility transmission and horizontal cross-departmental co-ordination, which work together to form a comprehensive support sys- tem. Vertical Co-Operation Mechanism The vertical co-operation mechanism follows the prin- ciple of “central overall planning, provincial overall responsibility and municipal/county implementation”: • The National Leading Group for Ecological Civilisa- tion System Reform and its office (housed in the MEE) formulates national environmental policies, standards and inspection plans. • Provincial governments co-ordinate regional work and supervise municipal/county-level policy imple- mentation. • Municipal/county governments conduct on-site law enforcement and daily supervision for grassroots implementation. • Provincial-level environmental inspection mecha- nisms (aligned with the central model) have also been set up, forming a “central-provincial” two- tier inspection system covering all administrative regions. Horizontal Co-Operation Mechanism The horizontal co-operation mechanism, tasked with major cross-departmental environmental matters, is led by the central government. It adopts four key co- operation methods: • inter-ministerial joint meetings, where relevant min- istries hold regular discussions to resolve cross- sector environmental issues; • joint document issuance, through which multiple ministries jointly release policy documents to unify standards and implementation requirements; • parallel approval, where for projects involving multiple departments, relevant authorities conduct
approval procedures simultaneously to improve efficiency; and • information sharing platforms, which are unified data platforms established to share environmental monitoring data, enterprise credit information and law enforcement records among ministries and local authorities, thereby avoiding information silos. 3. Environmental Protections 3.1 Protection of Environmental Assets China has a hierarchical environmental system inte- grating management of “natural resources, pollution prevention and control, ecological protection” with the Environmental Protection Law as the foundation, plus other laws, regulations and rules. It has achieved a transformation from the fragmented management of pollution control targets and protected objects to the protection of the entire ecosystem, covering multiple areas such as air, soil, forests, oceans and more. In addition to the pollution prevention and control laws and ecological protection regional laws specified in 1.1 Environmental Protection Policies, Principles and Laws , other key contents and systems are as follows. Key Element/Resource Protection Laws • Land: The Land Administration Law and Regula- tions on the Protection of Basic Farmland establish the total farmland retention target and the red line for permanent basic farmland. • Water: The Water Law implements water quantity allocation, total pollutant discharge control and cross-basin pollution prevention. • Forests: The Forest Law stipulates quota-based logging, ecological compensation for public welfare forests, and forest carbon sinks. • Grasslands: The Grassland Law specifies grass– livestock balance, grazing bans and rest periods, and grassland ecological compensation. • Wetlands: The Wetland Protection Law estab- lishes a hierarchical wetland management system, an approval system for wetland occupation and expropriation, and an “occupation–compensation balance” mechanism.
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