Study On The Ecological Compensation System Of Mineral Resources

Mineral resources are the material basis for human survival and development. In order to promote and maintain the rapid economic development, the demand for mineral resources of all walks of life are increasing all the time. However, the natural environment was severely damaged by the old equipments and outdated science and technology, and the unreasonably development of natural resources, and the natural resources was largely wasted. The exploiting of mineral resources brings big economic benefit for the regions that imports the resources, and only have to pay for the cost price of the mineral resources, but the exporting regions have to face the result of decreasing on quantity and quality of mineral resources, and the damage to the natural environment. Moreover, citizens and enterprises in the exporting regions may have to be forced to leave or take other unnecessary cost for the mineral resources exploiting, which may become an important reason of hindering economic and social development.Mineral resources is a kind of Quasi-public goods, it has positive externalities and negative externalities during the exploiting process: The positive externalities is the huge economic benefit for the resources developers and regions of the resources importing regions; the negative externalities is the natural environment and mineral resources problems for the resources exporting regions. The two externalities generates the conflict of interests between the economic benefit and environmental benefit, beneficiaries and losers, and the best way to coordinate the conflict of interests in between, is the mineral resources eco-compensation legal system.Mineral resources eco-compensation legal system has some similarities with mineral resources compensation system, but the previous one emphasizes on compensating the eco-value of mineral resources, and the people who has contributed to protecting, managing and maintaining the ecological environment of the mineral area. The theoretical basis of the legal theory of mineral resources eco-compensation including the basic value like Rights and Obligations Consistent Theory, Interest, Justice, etc.; the related economic theory including the Public Goods Theory, Resources Value Theory, Resource Depletion Theory, Externality Theory, and Sustainable Development Concept, etc. Currently, there’re still many problems with the mineral resources eco-compensation legal system, like: the legal system is imperfect, the compensation body and compensation area is narrow, the compensation method is too simple, the compensation standard is inappropriate, etc. Therefore, in order to perfect the mineral resources eco-compensation legal system, ensure the harmonic development of economic, environmental, and social development of our country, firstly is to establish the basic principles, like ecological principle, government-led and market-promote principle, ecological fairness principle, etc.; secondly, to perfect the legal system of mineral resources compensation, clear the compensation body, object, method and standard of mineral resources, and continuously improve them.