【Front-line narration】
Editor's note
Protecting the Yellow River is a great plan for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. On April 4, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of the Yellow River came into force. As a basic, comprehensive and overarching special law for the Yellow River Basin, the promulgation and implementation of the Yellow River Protection Law has given the protection and governance of the Yellow River "iron rules" and "hard levers". How to gather forces to promote the implementation of the Yellow River Protection Law? And listen to what these grassroots workers who guard the Yellow River have to say...
The flower of rule of law blooms everywhere in the source of the Yellow River
Narrator: Gao Yue, Vice President of the People's Court of Maduo County, Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province
After thousands of calls, the Yellow River Protection Law was officially implemented, and I felt more confident and burdened.
The ancients said that "the water of the Yellow River comes from the sky", in fact, the water of the Yellow River comes from Maduo. In Tibetan, "Maduo" means "source of the Yellow River." Maduo County is known as the "County of a Thousand Lakes", and the whole area is in the core area of the Yellow River Source Park of Sanjiangyuan National Park. In the 20s of the 80th century, long-term overgrazing and natural disasters led to serious vegetation damage in Maduo County, grassland degradation, lake shrinkage, wind and sand, and the former beauty was no longer beautiful.
In order to restore the grassland and protect the mother river, Maduo County has implemented measures such as banning grazing and resting grazing. Since 2019, the Maduo County People's Court has begun to carry out targeted publicity on ecological environmental protection for farmers and herdsmen. More than 1,5 people in the county are scattered on the 2,53 square kilometers of plateau, and it is not easy to popularize the law and leave no one behind. So, every month, the staff of the Mado Court formed a "propaganda team on horseback" to bring legal knowledge to the tents of fellow villagers.
Set up tables, hang banners, distribute bilingual Tibetan and Chinese pamphlets... A lecture on the rule of law of "protecting the source of the three rivers and starting with me" began in the blue sky and green grass. Some older Ake and Ani (Tibetan uncles and aunts) were slow to understand laws and regulations, so we combined real cases to transform "French in French" into plain and easy-to-understand spoken language.
Once, the propaganda team came to Baimana Village in Huanghe Township. After the lecture, a little girl ran to us, pointed to the text on the brochure and asked, why can't the plastic bottle after drinking water be buried directly on the grassland? After the colleagues answered, the little girl flashed her big eyes and jumped to join the team to clean up the garbage. This little figure made me understand the meaning of law popularization and preaching. Every quarter, we will also go to the ecological environmental protection station to train ecological stewards on the rule of law. Recently, some village cadres have taken the initiative to "invite lessons" to us, hoping that through systematic and detailed legal training, farmers and herdsmen can thoroughly understand the Yellow River Protection Law. The needs of the masses are our mission, and we will continue to preach widely so that the flower of the rule of law can blossom into the source of the Yellow River.
The "good remedy" allows the Yellow River to rush forward
Narrator: Shi Xiao, Deputy Chief of the Comprehensive Section of the Water Administration Service Center of the Gansu Provincial Water Resources Department
"The Yellow River Protection Law has set up a special chapter on 'conservation and intensive utilization of water resources'. I hope you can lead your family and friends to develop good habits of saving water in your life..."A few days ago, in the Lanjingchang Community in Lanzhou City, we went into the homes of residents to preach and gave them small gifts such as water-saving faucets and publicity masks.
In order to do a good job in popularizing the law, we not only set up a consultation booth for water-related laws and regulations in the community, but also cooperated with Northwest Normal University to carry out a water-saving short video contest and send themed publicity public welfare short messages...
When I first came to the water service center, I often held some law books in my hand and put them next to my pillow, looked at them more at my leisure, and memorized them again before going to bed, but I still didn't understand deeply enough. Gradually, I realized that only by analyzing jurisprudence through concrete cases and turning abstraction into concrete can the seeds of the rule of law be "planted" in the hearts of the people. Therefore, my colleagues and I have organized a series of activities to popularize the law, such as "entering institutions", "entering schools" and "entering communities". Every time I hear the students' vow to "love the mother river, start from the little things, make the sky bluer and the water greener", and every time I get the affirmative answer from the community residents that "we must learn the law, know the law, understand the law, and abide by the law", the belief in adhering to the law popularization becomes more and more firm in my mind.
