新闻
Over 20 years after Beijing began looking for ways to improve air quality in one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the developing world, it now provides a model for others to follow, according to a report released ahead of the UN Environment Assembly on Saturday.
Research by UN Environment and the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau (BEE) outlines how Beijing’s air quality program has evolved, and makes recommendations for the near-, medium-, and long-term that Beijing can take to maintain its momentum toward clean air.
The report, A Review of 20 years’ Air Pollution Control in Beijing, was compiled by a UN Environment-led team of international and Chinese experts over two years. It covers 1998 to the end of 2017.
The recent ban on ordinary tourists entering the core zone of Qomolangma National Nature Reserve is aimed at restoring the area’s vulnerable ecosystem after years of rapid tourism development, a spokesman from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Thursday.
To restore Qomolangma’s ecological balance, the ministry amended mountaineering regulations and environmental protection rules enforced by local authorities under which the number of climbers is restricted. Climbers will also be required to receive ecological protection lectures and carry out 8 kilograms of waste when they depart.
Also, inspections have been enhanced to regulate tourist attractions at altitudes below 5,200 meters, and regular cleanups are underway to remove waste around the base camp.
The Tibet autonomous region has been making great efforts to protect its natural environment and has vowed to maintain the region as one of Earth’s purest landscapes.
At the annual sessions of the region’s people’s congress and political advisory body in January, authorities called for more pollution control through greater input and efforts this year.
“Tibet remains one of the best ecological environments in the world,” said Qi Zhala, chairman of the regional government, during the congress earlier this year. “In 2019, our goal is to achieve the targets for energy consumption, carbon intensity and pollution reduction set by the State, with major cities seeing fairly good air quality on more than 95 percent of days.”
A snow leopard protection project in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has made achievements after monitoring the species in the eastern Tianshan mountains, a major habitat of the species, this winter.
The monitoring work was jointly launched by the local forestry administration bureau of the eastern Tianshan mountains and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in September 2018. A total of 60 infrared cameras have been scattered across the largest state-owned forest in the central and eastern Tianshan mountains, covering an area of around 550 square kilometers.
China has been continuously strengthening wildlife protection efforts in recent years. The snow leopard is a Class-A protected animal in China and the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies it as endangered-to-vulnerable.