A GOOD ECO-ENVIRONMENT IS THE MOST INCLUSIVE CONTRIBUTOR TO PUBLIC WELLBEING

A GOOD ECO-ENVIRONMENT IS THE MOST INCLUSIVE CONTRIBUTOR TO PUBLIC WELLBEING*

April 10, 2013

Clear waters, green mountains, blue seas, and azure skies are Hainan’s greatest strengths and principal assets in the process of building the island into a tourist resort of international renown. They are treasures that cannot be bought or borrowed from others. We must cherish and take good care of them. Some 900 years ago, when Su Dongpo was ousted and exiled to Danzhou in Hainan, he wrote a number of poems depicting the scenery of the island, including the following verses: 

Who adorns the glowing moon after the clouds dissolve?
The sky and sea are translucent by nature.

A flying spring plummets ten thousand meters;
Dancing cranes rise and fall in pairs.

Red lychees crack to reveal jade white flesh;
The juice of yellow mandarins overflows.

Protecting Hainan’s eco-environment is a requirement for Hainan’s own development and for the country as a whole. China’s 1.3 billion people should have the opportunity to spend their holidays in such picturesque locations. People in Hainan bear a great and glorious responsibility in protecting the island’s ecosystem and conserving its environment. 

Reviewing the world’s history of development teaches us that protecting and improving the eco-environment means preserving and expanding productive forces. A good eco-environment is the fairest social good and the most inclusive contributor to public wellbeing. Material wealth is important for survival, but a flourishing environment is also essential and irreplaceable for happiness. If people have to live in a place where the air and drinking water are of inferior quality, how can they feel happy even though they are earning money? At the 18th National Congress of the Party in 2012, eco-environmental progress was included in the overall plan for building Chinese socialism, with an emphasis on the importance of creating a beautiful China. In the plan to build Hainan into a national model of eco-environmental progress, the central authorities expect you to pioneer a new development path featuring harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, and set an example for other regions. You should set yourselves higher requirements and adopt more effective measures on the basis of past work, so as to create a beautiful Hainan as soon as possible. 

Success in protecting the eco-environment is fundamentally determined by the economic structure and the economic growth model. Economic development should not exhaust resources or destroy the eco-environment, nor should eco-environmental protection be at odds with economic development. On the contrary, we should coordinate the two, and strike a balance between economic and social development and our population, our resources, and the environment. We should increase the efficient utilization of resources, accelerate the building of a green production model, and raise the public’s consciousness of the need to conserve resources, the environment and the ecosystems. 

As a developing region, Hainan must correctly handle the relationship between protection and development. We must fully understand that the eco-environment is the foundation stone of the province and development is the top priority in our work, and always lay equal emphasis on both aspects. We should address both symptoms and root causes, devote constant and unremitting efforts to our most prominent current problems – starting from those that most affect the people’s lives – and at the same time explore institutions and mechanisms that are effective in the long run and can unleash the enthusiasm of all parties. In so doing, we will improve the environment, protect the people’s health, and make both urban and rural areas more livable to ensure a better life for the people. 

We should focus our efforts on increasing green coverage and protecting blue oceans. 

Forests are the pillar of natural ecosystems. Local people often say that a wooden pole sunk into the ground in Hainan will sprout. We should fully use that strength, focus on the Island Afforestation project, and consolidate and expand the results in protecting natural forests and building coastal protection forests and other non-commercial forests. 

The sea is a treasure house of resources and a strategically important area that underpins our country’s future development. We must insist on coordinated development of land, sea and rivers, and adopt comprehensive policies to prevent and control marine pollution, conserve biodiversity in key ecosystems like mangrove forests, and curb soil erosion. All our efforts today that give us cleaner air and more beautiful beaches, and add green to the mountains and blue to the sea, will bequeath to our future generations a green bank for sustainable development.

* Part of the speech made at the end of a visit to Hainan Province.

(Not to be republished for any commercial or other purposes.)