The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA)
yesterday awarded national environmental prizes to 10 projects,
selected from more than 160 candidates.
"This is the first prize set up by the nation to mark
achievements in building an environmentally-friendly society," SEPA
Director Zhou Shengxian said at the award ceremony.
With a total investment of 108 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion),
the 10 "green" schemes are mainly key state or provincial
projects.
They involve pipeline transportation, railway and expressway
construction, hydropower and thermal power plants and real estate,
SEPA officials said.
Among the winners were the West-East Gas Pipeline by PetroChina, the
Ertan hydropower project on the Yalong River, and the first phase
of the cleaning up of Suzhou River in Shanghai.
"These projects have set good examples," Zhou said.
Local governments at all levels should not invite investment by
sacrificing the environmental interests of local people, he
added.
The establishment of the award marks an important shift in
environmental protection from treating the effects of pollution to
prevention, said Zhou.
"The West-East Gas Pipeline project has not only avoided the
destruction of environmentally sensitive and cultural sites, but
has also introduced ecological repair programs for the first time,"
said Zhou.
Statistics indicate that a total of 732 million yuan (US$90
million) was invested to protect soil erosion along the
4,000-kilometer-long pipeline.
Environmental degradation is a pressing problem in many areas
and includes water, air and soil pollution, as well as the threats
poised by waste and noise in cities, experts warned.
One reason behind environmental problems is the backward
economic development mode employed in the country, in which
investment and consumption are more important than recycling and
efficiency, they said.
China's environmental woes are steadily growing and costing the
economy around US$200 billion each year, according to a newly
published SEPA report.
(China Daily June 10, 2006)