27 June, 2024
Chinese construction companies have been banned from moving coral to make space for construction projects.
The Ministry of Natural Resources issued a notice this month strengthening a requirement for coral reef ecosystems to be protected and restored in situ, and banning the practice of transplanting them elsewhere for restoration. China has lost 80% of its coral reefs since the 1950s, but rigorous monitoring since 2002 has gradually fostered a system of conservation and restoration.
Previously, coral reefs affected by development projects were sometimes relocated. In July last year, for example, coral in waters around the port expansion project for an international container hub at Yangpu, Hainan province, were transplanted to the Linqiangshi Island coral reef nature reserve in Danzhou, according to media reports.
The new approach ends such practices by requiring that construction works avoid areas of coral wherever possible. For projects of national significance where particular islets or areas of sea cannot be bypassed, developers have to demonstrate the need to encroach on reefs. This, the ministry said, should include “assessing the damage to and impact on resources and the ecology and drawing up specific, viable objectives and measures for conservation and restoration, so as to minimise the destruction of ecosystems in the course of construction”.
Conservation and restoration work in such cases will have to be carried out promptly and in situ, during construction, and then managed and monitored for at least three years to ensure the ecosystem has fundamentally recovered.
(Sources: Dialogue Earth)
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