"Southern Guangdong blue" frequently swipes the screen, and the Pearl River water is "beautiful and exploding"... Behind the more and more beautiful land in Lingnan and the higher and higher "beauty" of southern Guangdong, it is the result of the high standard defense of the courts in the province. Over the past five years, Guangdong courts have given full play to their judicial functions, severely punished crimes and infringements involving the ecological environment, actively participated in the comprehensive management of environmental resources and the source control, guarded the sea and blue sky of Guangdong with the shield of governance, and concluded more than 115000 environmental and resource cases. Overall consideration—— Guard the background of green water and green mountains in the south of the Five Ridges Guangdong was born and prospered by water. However, with the rapid rise of industry, the ecology of Lingnan waters is facing severe challenges. When it comes to pollution, we have to mention Maozhou River and Lianjiang River in Guangdong. The former was once called "the most polluted river in the Pearl River Delta", while the latter was named twice by the central environmental protection supervision group. While protecting development and ecology, Guangdong courts have made full use of quasi legal means to resolutely win this crucial battle of water pollution prevention and control. Since 2016, Guangdong courts have adjusted the trial jurisdiction mechanism twice in combination with the distribution characteristics of water areas in the province. At present, six intermediate courts in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Zhanjiang and Qingyuan and the Guangzhou Maritime Court have formed a "6+1" mode of centralized jurisdiction over environmental civil public interest litigation cases of first instance in the province. After several years of exploration, since this year, nine courts in the province have realized the "three in one" trial of criminal, civil and administrative cases of environmental resources. Through the overall application of criminal sanctions, civil compensation, administrative punishment and other means, the green waters and mountains in Lingnan have been fully protected. In march2020, Bao'an branch of Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of ecological environment found that blue waste water flowed from the pipeline in the manhole cover of dehuibao Electronics Co., Ltd. and was directly discharged into Maozhou river. After verification, the copper content in the wastewater seriously exceeded the standard. In December, 2021, the Shenzhen intermediate people's court publicly heard the civil public interest litigation case of the Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau v. dehuibao company on environmental pollution. After hearing, the court held that the soil, groundwater and surface water polluted by dehuibao company were located in the Maozhou River Basin, with many pollution objects, a wide area of pollution, great harm from pollution factors, and significant subjective malice, which had caused serious damage to the Maozhou River Basin and the surrounding soil. Dehuibao company was ordered to compensate 10.98 million yuan, repair 422 cubic meters of damaged soil and 419 cubic meters of groundwater, and pay 1.16 million yuan of punitive damages. "Shenzhen has invested tens of billions of funds to harness the Maozhou River in exchange for today's governance results. In addition to judging the defendant to bear compensation for environmental damage repair, the case also bears punitive compensation, which has a strong deterrent to the enterprises around the Maozhou River and is of great significance to the prevention and control of pollution in the Maozhou river." Chen Qiong, a representative of the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, said after attending the trial. Mr. Zhang, who lives in Matian street, Guangming District, Shenzhen, told the reporter that he saw a large group of egrets when walking along the Maozhou river. He counted them deliberately, and there were forty or fifty. The transformation from stink to egret habitat is inseparable from the scientific restoration of the damaged ecological environment of Maozhou river. In recent years, Guangdong Provincial Higher People's court has focused on promoting the establishment of rules and regulations for ecological restoration, successively negotiated with Guangdong Provincial Department of ecological environment for many times to promote the reform of Guangdong's ecological environment damage compensation system, and earlier established a provincial court's environmental resources trial and consultation expert database in national courts, so that experts can widely participate in the trial of complex cases, especially cases requiring ecological restoration, and provide professional and technical support for core elements such as ecological restoration schemes. The relevant person in charge of Nanling National Forest Park told the reporter that five years ago, a large area of forests in the park were destroyed due to the construction of roads on the top of the mountain. With the joint efforts of the court, the environmental protection department and environmental restoration experts, they have now been basically restored to green. The pine trees planted three years ago are full of vitality and lush. Not only that, the Guangdong court also took replanting and greening as the starting point to gradually expand the ecological restoration mechanism from mountains and forests to water flow, land, minerals, atmosphere and other fields. According to the data, over the past five years, Guangdong courts have applied more than 600 ecological restoration mechanisms to ecological cases in the form of replanting and greening, fish culture and pollution control, release and proliferation, cross regional renovation, and waste mine transformation. Innovative exploration—— Build a biodiversity protection barrier Guangdong has a coastline of 4314.1 kilometers. Dapeng Bay in Shenzhen is a bay between Hong Kong and the mainland. It is the largest and best preserved ecological pure land in Shenzhen. With a coastline of 133 kilometers, it is known as the best "Gold Coast" in Shenzhen. However, a man-made destruction has made the waters of Dapeng Bay in Shenzhen "pale". In june2018, Yang, an employee of a bioengineering company in Shenzhen, illegally dumped waste chemical raw materials into Tuyang River belonging to Dapeng Bay water system, polluting the waters of Dapeng Bay. In June, 2021, the judgment of the civil public interest litigation case attached to the criminal case of environmental pollution was pronounced. The environmental resources court of Shenzhen Longgang District People's court facilitated the parties to reach a settlement agreement: the company involved in the case paid 250000 yuan of environmental damage compensation to entrust the Shenzhen Research Institute of Guangdong