The Wanfeng Lake project has become a model of ecological environmental protection with practical guiding significance

Reporter Yuan Guofeng

"From the black and odorous water body before the case handling to today's lake of clear water, from the first stage of illegal cage cleaning to the second stage of ecological fishery development, completely negate the erroneous development idea of 'pollution first, then governance', 'only look at economic benefits, not emphasize environmental protection', and then urge relevant governments to explore ecological breeding under the premise of ecological priority and scientific breeding, and strive to become a vivid practice of procuratorial organs in cross-regional public interest litigation to help 'green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains', breaking the 'zero-sum game' of environmental protection and economic development 'Green Water and Green Mountain' is 'Jinshan Yinshan', taking the road of ecological priority and green development, and setting up a model
with practical guiding significance.

More than half of the cases in the field of ecological and environmental protection are involved

Since the full implementation of the procuratorial public interest litigation system on July 1, 2017, as of August 31, 2022, procuratorial organs have filed and handled a total of 702,000 public interest litigation cases, of which 353,000 are in the field of ecological environment and resource protection, accounting for more than 50%
of public interest litigation cases.

Zhang Xueqiao introduced that in November 2019, the Guizhou Provincial People's Procuratorate reported to the Supreme People's Procuratorate the clues
of public interest litigation cases on ecological and environmental pollution in the Wanfeng Lake Basin.

After comprehensive analysis and judgment, in December 2019, the Supreme People's Procuratorate decided to directly file
a public interest lawsuit based on the fact that the ecological environment of the Wanfeng Lake Basin was damaged.

Zhang Xueqiao said that the release of the Wanfeng Lake Project Guiding Case highlights the unique value role of public interest litigation procuratorates in solving the problem of damage to the ecological environment across regional divisions, and at the same time plays an exemplary and leading role
in the direct handling of public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection by people's procuratorates at or above the provincial level, the use of the integrated procuratorial case-handling model, and the procuratorial organs' promotion of litigation source governance with case-handling as the center.

Adhere to the concept of ecological priority development

According to reports, Wanfeng Lake was originally beautiful in mountains and waters, because of blind development, disorderly breeding, resulting in increasingly serious pollution in the river basin, although through the central ecological environmental protection inspectorate, Guizhou Province, Yunnan Province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region under the jurisdiction of the lake area has successively carried out governance actions, but because of the three provinces (regions) five counties (cities), upstream and downstream, left and right shores of the governance propositions and implementation standards are not uniform, the river basin pollution has been delayed for many years has not been able to eradicate
.

Zhang Xueqiao said that the primary goal of the Wanfeng Lake project is to clean up the cages, and the case was handled at the beginning of the case to encounter "hard bones", Guangxi F Group's G Fishery Co.

"At the crossroads of where to go, we adhere to the path of ecological priority and green development, and will never change the goal
of cleaning up illegal cages.

The integrated case-handling model has shown results

When referring to the guiding significance of this case, Zhang Xueqiao said that first, for the clues of public interest damage that are complicated and it is difficult to determine the object of supervision for a while, a case can be filed
based on the facts of public interest damage.

In the specific handling of cases, focus on what aspects to perform their duties in accordance with the law, so that the "Pearl of Pinghu" can regain its glory?

"As the first public interest litigation case directly filed and handled by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, many unexpected problems have arisen in the process of handling, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate has made active explorations
in terms of handling concepts, case-handling models, and working mechanisms.

First, the Supreme People's Procuratorate directly files a case, with the chief procurator serving as the lead procurator, reflecting responsibility and strengthening the intensity of
case handling.

China Food News (2022-09-27 03 edition)

(Editor-in-charge: Yuan Guofeng)