This aerial photo taken on May 21, 2023 shows a vehicle driving in the Wuying National Forest Park in Yichun, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. After banning commercial logging in 2013 for ecosystem restoration, Yichun, a city known as China's "forest capital" in Heilongjiang Province, has developed characteristic ecological industry while protecting the environment.(Photo: Xinhua)

China’s procuratorates have signed off on the arrest of more than 65,000 people involved in environmental damage cases from 2018 to 2022, an increase of 74.14 percent compared with the number  during the previous five years, according to a whitepaper published on Monday. It said most of the violations involve illegal fishing, illegal mining, illegal occupying of farm land, among others .
 
The whitepaper, published by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said the number of the environmental damage cases processed by procuratorate nationwide increased during 2018 to 2022. A total of 210,000 environment sabotage cases were filed with the procuratorate during this period of time.
 
A total of 81.66 percent of those cases involve offenses of environmental damage, illegal fishing, illegal mining, illegal occupying of farmland, illegal hunting and crimes of illegal denudation.
 
According to the whitepaper China has very few cases in the illegal dealing of imported solid waste, and criminal cases of destructive mining.
 
Illegal case in law enforcement surrounding land issues have been  increasing rapidly over recent years amounting to 13,209 cases in 2022, an increase of 648.9 percent compared with 2018’s numbers,  the whitepaper noted. Most of those cases involve illegal occupying of lands, polluting areas of land, illegal mining and so forth.
 
In 2022 alone, offenses in illegal fishing, illegal hunting of endangered animals witnessed the sharpest increase. For example, a total of 36,985 people were been prosecuted in 2022 for offenses in harming endangered animals, an increase of 183.67 percent compared with 2018.
 
Officials in the environment department said that the legal definition of a violation under environmental regulations has become more professional and well defined in recent years. They pointed out that corporate are the main offenses in environmental legal cases, and usually it is difficult to make up for the aggravated party, also such cases are hard to solve.
 
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate also vowed on Monday to give clearer sentencing criterion for offenses linked to environment damage, and push for continued improvement of legal terms in environmental protection and protection of natural resources.
 
According to a report on environmental protection law enforcement in 2022, it highlighted legislative efforts in environmental protection. It pointed out there are currently more than 30 laws concerning ecological and environmental protection, over 100 administrative regulations, and over 1,000 local regulations in effect.
 
On the back of implementation efforts, China’s natural ecosystems have become stable and well managed, read the report. China's forest cover and stock volume have maintained positive growth, and the country has realized the most growth in forest resources among all countries in the world, the report noted.

Global Times