Ocean University to repair the damaged environment with alternative measures of planting coral. "This is an innovative exploration of judicial restoration ecology." Shidonghui, President of the environmental resources court of Longgang District Court, told the reporter that coral reefs, as an important barrier of the coastline, are known as the "tropical rainforest" in the sea. It seems difficult to achieve great restoration effect in a short time by planting coral, but in the long run, it solves the problem of unsustainable protection of marine biodiversity. As one of the provinces with the richest biodiversity in China, Guangdong has recorded 1018 species of terrestrial vertebrate wildlife, 6658 species of higher plants and 1362 nature reserves. Around the establishment and improvement of a judicial mechanism combining the protection, restoration and utilization of biodiversity, there are still many innovative measures such as Guangdong courts. In recent years, earthworm, as a kind of traditional Chinese medicine, is widely favored by the market. With the increase of outdoor lovers such as fishing and amphibious and reptilian pets, earthworms are also sold in the market as bait and feed, resulting in the rising price of earthworms. In order to catch a large number of earthworms, some people began to buy earthworm machines with electric shock function, which can make earthworms climb out of the ground in a very short time. An electric earthworm machine can catch up to 25 kg of earthworms a day. In July, 2020, the China Biodiversity Conservation and green development foundation (hereinafter referred to as "the green development foundation") filed a lawsuit to the Zhuhai intermediate people's court and filed a public interest lawsuit against three companies selling electric earthworm machines, including rongzhe optoelectronics company. "Earthworms are the 'plough' of nature and a key link in the soil ecosystem. Electric earthworms can cause irreversible damage to the ecological environment." Wang Huo, Deputy Secretary General of the Green Development Council, said. Rongzhe optoelectronics and other companies believe that earthworms have strong reproductive capacity and are not rare and endangered wild animals, so there is no legal basis for protection. "Article 2 of the regulations of Guangdong Province on the protection and administration of wildlife stipulates that 'other terrestrial wildlife shall be managed in accordance with the provisions of these regulations', so the prohibitive provisions are also applicable to other terrestrial wildlife of great value to the ecosystem." Yangqin, the presiding judge of the case and the president of the environmental resources division of the Guangdong High Court, held that. In February this year, the Guangdong High Court made a second instance judgment, ordering rongzhe optoelectronics company to compensate 950000 yuan for the losses caused by the destruction of the ecological environment, and the other two companies to compensate 420000 yuan and 220000 yuan respectively, and published an apology statement on the national media. Over the past five years, courts at all levels in the province have concluded more than 12000 biodiversity protection cases, of which the "Zhuowen smuggling of precious animals case" tried by the Guangdong High Court was selected as the case of the United Nations Environment Programme. Promoting construction with cases—— Judicial suggestions to promote ecological governance Yunfu City, Guangdong Province, has a history of stone production and processing for more than 400 years. It is the center of China's stone base. There are 6131 stone enterprises in the city. The total output value of the whole industrial chain reaches more than 30billion yuan, driving about 200000 people to work. It is known as the "stone city". However, the air and water pollution problems caused by the disorderly stacking of stone waste residue have followed, seriously affecting the health, ecological safety and quality of life of the local people. In june2020, Yunfu intermediate people's Court concluded a case of serious environmental pollution caused by the disorderly stacking of stone waste residues. From 2010 to 2019, liujingxi and others established several companies to build several storage yards in Yuncheng district and yun'an District of Yunfu City, illegally dumping pond mud, seriously polluting the local environment. According to the memories of local villagers, the road leading to the storage yard was full of trucks transporting and dumping waste residues. The dust was all over the sky, and the farmland was buried by muck. Finally, the Yunfu intermediate people's court made a second instance judgment, and the principal criminal liujingxi was sentenced to 14 years and six months in prison. "Yunfu stone industry is concentrated. Illegal dumping and stacking of stone waste residue has caused great damage to the environment, and supervision should be strengthened from the system!" Therefore, liuhengjun, the presiding judge of the case and the president of the first criminal division of Yunfu intermediate people's court, issued a judicial proposal to Yunfu Ecological Environment Bureau, suggesting that the whole process of "generation, collection, transportation and disposal" of solid waste should be strengthened through grid inspection and law enforcement supervision. At present, the environmental pollution caused by stone waste residue in Yunfu City has been effectively curbed, and the countryside has recovered its former beauty. "When trying environmental and resource cases, Guangdong courts dig deep into the causes behind the cases and issue targeted judicial suggestions, which is an important way for the courts to participate in social governance in the ecological field and plays a role in promoting construction through cases." Wangxiaohong, deputy to the National People's Congress and associate professor of the school of environmental science and engineering of Guangzhou University, said. Over the past five years, Guangdong courts have issued more than 300 judicial suggestions on environmental resources, and the feedback rate and rectification rate have exceeded 96%. Among them, the Huizhou intermediate people's Court issued judicial suggestions to the environmental protection department to clarify the scope of the closed season, set up warning signs and reduce illegal fishing from the source. Heyuan intermediate people's court, based on the key sample areas such as Dongjiang, Xinfengjiang ecological area, Wanlv lake water source area and Fengshuba ecological area, proposed to explore the construction of a new environmental resources trial mechanism of "restorative justice + comprehensive social management", which was highly praised by the local Party committee and government. The Zhaoqing intermediate people's Court issued a judicial proposal to regulate the announcement of river sand mining areas and prohibited areas, which was promoted nationwide. (outlook new era)