To Explore the Identification of Ecological Environment Damage from Cases like Takeaway Tableware, Electric Shock Earthworm, and Water Quality Assessment, etc. | ZHOU Talks about Ecological Civilization (Lecture 252)

 The content of this article is compiled from the speech of Dr. ZHOU Jinfeng, secretary-general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), at the "Seminar on Ecological Environmental Damage Assessment and High-quality Development Theory and Technology in Northeast China".This article is the fourth in a series of manuscripts compiled from this speech, and is included in the 252nd lecture of Zhou Talks about Ecological Civilization.

In 2017, CBCGDF supported the prosecution of three food delivery companies. At that time, when ordering takeout, we made a note saying that no chopsticks and no disposable tableware, but it didn't work. Before 2017, the food delivery app did not have the option of whether to need tableware. We recommend that the food delivery platform add this option. It's a pity that we called the food delivery company, sent letters, etc., and used various methods, but no one responded to us. Finally, we hope that environmental public interest litigation can help solve the problem. After the court filed the case, the three food delivery platforms finally added the function option of not disposing of disposable tableware in their apps.

There is another case called “electric shock earthworm case”, which was also selected as a typical case of the Supreme Court. The No. 1 Document of the State Council in 2023 also mentioned the issue of electric shock earthworms. The difference in the electric shock earthworm case is that earthworms are not nationally protected animals. In the past, farmers would pick up some earthworms and sell them to Chinese medicine companies on rainy and cloudy days. But now the earthworms in the large area of the soil are captured by the mechanical equipment that shocks the earthworms, and the soil ecosystem is destroyed. We are also encountering big problems in damage appraisal and assessment now, because many appraisal institutions do not fully consider and understand the background of biodiversity conservation.

Do the above damages to the ecological environment need to be identified? Do they need to be assessed? It is also something we should pay attention to. Taking this opportunity of the conference, I would like to appeal to everyone that as a national first-level society in the fields of biodiversity and green development, our responsibilities include setting standards, and we have also filed many environmental public interest litigation lawsuits. We have seen that many ecological and environmental damage appraisal and assessment reports are not standardized, but this is only a stage of development. We need to work together to promote the improvement of standards, so that more actual front-line appraisal institutions can have standards as a follow-up. This is what I think is very necessary to promote.

Reporter: Daisy

Checked by Sara

Editor: Daisy

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