Sea reclamation to be strictly controlled

Sea reclamation will be strictly controlled in coastal provinces and municipalities in China due to fear over ecological destruction, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) announced on its website on Monday.

All coastal regions now have to maintain local ecosystems, cooperate with other departments to reasonably exploit and protect the ocean and its resources , and scientifically define and draw ecological "red lines," creating protected zones and drafting policies for these zones, according to a press release posted on the MLR website.

Sea reclamation has been important in China's industrial transformation, creating space, increasing development potential and improving urban layouts in some coastal provinces, but the impact of industry and poor space management has harmed ecosystems, the press release said.

Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said that uncontrolled sea reclamation does more harm than good to the country.

"Marine life, like fish and shellfish, and marine plants, like coral and mangroves, declined in numbers by various degrees over the past decade. China's natural coastline has been shrinking, and that's all caused by sea reclamation in recent years," Ma told the Global Times.

Due to soaring land prices, many coastal cities like Dalian in Liaoning Province, Tianjin Municipality and Sanya in Hainan Province turned their eyes to the ocean, and built airports or factories on reclaimed land, which has caused great harm to their local ecosystems, said Ma.

The Dalian government plans to invest tens of billions of yuan to build the "biggest airport on top of the ocean" over the next five years via sea reclamation, the Dalian Daily reported.

Tianjin has been reclaiming land from the sea for many years and is currently working on creating a total of 320 square kilometers of land from the Bohai Sea to build an international shipping center, according to news portal chinanews.com.

Statistics from the State Oceanic Administration showed that a total of 19,989 hectares of land was reclaimed last year, and 92 percent of the reclaimed land was used for construction.

The Chinese government vowed to establish sound systems to monitor oceanic ecosystems during the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee. It vowed to better protect the natural environment and manage land reclamation, and banned reclamation in regions where the ocean has a low self-purification capacity.

China should limit land reclamation and strengthen environment assessment systems in fragile and sensitive coastal regions which have important ocean resources such as mangroves and nationally protected animals, Ma suggested.