Great rivers and rivers are rushing endlessly.
Water control is related to the prosperity of the country and the people, and it is related to the prosperity of the year.
The two mother rivers, the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, nurtured the Chinese nation and gave birth to the national spirit of the Chinese nation.
Protecting the clean water of a river and keeping the great river safe is the beautiful expectation of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation.
Following the development strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the strategy of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin was proposed, and the country's "river strategy" was established.
As an important achievement in promoting the rule of law of the country's "river strategy", the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress passed two river basin-specific legislation, the Yangtze River Protection Law and the Yellow River Protection Law, which elevated the Party Central Committee's water control policy to law and promoted good laws and good governance in the river basin.
This is not only the formulation of new laws and the improvement of the legal system of water control, but also the crystallization of the wisdom of river governance in my country. It reflects the transformation of all elements of river governance in terms of concepts, strategies, and systems, and marks that the governance and protection of river basins have entered a new historical stage. .
To realize the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, we must implement water control according to the law, continue to protect and manage the mother river, and further implement the Yangtze River Protection Law and the Yellow River Protection Law.
How to understand the meaning and influence of river basin-specific legislation on river governance?
How effective is the legislation?
What are the problems facing the implementation of the law in the next step?
The reporter conducted an interview and research a few days ago.
Rule of Law Leads River Basin Governance
In 2016, the "Outline of the Development Plan for the Yangtze River Economic Belt" was issued.
Four years later, on December 26, 2020, the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of the Yangtze River" was approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and will come into force on March 1, 2021.
For the Yangtze River protection legislation, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress implemented the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, completed the drafting and deliberation work in two years, and released the full text of the draft twice to the public for comments and suggestions.
This law has 9 chapters and 96 articles, which clearly define planning and control, resource protection, water pollution prevention and control, ecological environment restoration, green development, guarantee and supervision, and legal responsibilities.
Since the implementation of the law, positive progress has been made in governing and protecting the river and rejuvenating the river according to law.
On December 28, 2022, at the 38th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People's Congress, the report of the Law Enforcement Inspection Team of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the inspection of the implementation of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of the Yangtze River showed that the quality of the water environment in the Yangtze River Basin Continue to improve, and the quality of economic development continues to improve. In 2021, 97.1% of the nationally controlled sections of the Yangtze River Basin will have excellent water quality, and the water quality of the main stream of the Yangtze River will reach Class II standards for two consecutive years.
Ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin are major national strategies.
In 2021, the "Yellow River Basin Ecological Protection and High-quality Development Planning Outline" will be issued.
Only one year apart, on October 30, 2022, the "Yellow River Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" was voted and passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and will come into effect on April 1, 2023.
The law further clarifies the goals and key measures of this major national strategy.
The Yellow River Protection Law passed 11 chapters and 122 articles, which basically covered the key and difficult issues in the protection and management of the Yellow River, and scientifically established a legal system for the management and protection of the Yellow River Basin.
The law integrates new development concepts throughout the legislation, and plays an important role in accelerating the green transformation of development methods, protecting, inheriting and promoting the Yellow River culture, and promoting high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin.
In the name of legislation, lead the reform of the river basin governance pattern.
"The legislation on river basin protection is a law that has not been enacted and is difficult to introduce in the past due to its wide scope and difficulty in coordination." Wang Canfa, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said that the formulation of the Yangtze River Protection Law and the Yellow River Protection Law, two river basin protection laws On the one hand, it adapts to the needs of the new era of comprehensively building a modern socialist country; on the other hand, it also enriches and improves my country's ecological and environmental protection legal system.
Tailor-made outstanding features
The upper, middle and lower reaches of major rivers, the main and tributaries, the left and right banks have different natural environments, and economic and social development conditions. Watershed legislation needs to coordinate the relationship between the upper, middle and lower reaches, between the central and local governments, between different industries, and between different laws.
This situation is not only without precedent in China, but also very different from foreign legislation on river basins.
There are many institutional innovations and breakthroughs in the Yangtze River Protection Law.
Based on practical experience, the Yangtze River Protection Law is rooted in the characteristics of the river basin, goes beyond the scope of existing administrative regional management, and formulates systematic and targeted regulations.
This is different from the vertical legislation model of other laws in the past.
The "Yangtze River Basin" in the Yangtze River Protection Law is not a geographical concept, but refers to the relevant county-level administrative areas involved in the catchment area formed by the main stream, tributaries and lakes of the Yangtze River.
In response to institutional and institutional issues such as division of departments and regions faced in the protection of the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River Protection Law adheres to the concept of system, strengthens the overall coordination of planning, policies and major issues, and effectively enhances the system, integrity and coordination of the protection of the Yangtze River at the legal level. Promote the coordinated governance of the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, rivers, lakes, left and right banks, and main and tributary streams, and promote the ecological and environmental protection of the Yangtze River Basin from "divided rivers and governance" to "joint governance."
"Strengthening river basin legislation is an urgent need to focus on solving special and prominent problems in river basins." Sun Youhai, executive director of the China Green Development Research Institute of Tianjin University and vice president of the China Environmental and Resources Law Research Association, said that taking the Yellow River as an example, it has a mud-covered volume. It is one of the rivers in the world with the highest sediment content, serious water damage, and the most difficult governance. Harnessing the Yellow River has always been a major issue related to the governance of the country.
