Protecting the ecological environment is improving people's wellbeing

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that a sound ecological environment is the fairest public product and the most inclusive benefit to people's wellbeing. This provides us with a scientific guide for handling the relationship between the ecological environment and people's wellbeing and for achieving a win-win outcome of protecting ecology and improving people's lives. Protecting ecology means keeping pace with the development trends of the new type of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization; it also means promoting a balance among population, resources and the environment and the unification of economic, social and ecological benefits; and it means responding to the new expectations of people of all ethnic groups for a better life.

A sound ecological environment bears on the sustainable development of the nation, on social harmony and stability, and on the people's happiness index; it benefits the present era and will benefit future generations

Protecting the ecological environment is an important part of realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. To build modernization, the old path of polluting first and treating later will not work; a new development path must be pursued. Qinghai's greatest value lies in ecology, its greatest contribution lies in ecology, and its greatest responsibility also lies in ecology. We must, with an attitude of high responsibility to the country and the people and to future generations, adhere to basing ourselves on the carrying capacity of resources and the environment, take natural laws as our criterion, and aim for sustainable development and harmony between humanity and nature, build a civilized society with developed production, a prosperous life and a sound ecology, and contribute to moving toward a new era of socialist ecological civilization.

Protecting the ecological environment is a basic principle for safeguarding social harmony and stability. On the one hand, harmony between humanity and nature is one of the basic features of building a socialist harmonious society. Without a suitable ecological environment, a harmonious society would lose the material foundation on which it depends for survival and development and become a castle in the air; if the ecosystem loses its balance, a harmonious society would lack the resources and environmental support needed for sustainable development and become a meal without rice. On the other hand, ecological and environmental problems are both economic and political problems, both development and security problems, and both social and livelihood problems. The serious impacts and harm that ecological and environmental problems bring to the people's production and daily life and to their health provoke strong public reaction; environmental problems are also a means of attack used by hostile forces in their separatist and destructive activities, as they seize on the issue, use the opportunity to hype it up, and use the matter to stir up heat, disrupting social order and undermining the overall situation of stability.

Protecting the ecological environment is an important livelihood issue. On the one hand, a sound ecological environment is an important material foundation for safeguarding human survival and development, the fairest public product, and a basic right that everyone can enjoy with equal consumption and shared use. On the other hand, as society develops and people's living standards continuously improve, the people's demands for clean water, fresh air, safe food and a beautiful environment are growing ever higher, and the position of the ecological environment in the people's happiness index is becoming ever more prominent. Protecting the ecological environment is protecting humanity, and building ecological civilization is benefiting humanity.

Qinghai has woven the concept of ecological civilization through all its work, striving to govern well, reforming and innovating, and daring to explore, and has blazed a path of win-win outcomes in protecting ecology and improving people's wellbeing

In practice, a value orientation has taken shape of grasping ecology in the service of people's wellbeing and improving ecology to benefit people's wellbeing. Successive provincial Party committees and provincial governments have attached great importance to economic development, ecological protection and improving people's wellbeing, and the new provincial Party committee and provincial government have placed the building of ecological civilization in an even more prominent position. Upholding the unity of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, the unity of overall advancement and breakthroughs at key points, the unity of top-level design and crossing the river by feeling the stones, and the unity of basing ourselves on the present and focusing on the long term, they have successively proposed and formulated the action plan for Qinghai Province to create a national pilot zone for ecological civilization, the overall institutional plan for ecological civilization construction and the plan for main functional zones. Through vigorously advancing major ecological protection and construction projects and a series of policies and measures such as strengthening air and environmental governance, the concept of ecological civilization has gradually taken root, a circular economy system has initially taken shape, the efficiency of resource use has markedly improved, and ecological protection and construction have achieved notable results, markedly improving the people's living standards and quality of life while achieving steady and relatively rapid economic development.

In practice, many livelihood measures consistent with the positioning of main functional zones have been advanced, achieving the unification of ecological protection and increased income for farmers and herders. Ecological protection red lines have been drawn in key ecological function zones and other environmentally sensitive and vulnerable areas, and corresponding environmental standards and policies have been formulated to strengthen their constraining role in conserving important ecological functions, incentivizing intensive resource use and improving environmental quality; ecological restoration projects such as the ecological protection and construction of the Three Rivers Source have been advanced, the vegetation coverage rate in the restoration areas within the Yellow River basin has increased by 5%-20%, and the per capita net income of the people in the project areas has increased by 14%-22%, achieving a virtuous cycle in which ecology, production and life advance in coordination; a pilot program of public welfare posts for ecological management and protection in the Three Rivers Source has been launched and incorporated into the scope of the new rural social pension insurance, greatly raising the income level and living standards of herders in the Three Rivers Source area. Since the grassland ecological reward and subsidy policy was implemented in 2011, 760,000 households across the province have received subsidies, and herders' per capita annual income has increased by 1,588 yuan; actively exploring and establishing an ecological compensation mechanism, providing reasonable economic compensation for losses caused by giving up development opportunities, stimulating farmers' and herders' enthusiasm for starting their own businesses and for ecological protection and construction, and bringing about major changes in production and ways of life.