After the work of the river and lake chief system was fully launched, I often carried out water administrative law enforcement work such as supervision and inspection of the Lanzhou section of the Yellow River, its tributaries, and mountain flood channels. In the face of the problem of dumping garbage in the river, I will ask the responsible township and illegal individuals to rectify on the spot until the standards are met; In the face of illegal construction in rivers, ultra-deep and over-range sand mining, and the "four chaos" problems of rivers and lakes, I will visit nearby residents to understand the situation, record the points and build accounts, put forward rectification requirements and time limits, complete rectification in one place, and list one number... With the joint efforts of everyone, the river channel is unblocked and the scenery is beautiful. In the future, my colleagues and I will make good use of the law as a good governance remedy to keep the Yellow River flowing forward and never stopping.
Send the law to the enterprise to protect the "happy water" together
Narrator: He Xiaoying, fourth-level researcher of the Law Enforcement Supervision Bureau of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
Protecting the water of the Yellow River and the "water of happiness" is the unshirkable responsibility of the sons and daughters along the river. I have been engaged in environmental law enforcement inspection for more than 10 years, and I have used legal weapons to "decontaminate and detoxify" the mother river countless times. Especially since Ningxia was given the mission of "building a pilot zone for ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin" in 2020, it has successively issued laws and regulations, focusing on the use of good laws to ensure good governance. Now that the Yellow River Protection Law is in place, we have more confidence in protecting the mother river.
The whole territory of Ningxia belongs to the Yellow River Basin, and the risk points of pollution discharge into the Yellow River are wide-ranging. In the past two years, with all the yellow discharge outlets being sealed, the discharge of non-compliance has become less and less. Despite strict defense, there are still "fish that slip through the net". In April 2021, during a routine inspection, we found clues at a chemical company in northern Ningxia, just 4 kilometers from the Yellow River. The slightly turbid water seepage on the ground made us sense that something was wrong, and immediately checked the source of the company's wastewater, and checked the discharge and pollution discharge permit in the factory area. Later, the local ecological environment monitoring station carried out monitoring of the wastewater discharge outlets, manholes and groundwater monitoring wells suspected of exceeding the standard, and conducted on-site quality control sample comparison. The evidence was in front of us, and the company's environmental violations were "firmly established", and we immediately asked the local ecological and environmental authorities to file a case for punishment.
After years of law enforcement inspections, although the staff have practiced the "golden eye", everyone is clear: the key to making the supervision during and after the event more accurate, more transparent and more systematic lies in the source. Since 2021, we and the Environmental Development Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment have jointly carried out the "Research on the Standardization Model of Ecological and Environmental Law Enforcement Based on the Pollution Discharge Permit System", and at the same time upgraded the Ningxia ecological environment mobile law enforcement system, embedded the project results "Pollution Discharge Permit 'One Certificate' Law Enforcement Supervision List" into it and promoted its use, taking the lead in promoting the "one-certificate" law enforcement of pollution discharge permits nationwide. To put it simply, it is to combine the actual situation of local enterprises, organize the implementation of the enterprise's ecological management system, the standardized construction of sewage outlets and pollution control facilities, pollutant emission concentration and emission monitoring, and other law enforcement contents to form a law enforcement list, and link to the ecological environment mobile law enforcement app. In this way, every enterprise, once logged in to the software, its pollutant type, concentration, emissions, emission destination, etc. are clear at a glance, and it is difficult for the "wind and grass" of corporate environmental protection to escape our "electronic eyes". In the past two years, the "one-certificate" list law enforcement of pollution discharge permits has basically achieved full coverage of typical industries in Ningxia, such as thermal power, iron and steel, sewage treatment, coal chemical industry, and livestock and poultry breeding, and initially formed an environmental supervision and management system of "enterprises holding certificates and abiding by the law, government supervision according to evidence, and joint supervision by the whole society".
During our enforcement inspections, we found that some companies were unaware of their illegal emissions because they were not familiar with the law, and did not regret it until they accepted penalties. This makes us reflect that law enforcement inspections cannot be blindly supervised, but also do a good job in legal popularization services. Therefore, we "send the law to the enterprise", regularly communicate with the enterprise, and explain face-to-face the problems that the enterprise does not have a thorough grasp of the law and is easy to touch the bottom line.
With the efforts of all parties, protecting the waters of the Yellow River has become the consciousness of action of more people. I will work with you to learn and thoroughly study the Yellow River Protection Law, and fulfill my responsibility to protect the Mother River.
Be a loyal guardian of the Mother River
Narrator: Yang Lei, section chief of the water administration and water resources section of the Yellow River Bureau of Xingyang, Henan Province and deputy captain of the water administration supervision brigade
On March 3, in the People's Square of Xingyang City, the signing ceremony of "Publicizing and Implementing the Yellow River Protection Law Xingyang in Action" was crowded and the atmosphere was warm. "If everyone can act consciously in the future, the environment by the Yellow River in Xingyang will definitely be better." The words of a citizen echoed in my ears, expressing our unchanging original intention to protect the Mother River.