Sun Youhai said that the management system of the Yellow River Basin still needs to be improved, control measures need to be strengthened, ecological protection and restoration, rigid constraints on water resources, water and sediment control and flood control safety, and pollution prevention and control systems need to be improved.
In response to these problems, the Yellow River Protection Law responded one by one.
Yuan Jie, director of the Administrative Law Office of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said in his interpretation of the Yellow River Protection Law that the Yellow River Protection Law clarifies the scope of legal application, improves the management system, strengthens planning and control, and is conducive to strengthening ecological environment protection and promoting the conservation and intensive use of water resources. , Ensure that the Yellow River is harmless, promote high-quality development, protect, inherit and carry forward the Yellow River culture and make targeted regulations.
Rivers are natural water systems as a whole, and the elements of watershed protection and management are inseparable.
At the same time, "tailor-made" legislation according to the characteristics of different river basins is conducive to strengthening the rigid constraints of protection and governance systems.
For example, focusing on the particularity of "water, soil and sand" in the Yellow River Basin and the current problems, we will improve the basin-wide measures and systems by emphasizing water conservation, soil consolidation and sand control, and focus on the planning and control of the entire basin as well as ecological protection and restoration.
Promote conservation and coordinated development
To protect and manage major rivers, we must adhere to the strategic positioning of ecological priority and green development.
The "green" content of the watershed reflects the "gold" content.
The Yangtze River Protection Law is first and foremost a law on the protection of the ecological environment, highlighting "jointly grasping great protection and not engaging in large-scale development".
According to statistics, from 2021 to 2022, the Ministry of Finance has arranged a total of 440.775 billion yuan in transfer payments related to the protection of the Yangtze River, an increase of 11.26 percentage points in 2022 compared with the previous year.
From 2021 to 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission has arranged a cumulative investment of more than 50 billion yuan in the central budget to support the construction of major projects related to the protection of the Yangtze River.
For enterprises along the Yangtze River, the implementation of the Yangtze River Protection Law seems to be "splashing cold water", but it actually puts forward higher requirements for transformation and upgrading.
Li Guozhang, chairman of Yichang Xingfa Group Co., Ltd., is one of the promoters of the great protection of the Yangtze River.
At the Second Session of the Thirteenth National People's Congress in 2019, as a representative of the National People's Congress, he put forward suggestions on increasing support for the "customs reform and relocation" of chemical companies along the Yangtze River, supporting the construction of a beautiful Yangtze River and ecological Yangtze River, and promoting Xingfa Group It is the first to be implemented in chemical enterprises in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
Xingfa Group's efforts to protect the Yangtze River have played a good role model among chemical companies along the Yangtze River.
It is understood that all chemical companies within 1 kilometer of the Yangtze River, Han River, and Qingjiang River in Hubei Province will complete the "customs reform and transfer" in June 2021.
One river and one river should not only seek protection wholeheartedly, but also make concerted efforts to promote the coordination of protection and development.
During the law enforcement inspection by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, various localities reported that there were insufficient supporting provisions for some concepts in the law, which affected the implementation of the law.
For example, the county-level administrative regions that apply the Yangtze River Protection Law are not clear enough, how to delineate the range of "one kilometer" and "three kilometers" is not clear enough, "chemical projects", "along the river and lake" and "productive fishing" need to be refined, " Whether the "tributary below the second level" belongs to the scope of application of the law is still controversial in implementation.
Some localities and departments pointed out that because administrative regulations such as the Yangtze River Sand Mining Management Regulations, Fishery Law Implementation Rules, and Nature Reserve Regulations were promulgated and implemented prior to the Yangtze River Protection Law, there were problems such as inconsistent definition of legal concepts and poor connection of relevant regulations.
Relevant localities and departments have proposed plans to abolish and revise relevant laws and regulations, but they have not yet been fully completed.
Watershed protection legislation provides institutional guarantees for comprehensive governance and collaborative governance.
Wang Canfa said that the key to the role of river basin protection legislation lies in the implementation and compliance of laws. Relevant national departments, local people's governments at all levels, and enterprises and institutions in river basins should each fulfill their responsibilities and implement relevant laws and regulations according to law.
At the same time, it is necessary to give full play to the safeguarding role of procuratorial public interest litigation supervision and environmental resources judicial trial, and promote the high-quality development of river basins and the construction of ecological civilization with fair and green justice.
Regarding the implementation of the law, Sun Youhai suggested that we should give full play to the role of the overall planning and coordination mechanism for river basin governance.
Both the Yangtze River Protection Law and the Yellow River Protection Law stipulate that the state establishes an overall planning and coordination mechanism for river basins to comprehensively guide, coordinate and coordinate the ecological protection of river basins.
Relevant provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) may, according to their needs, establish a provincial coordination mechanism to organize and coordinate efforts to promote the ecological protection of river basins in their administrative regions.
"It is recommended that the relevant departments fully perform their duties in accordance with the provisions of the law, and provide effective institutional and institutional guarantees for strengthening river basin governance through the efficient operation of the coordination mechanism." (Reporter Li Wanxiang)