Study On The Issue Of Legislation Of Wetlands Protection In China

Based on the definition of the wetlands presented and summary of their characters, this dissertation analyses the value of wetlands with emphasis. Meanwhile, I also analyzed the problems existing during utilization and protection of wetlands in China. The solutions for these problems, it means strength the protection through legislation, based on its characters and the problems, I support that setting up the special regulation for wetlands protection, including the targets, the principles and the structure of legal constructions. This dissertation is divided to three chapters, the contents and structures are arranged as follows:In the chapter one is about the concept of wetlands and the analysis of value. At first, it clearly presents the concept of wetlands, here the concept and supplement concept of"The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971)"is adopted. Later, the characters of wetlands are summarized based on the clear concept of wetlands, including three characters: firstly, wetlands always located in the cross-area between the land area and the water area, it means it is the certain area where the water and land are crossed; secondly, the area are broad and the types are various; thirdly, the various types of wetlands contain various biologic resources. Meanwhile, in this chapter, the value of wetlands is analyzed, including the introduction of economic value and the discussion of the ecological value such as adjusting of climate, sluice from flood, cleaning the water resource, providing the living space for animals and plants, protection of the diversity of living things, and so on, and on this basis it analyses the integral ecological value of wetland with emphasis.Chapter two mainly introduces the problems that occur during the utilization and protection of wetlands in China, including not only the unreasonable utilization of the wetlands resources, but also ignoring the integral protection of wetlands.About the unreasonable utilization of the wetlands resources, it happens in the manner of over-utilization of wetlands resources, it means people concern so much about the achievement of economic value that the ecological value is ignored, that is to say, the cost of achievement of economic value is the loss of ecological value; meanwhile, wetlands resources also are polluted in various degrees, and this kind of pollutions is trend to more serious, which are caused mostly by the unreasonable utilization. The over utilization of wetlands resources and more serious pollutions in China, in other words, the problems of unreasonable utilization mainly manifest in several aspects as follows: firstly, the continuous decrease of the areas of natural wetlands; secondly, the diversity of living things is destroyed; thirdly, pollutions are more and more serious.Ignoring integral protection of wetlands manifests that the wetlands are not protected as independent resource; instead the various wetlands are separated and adopted in the area of other regulations. Nowadays, China has several regulations which are referred to the related wetlands resources (including land resource of wetlands, animals and plants of wetlands, and so on.) These regulations refers the ownership, the utilization and protection of resource, the liability of these behaviors destroying resources and so on, and it especially specific provide the reclaiming and cultivating of beaches, lakes, rivers and grasslands, the hunting of wild animals and picking of wild plants, the utilization and protection of the earth's surface and underground, the utilization and protection of fishery. However, after viewing the related regulations which are referred to wetlands, there are problems, including the lack of unification of the form of legislations, unclear regulations about ownerships of wetlands, and confusion of administration.Chapter three contains thinking in terms of the legal protection for the wetlands in China. It mainly discusses three aspects on wetlands protective legislation including the targets, the basic principles and specific legal system. It is an effective approach to protect the wetlands as an independent resource system through specific legislation of wetlands and the enacting of related systems. I will make comprehensive analysis of the value of wetlands as well as the problems existed in China presently during wetlands utilization and protection, concerning the problems, I believe that, on the basis of value analysis of the wetlands resources, the sustainable development concept and target should be represented in the legislation in order to coordinate wetlands economic and ecological value and maintain the integral ecological effect.Legislation should be perfected on the basis of the sustainable development target. It is necessary to discuss related institutions and regulations, although all of them cannot be listed. In this passage the illustration of the legal principles and purpose is the mainstay as well as the leading of relative legal proposals. Only under the guide by the basic principles of legislation, specific legislations could have a clear direction in order to achieve a positive situation of cooperation and coordination. Based on the problems existing in wetlands utilization and protection, I would like to propose some legal principles to lead related institutions and regulations: firstly, principle of combining the wetlands protection and reasonable utilization; secondly, principle of combining precaution and post-remedy; thirdly, principle of wetlands integral protection; fourthly, principle of public participation; fifthly, principle of wetlands compensable usage.The formulating of wetlands protection law needs a strong support of theory and complicated skills, which are referred to many aspects. This dissertation, on the basis of related legislation current status, will discuss the ideal status (the status the law should be) of part of the setting of the regulations, presenting some thoughts and proposals on the legislation in line with the problems existing in wetlands utilization and protection. The proposals are as follows: firstly, environmental influence evaluating system; secondly, wetlands resources development license-granting system; thirdly, ecological compensation system; fourthly, ownership identification of wetlands as an overall resource system; fifthly, clearance of administrative powers and boundaries; the sixth, wetlands nature reserve system; the seventh, public participating system; the eighth, wetlands liability system. Wetlands protection needs the efforts of the whole society, which is referred to concrete jobs of different sectors. It also depends on the strength of the public awareness to the environment and resource protection. To protect wetlands, from the perspective of law, we should consider the feasibility and pragmatism of the regulations in the practice. According to the problems existing in China presently during wetlands utilization and protection and on the basis of value analysis, this dissertation proposes the principles of sustainable development of protecting wetlands through specific regulations and gives some suggestions on the enacting of part of the related institutions. The legislation of protecting wetlands in China is a systematic job with twists and turns. We need to make our efforts to support legal protection of the wetlands theoretically and pragmatically.