China's environment has significantly improved after President Xi Jinping stressed the prime importance of environmental protection, which sent a strong signal that China will take stricter measures to tackle environmental problems, analysts said.

Joining a group discussion of deputies from Qinghai Province to the annual session of the National People's Congress on Thursday, Xi called on authorities to adopt an overall and long-term view of environmental protection and promote a green lifestyle.

"We should protect the environment like we protect our eyes and treat the environment the way we treat our lives," Xi said.

"This is not the first time that President Xi has made such speeches. His emphasis on environmental protection shows the urgency in solving environmental problems," Xu Haigen, deputy director of the Ministry of Environmental Protection's Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science, told the Global Times.

The Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi has made given important instructions on environmental issues, demanding strict and thorough solutions.

Located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Karamori Nature Reserve is home to many protected animals, such as the Asiatic wild ass and goitered gazelles. On December 12, the local government announced it would use 179.3 square kilometers of the nature reserve to develop coal mines and quarries, which was widely criticized for fear that it may jeopardize the reserve's environment.

President Xi ordered the project cancelled, and all enterprises inside the nature reserve to move out, Xinhua reported.

Xi's instructions have resolved many similar problems, including the encroachment of illegal coal mines on nature reserves in Qinghai Province's Muli coalfield, as well as illegal structures which threaten the environment of Shaanxi Province's Qinling Mountains.

"It's unusual for a Chinese president to give that many instructions on environmental issues. Xi's emphasis on environmental protection is quite timely and necessary for the country's development, since environmental problems have significantly dampened the country's plan of building a well-off society," Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the Chongqing Committee, told the Global Times.

Though Xi's instructions have set the tone for environmental protection, analysts said that making more regulations and implementing laws more faithfully are crucial to eliminating the country's environmental problems.

China's court system heard 19,000 criminal cases involving environmental pollution and undermining resources in 2015, up 18.8 percent from the previous year, a Supreme People's Court work report said Sunday.

Courts at all levels also heard 78,000 civil cases involving environmental issues, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang said at the annual session of the national legislature.

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