In practice, a path of civilized development with developed production, a prosperous life and a sound ecology has been initially explored. Adhering to scientific development and to sustainable and inclusive development, we have both overcome the tendency to emphasize development while neglecting environmental protection and prevented the tendency, whenever environmental protection is mentioned, to slow development or even abandon development, balancing ecology and livelihood well, combining "turning green" with "getting rich," and unifying economic, social and ecological benefits. Ninety percent of the land area has been designated as restricted or prohibited development zones, the GDP assessment for the Three Rivers Source area has been cancelled, ecological protection and construction projects have been implemented in the Three Rivers Source, Qinghai Lake and the Qilian Mountains, efforts to return grazing land to grassland and farmland to forest have been intensified, energy conservation and emissions reduction and environmental pollution control have been strengthened, and the concepts of green development, circular development and low-carbon development have been used to guide resource development and economic construction. Environmental quality has improved somewhat, progress has been made in resource conservation, the new type of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization have been upgraded in step, and an institutional system for ecological civilization has been initially established and improved.

Facing the higher requirements that the new situation places on protecting ecology, and facing the people's greater expectations for improving ecology, only by establishing and improving a policy system can we better improve people's wellbeing while accelerating the building of ecological civilization

Carrying out the building of beautiful homes to free up environmental capacity and development space for sustainable development. Implementing urban energy conservation and consumption reduction projects, promoting building energy-saving technologies, building renewable energy systems covering urban areas, and raising the utilization rate of clean energy; implementing urban ecological environment and rectification projects, strengthening the comprehensive environmental rectification of central towns and the pollution control of industrial parks around cities, building domestic sewage and garbage treatment facilities in county seats, key small towns and major tourist attractions, implementing comprehensive environmental rectification projects for traffic trunk lines and tourist attractions, and building green barriers; implementing urban intelligent application projects, strengthening the construction and integration of basic urban communications, radio and television and computer networks, improving information transmission and sharing capacity, gradually improving and perfecting the urban basic information resource system and the urban intelligent management information basic database, and raising the level of informatization and intelligence; implementing beautiful countryside construction projects, accelerating the pace of construction of domestic sewage treatment, village appearance rectification and clean energy utilization projects, and building a new socialist countryside.

Building an institutional system centered on long-term protection and assessment mechanisms to protect the ecological environment through institutions. Fully implementing the main functional zone system and optimizing the pattern of national territorial space development; improving the property rights system for natural resource assets and achieving innovation in management and supervision systems; strengthening the ecological compensation system and stimulating the internal impetus for ecological protection; improving the paid use system for resources and relying on market entities to protect the ecological environment; exploring a national park system and coordinating ecological protection with people's all-round development; establishing an ecological civilization evaluation and assessment system, implementing the strictest ecological protection and accountability, and always weaving the building of ecological civilization comprehensively through and deeply into all aspects and the entire process of the province's economic, political, cultural and social development.

Improving supporting policies and actively seeking national strategic support. Qinghai's provincial conditions are special: key ecological function zones, poverty-stricken areas and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities overlap with one another, and the tasks of ecological protection, improving people's wellbeing and maintaining stability are interwoven and overlapping, making the tasks exceptionally arduous. On the one hand, we must always uphold equal emphasis on development and protection, establish the concept that protecting the ecological environment is also safeguarding people's wellbeing, that improving the ecological environment is also improving people's wellbeing, and that ecological and environmental protection work is an important part of livelihood work, strengthen our sense of responsibility and commitment, continue to spend 75% of fiscal expenditure on improving people's wellbeing, accelerate the pace of equalizing basic public services, and strive to restore and realize the blue skies, white clouds, green waters and green mountains that the people long for. On the other hand, protecting the ecological environment is a need for the ecological security of China and even the world, but Qinghai's balanced development needs recognition and investment from the whole of society, and an ecological construction compensation policy system driven by national leadership, organized and implemented by local governments and widely participated in by the whole of society should be established to provide support for building an ecological security barrier. Through the key of ecological and environmental protection, open the door to accelerating the transformation of the development model and improving people's wellbeing, and make Qinghai's due contribution to building a beautiful China.