How to Protect Green Waters and Green Mountains in Shanghai, the First National Ecological Day, where a gang illegally caught 70000 kilograms of octopus and was sentenced to public welfare | Ecological Environment | Ecological Day
"I will voluntarily engage in ecological environment care and maintenance, environmental publicity, and other services for the landscape forest in Fuxu Village, Zhongxing Town, Chongming District, Shanghai, and the community nature center in Fuxu Village, Zhongxing Town. I will also compensate for the direct losses of wild birds and ecological environment restoration costs of 124400 yuan. Recently, according to the interpretation of the law by the prosecutor of the Third Branch of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate, Gong, who illegally caught wild birds, not only voluntarily admitted his mistake and paid corresponding compensation, but also voluntarily proposed to help restore the ecological environment in the form of labor compensation.".
Today is the first National Ecological Day. From January 2022 to June this year, Shanghai's two level courts have accepted a total of 465 environmental and resource cases, including 219 criminal cases, 50 civil cases, 67 administrative litigation cases, and 129 non litigation administrative enforcement cases. At the same time as handling cases, the judicial organs in Shanghai also take various measures such as public interest litigation to turn "disruptors" into "repairers", mobilize the strength of the whole society, and jointly protect the green mountains and rivers.
Maintain the intensity of criminal crackdown and severely punish crimes related to the environment
On the mudflat wetland of the Yangtze River, there is a kind of benthos - Wedelia octopus. It is an important food for fish and birds, and an important link in maintaining ecological balance and natural food chain. It is forbidden to catch it during the closed season.
However, there is a 22 person criminal gang that uses key water areas in the Yangtze River Basin as the crime site, links with fellow villagers and relatives, and colludes with fishing personnel, procurement, transportation, and sales personnel for a long time, forming an "integrated industrial chain". In just 9 months, nearly 20000 kilograms of octopus were illegally caught, with a value of over 350000 yuan.
In this case, the criminal gang often used the "catch and sell" method to quickly transport and sell the catch to the Yangtze River Delta region after increasing the price layer by layer, which brought great difficulties to the investigation and evidence collection. The Shanghai Railway Transport Procuratorate focuses on the entire chain of illegal fishing, including fishing, harvesting, transportation, and sales. It insists on digging deep into clues, integrating multiple case evidence materials, and accurately cracking down on upstream and downstream crimes in all aspects. It guides the public security organs to separately pursue five accomplices, including Gao Mouyuan and Wang Moufei.
The octopus seized by the public security organs
From June 2021 to July 2022, the public security organs transferred 22 individuals including Gao to the Shanghai Railway Transport Procuratorate for examination and prosecution. The Shanghai Railway Transport Procuratorate conducted further supplementary investigations on the entire case, clarifying the status and role of each involved person in various links such as fishing and procurement, consolidating the evidence of gang crime, and on this basis, adding to the determination that the gang also illegally caught more than 30000 kilograms of octopus and sold it to Jiangyin. Another criminal gang involved in illegal fishing of green crabs and marbled fish in the same water area was eliminated, and 13 suspects were arrested.
In the end, the court sentenced Gao Mouyuan, Wang Moufei, and others to imprisonment or detention for the crime of illegal fishing of aquatic products. The case was also rated by the Supreme People's Procuratorate as a typical case of punishing illegal fishing of aquatic products in accordance with the law.
In addition, the Shanghai Railway Transport Procuratorate, together with the enforcement team of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, went to the places where the cases occurred to publicize the law in response to the problem of more illegal fishing in the mudflat of the Yangtze River estuary exposed in the case. The Shanghai procuratorial organs, together with the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration, the Law Enforcement Corps of the Shanghai Agriculture and Rural Committee, and other units, jointly signed a memorandum on strengthening cooperation in the protection of fishery resources in the Shanghai section of the Yangtze River Basin, consolidating joint efforts to protect the ecological resources of the Yangtze River Estuary.
"In recent years, we have always maintained our efforts to crack down on crimes related to environmental resources." The relevant person in charge of the Shanghai Third Intermediate People's Court said that in addition to traditional crimes such as illegal fishing of aquatic products, illegal mining, illegal acquisition, sale of precious and endangered wildlife, environmental factors have also appeared in other criminal charges. Last year, the court heard the first environmental and capital criminal case in Shanghai that interfered with the automatic monitoring system of environmental quality and caused distortion of detection data.
Shen is the person in charge of maintaining and operating environmental monitoring facilities for a company, entrusted to provide environmental automatic monitoring equipment operation and maintenance services for a Shanghai Instrument and Electric Company. In 2011, Shen designed and installed a tap water pipeline on the injection pipeline, knowing that it would interfere with the authenticity of the sampling data of the automatic monitoring equipment information system. In 2021, during the equipment renovation, Shen continued to arrange for his subordinates to dismantle and reassemble the equipment and pipeline lines according to the original pipeline layout. In 2022, during a joint law enforcement inspection by the Shanghai Ecological Environment Bureau Law Enforcement Team and other units, it was found that the chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen values of wastewater discharged by a certain instrument and electric company in Shanghai were severely distorted. In the end, Shen was sentenced to two years in prison with a two-year probation for committing the crime of damaging computer information systems.
Promote public interest litigation and innovate repair methods such as carbon sink subscription
In addition to increasing the intensity of criminal crackdowns, the Shanghai procuratorial organs also supervise the parties involved in environmental protection cases to restore their ecology through public interest litigation.
