13.14% of the land and sea territories in Jiangsu have been designated as the ecological “red line” that will be put under mandatory and rigorous protection, according to the Jiangsu Provincial National Ecological Protection Redline Plan approved by the State Council and released by the provincial government recently.
18,150.34 square kilometers are included in the mandatory area of the state-level ecological protection red line in the province, accounting for 13.14% of the total land and sea territories. Among them, the land-based ecological protection red line area accounted for 8.21% of the land area of the entire province. The marine ecological protection red line area accounted for 27.83% of the jurisdictional sea area of the province.
The designated area covers the extremely important areas of ecological function and extremely sensitive ecological environment in Jiangsu. The plan will further solve the problem of low ecosystem service function, continuous ecological space depletion, shrinking wetland area, continuous threat to biodiversity and the harsh reality of marine ecological environment.
The central authorities issued a guideline in February last year on an ecological “red line” that will declare certain regions under mandatory and rigorous protection.
By the end of 2020, according to the document, China should have clearly defined the “red line.”
Given that China’s ecological environment remains fragile and the environmental safety situation is pretty grim, the ecological “red line” serves as both a “bottom line” and a “lifeline” in safeguarding national ecological safety, according to the document.
The “red line” strategy will cover regions with important ecological functions, including water and soil conservation, biodiversity maintenance as well as windbreak and sand-fixation, along with ecologically fragile regions which are prone to soil erosion, desertification and salinization.
By the end of 2020, the demarcation of the border and calibration of the regions should be completed and an ecological protection “red line” system will be basically established.
By 2030, the layout of the ecological protection “red line” will be further optimized, effectively implemented, the ecological function of the regions promoted, and national ecological safety guaranteed, according to the document.
The move aims to ensure protected regions will not be ecologically degraded, and their acreage will not be decreased.
（Source: Jiangsu International Channel)