The water administration supervision brigade of the Xingyang Yellow River Bureau has a total of 5 people, which is responsible for river patrol and water administrative law enforcement supervision in the 45.68-kilometer river channel and more than 14,2017 mu beach area in the Xingyang jurisdiction. Since 2019, all illegal sand quarries within the river channel of Xingyang District have been banned. However, driven by high profits, illegal sand mining still occurs from time to time. One morning in 1, we were closely watching the movements of illegal sand miners for more than a week. After arranging the law enforcement vehicles blocking the intersection, I quickly led the law enforcement officers of the Water Administration Supervision Brigade to approach the construction area. Amid the roar of the machines, we controlled the few workers present with lightning speed. One of them also tried to resist, but fortunately no one was injured. Afterwards, a colleague asked me: Aren't you afraid of accidents? To be honest, I really didn't think about it so much at that time, but instinctively felt that the mission was on my shoulders and obligatory.
The promulgation and implementation of the Yellow River Protection Law has solved many former "jam points". For example, in the past, the work of water administration involved multiple departments, and coordination was very laborious. The Yellow River Protection Law clearly states that "the state shall establish an overall coordination mechanism for ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin" and "provinces and autonomous regions in the Yellow River Basin may establish a provincial-level coordination mechanism as needed", which comprehensively solves the cross-regional and cross-departmental protection and governance problems of the Yellow River Basin, which not only provides a legal guarantee for our grassroots river affairs departments to administer according to law, but also strengthens our confidence in the future.
Watching the Mother River glow through our years of dedication makes us proud. With the power of the rule of law to protect the Mother River, we have confidence and determination.
The "ecological sheriff" guards the mouth of the Yellow River
Narrator: Liu Wendeng, police officer of the Joint Office of the "Ecological Sheriff" of the Dongying Branch of the Dongying Public Security Bureau in Shandong Province
The surging Yellow River rushes to Dongying into the sea. Longju Town, the first stop of the Yellow River into Dongying, has 4,214 acres of forest farms and attracts 2010 species of birds. Since 19, it has been my sacred duty to protect the Yellow River: I have not only to popularize legal knowledge to more than 2,<> villagers in <> villages along the Yellow River, but also to educate tourists on the law and guide them to protect the Yellow River.
In order to get the "preventive vaccination", every month I would contact the "two committees" of several villages, sometimes holding village meetings, sometimes going to the villagers' courtyard for heart-to-heart meetings, so that the people in the villages along the Yellow River knew the importance of guarding the Yellow River. We have also produced brochures to publicize companies and farmers.
With the heating up of tourism brought about by the improvement of the ecological environment, we have shifted our focus to protecting the safety of the Yellow River forest and preventing water pollution. In early summer, the Yellow River Dam is picturesque and full of tourists. A few auxiliary police officers and I patrolled the dam every day, correcting uncivilized behaviors such as throwing garbage on the ground by tourists, and guiding them to take care of the environment...
In 2022, the Dongying public security organ implemented "ecological policing", "general policing" and "rural policing", and Dongying District also took the lead in developing public welfare posts in the province, setting up ecological inspectors along the yellow in Longju Town. I was fortunate to be a police officer in the joint office of the "ecological police chief" of the Dongying branch of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, and 168 ecological inspectors along the yellow road assisted in the work.
In cooperation with the Yellow River authorities, we installed or updated a series of cameras to monitor the situation of the Yellow River and its banks in real time at multiple points; Closely weave a "guardian net", give full play to the role of ecological inspectors along the yellow road, and promptly detect and stop acts such as indiscriminate logging, shore fishing, use of open fires, and taking soil and sand.
After the implementation of the Yellow River Protection Law, our "ecological sheriff" will also come up with new tricks to send legal knowledge to more citizens through pictures, texts, videos and other forms on mobile phones. Protecting the Mother River requires you and me to work together to protect Anlan.
Project team: reporter Zhang Sheng, Wang Wenjing, Wan Majia, Song Xiqun, Wang Bingya, Wang Jianhong, Zhang Wenpan, Wang Shengxi, Zhao Qiuli, Feng Fan, Jin Hao, Wang Simin trainee reporter Li Chunjian Guangming Network reporter Zhan Zhao Correspondent Xu Shuxia and Wang Manman