At the beginning of this year, some people reported to the Chongming District People's Procuratorate in Shanghai that there was an environmental pollution problem in a forest land in Chongming, and the garbage in the forest land was everywhere, often emitting thick smoke. After receiving the clues, the public interest litigation department of Chongming Procuratorate immediately went to the scene and surrounding areas to investigate and verify. It was found that the contracted operator of the forest not only lived and lived in the forest, but also built simple sheds for breeding, slaughtering and other activities, and did not take any pollution prevention and control measures. There are obvious signs of slaughtering and outdoor burning on site, with a large amount of animal fur, feces and other pollutants piled up on the walls and floors of the shed. The forest is filled with randomly discarded agricultural and forestry waste, kitchen waste, plastic bags, and a large amount of household waste floating on the water surface of the river next to the forest.
Based on the investigation, the Chongming Procuratorate has issued public interest litigation prosecution recommendations to relevant administrative agencies, suggesting that they fulfill their environmental supervision responsibilities in accordance with the law. Recently, the public interest litigation department of the Chongming Procuratorate conducted a "look back" at the location of the case and found that various types of garbage dumped and piled up on the involved forest land have been cleared, relevant slaughterhouses have also been demolished, and the garbage on the surface of the river has been cleaned up. The surrounding ecological environment has significantly improved.
In terms of ecological restoration methods, Shanghai is also constantly innovating. In addition to traditional forms such as voluntary labor and proliferation, new content such as purchasing forestry carbon sinks has also been added.
In mid October last year, after completing the day's green maintenance and cleaning business, Wen and five others drove an unloaded truck through an intersection in Pudong New Area of this city. In order to seek illegal benefits, they used a gasoline saw to cut down the water fir tree, cut it into more than 50 tree segments, and loaded the water fir tree segments onto the truck. At around 14:00 on the same day, patrol police discovered that Wen and five others were suspected of illegally logging trees at the site, and seized 54 sections of water fir trees and 2 gasoline saws that had been cut down.
The prosecuting authority has filed a lawsuit against the Shanghai Railway Transport Court for the crime of illegal logging of trees. At the same time, it believes that the actions of the five individuals involved have caused serious damage to forestry resources and ecological environment, and have already infringed on public interests. Therefore, it has filed a criminal civil public interest lawsuit.
In addition to imposing penalties on the individuals involved, the Shanghai Railway Court also ruled that 5 people jointly bear the cost of forest ecological restoration, which is 16820 yuan. The above costs shall be fulfilled by 5 people within three months after the judgment takes effect by subscribing to verified forestry carbon sinks; At the same time, 5 people are required to publicly apologize to the public for their illegal logging behavior.
"The water fir tree that was stolen and felled in this case is not suitable for direct replanting and greening due to factors such as lighting and the original site terrain." The presiding judge of this case, Yang Jianjun, said that Article 20, Paragraph 1 of the "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation Cases" stipulates that if the plaintiff requests the restoration of the ecological environment, the people's court may, in accordance with the law, order the defendant to restore the ecological environment to its state and function before the damage occurred. If it cannot be completely repaired, alternative repair methods may be allowed. In the case where forestry resources cannot be restored, the alternative restoration of damaged forestry ecological environment by subscribing to verified forestry carbon sinks and canceling them has legal basis and is also in line with the objective reality of land resource scarcity in this city.
Cross regional linkage, jointly safeguarding the ecological environment of the Yangtze River Delta
On August 11th this year, multiple merchants attended a public trial of a crime against nationally protected plants at the Suqian Flower and Bird Market. The defendant in this case, Wang, saw online that someone was selling wild orchids to make a lot of money. He was also moved and purchased orchids through live streaming platforms to store and prepare for sales. From September 17, 2021 to March 26, 2022, Wang illegally purchased 221000 wild spring orchids from Feng, Yao, and Chen by express mail at a price of 0.25 yuan per plant.
Wild spring orchids belong to the second level of national protected wild plants. In order to warn the majority of orchid lovers and related businesses and achieve the social effect of "hearing a case and educating everyone", the Xuzhou Railway Transport Procuratorate under the Third Branch of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate has chosen the venue for the trial of the case to be in the Flower and Bird Market, and carried out legal publicity and warning education in a visible way to the public. In the end, Wang was sentenced to punishment and fined by the court, and also paid 70000 yuan in ecological environment restoration fees.
Ecological environment protection has never been a matter of one family. As the first cross administrative prosecutor's office in the country, the Third Branch of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate has actively led five grassroots railway inspection bureaus under its jurisdiction to protect the ecological environment of the Yangtze River Delta across regions since its centralized jurisdiction over environmental resource cases.
Luoma Lake is the fourth largest freshwater lake in Jiangsu Province, spanning Xuzhou and Suqian cities, and has high ecological, economic, and livelihood values. In order to strengthen the ecological protection of the Luoma Lake Basin, the Xuzhou Railway Transport Procuratorate has established an ecological restoration base across different regions. It has jointly signed the "Opinions on Establishing a Mechanism for Cross regional Ecological Environment Protection and Prosecution Cooperation in the Luoma Lake Basin" with the procuratorates of Suqian City and Xinyi City, and jointly built the "Erwan Ecological Rule of Law Base" with the Luoma Lake Fisheries Management Office and other units in Jiangsu Province to further strengthen regional collaborative governance and promote integrated ecological environment protection and restoration governance throughout the Luoma Lake Basin. In 2022 alone, 48 restorative justice cases were handled with 123 individuals and 4 units, and 6.986 million yuan of stolen funds were recovered. Nearly 2.4 million yuan of ecological environment damage compensation was urged to be paid, and 420000 fish fry were bred and released.
"We need to fully leverage the advantages of cross administrative functional jurisdiction, build a 'one platform' and 'five mechanisms' for environmental resource protection cases in the Yangtze River Delta region, and strive to accelerate service development in the new journey, drawing a new picture of ecological protection." Speaking of future ecological protection work in the Yangtze River Delta region, the relevant person in charge of the Third Branch of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate said.
