On March 30, the People’s Procuratorate of Chongqing released on a video conference that it is coordinating with the Sichuan Provincial People’s Procuratorate to establish a procuratorial cooperation mechanism that will serve and ensure the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.

On March 30, the People’s Procuratorate of Chongqing and the Sichuan Provincial People’s Procuratorate hold a video conference on a procuratorial cooperation mechanism that will serve and ensure the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle. (Photo by Li Bin)

According to the conference, with the rapid development of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, the flow and integration of industries, projects, parks, enterprises, and populations in the two places will be accelerated in the foreseeable future, thus bringing more pressure to the ecological system. Chongqing lies in the lower reaches of a transboundary river and downwind of the atmospheric pollution transmission channel so that its task of maintaining ecological security is especially arduous.

At the provincial level, the People’s Procuratorate of Chongqing Municipality is cooperating with the People’s Procuratorate of Sichuan Province in the establishment of a procuratorial cooperation mechanism that facilitates and guarantees the construction of Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle. Their cooperation involves judicial protection of the ecological environment.

The procuratorates of 13 districts and counties in Chongqing will take the initiative to strengthen cooperation under the framework of the Sichuan-Chongqing procuratorial cooperation mechanism. They plan to establish a collaboration mechanism for judicial protection of the ecological environment with the Yangtze River as the center and its main tributaries, such as the Jialing River, Fujiang River, and Qujiang River as the focus. Besides, they will unify law enforcement and judicial standards, conduct regular joint patrols of mountains, reservoirs, and rivers, carry out special treatment of transboundary pollution caused by industrial wastes, livestock and poultry breeding, agricultural non-point sources, household garbage, and sewage, and explore the establishment of a transboundary ecological compensation mechanism.

Chongqing will prioritize the protection of the Yangtze River and the maintenance of the ecological security of the Three Gorges Reservoir and further implement the collaboration mechanism with the departments of ecological environment, planning and natural resources, and emergency management. In addition, it’s slated to make full use of such functions as the approval of arrests, the filing of lawsuits, and the public interest litigation on eco-environmental issues, and actively participate in key campaigns for the treatment of urban black and odorous water bodies, the protection and restoration of the Yangtze River, the protection of water sources, and the treatment of agricultural and rural pollution. In this way, it could effectively promote the treatment of problems such as the illegal and disorderly discharge of sewage, the improper disposal of solid and dangerous wastes, and the encroachment of the shoreline.