174
J. Wang
are also local fisheries bureaus at coastal provinces and municipal local fisheries
authorities.
As we discussed above, marine reserves are under the jurisdiction of MNR, and
in which fishing activities might be prohibited or restricted. Thus, it will inevitably
need the cooperation and coordination among different authorities.
To sum up, the above five bodies are involved in marine law enforcement relating to
marine environmental protection within their respective business areas. Thanks to the
ministerial restructuring, the enforcement of laws and regulations will be improved by
unifying the ownership, management and supervision of marine nature resources and
comprehensive governing all sources pollution from air, land and ocean. However,
it also creates a set of challenges associated to such developments. Firstly, the new
institutional creation will trigger the adjustment of the relevant local government
agencies, difficulties might arise in the transition of the departments’ duties and
relocation of the departments’ interests. Secondly, as to the law enforcement, the
issue of inter-ministerial coordination is also a challenge. In addition, since the SOA
was disbanded and the execution body was transferred, it is unclear how to implement
the regulations and polices issued by the SOA.
9.5 Prospects and Conclusion
The rapid growth of economy experienced by China is resulting in adverse marine
environmental conditions. With the recently published report, it is not possible to take
an optimistic stance towards the present situation of the Chinese marine environment.
Marine environmental protection is not an easy task for China, since it is a country
with a high population density and a large area of semi-enclosed seas. In addition,
the climate change also imposes new threats upon the marine environment, and the
sea level rise will make the prevention of marine pollution more difficult.
127 Thus,
the challenges faced by China is even greater than ever. In order to cope with this,
China has developed a set of positive policies for supporting the protection of marine
environment, among which the most remarkable one is the policy of establishing the
new notion of “ecological civilization”. This fundamental policy puts environmental
protection in an important position and has a great impact on ocean governance.
To build a marine “ecological civilization” thus became the key objective for ocean
management. It places emphasis on the connections between marine economic development and environmental protection and division of marine functional zones with
marine resources conservation and promotes the ocean management shifting towards
to a more holistic and unified way. Since the “ecological civilization” has been introduced, a number of stricter environmental legislations have been promulgated, and
the system of MERL and MEC have been confirmed as the fundamental system for
127 Shi Yafeng and Yan Guishan, Sea Level Rise and Its Impacts in China, in Department of Geology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences (ed.), The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on China’s Delta Areas and the
Counter-Measures(Beijing: Science Press, 1994) (in Chinese), pp. 169–170.
J. Wang
are also local fisheries bureaus at coastal provinces and municipal local fisheries
authorities.
As we discussed above, marine reserves are under the jurisdiction of MNR, and
in which fishing activities might be prohibited or restricted. Thus, it will inevitably
need the cooperation and coordination among different authorities.
To sum up, the above five bodies are involved in marine law enforcement relating to
marine environmental protection within their respective business areas. Thanks to the
ministerial restructuring, the enforcement of laws and regulations will be improved by
unifying the ownership, management and supervision of marine nature resources and
comprehensive governing all sources pollution from air, land and ocean. However,
it also creates a set of challenges associated to such developments. Firstly, the new
institutional creation will trigger the adjustment of the relevant local government
agencies, difficulties might arise in the transition of the departments’ duties and
relocation of the departments’ interests. Secondly, as to the law enforcement, the
issue of inter-ministerial coordination is also a challenge. In addition, since the SOA
was disbanded and the execution body was transferred, it is unclear how to implement
the regulations and polices issued by the SOA.
9.5 Prospects and Conclusion
The rapid growth of economy experienced by China is resulting in adverse marine
environmental conditions. With the recently published report, it is not possible to take
an optimistic stance towards the present situation of the Chinese marine environment.
Marine environmental protection is not an easy task for China, since it is a country
with a high population density and a large area of semi-enclosed seas. In addition,
the climate change also imposes new threats upon the marine environment, and the
sea level rise will make the prevention of marine pollution more difficult.
127 Thus,
the challenges faced by China is even greater than ever. In order to cope with this,
China has developed a set of positive policies for supporting the protection of marine
environment, among which the most remarkable one is the policy of establishing the
new notion of “ecological civilization”. This fundamental policy puts environmental
protection in an important position and has a great impact on ocean governance.
To build a marine “ecological civilization” thus became the key objective for ocean
management. It places emphasis on the connections between marine economic development and environmental protection and division of marine functional zones with
marine resources conservation and promotes the ocean management shifting towards
to a more holistic and unified way. Since the “ecological civilization” has been introduced, a number of stricter environmental legislations have been promulgated, and
the system of MERL and MEC have been confirmed as the fundamental system for
127 Shi Yafeng and Yan Guishan, Sea Level Rise and Its Impacts in China, in Department of Geology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences (ed.), The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on China’s Delta Areas and the
Counter-Measures(Beijing: Science Press, 1994) (in Chinese), pp. 169–170.