The CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA is the fundamental law of our country. Article 26 of the Constitution stipulates that “the state organizes and encourages afforestation and forest protection.” It is proposed to change it to “the state organizes and encourages the protection of biodiversity”. The reasons are as follows.

(1)  "Afforestation and protection of forest trees" are very important, but it also has historical limitations.

For example, it overemphasizes “planting” and “tree”. These two points have many serious problems in the real life of the moment. For example, in the greening of cities, because of the pursuit of beauty, the species that are native to the south are moved to the north to plant, resulting in the need to take anti-cold measures in the winter – brings extra burden to the environment and ecology, and causes indirect pollution.

The limitation of "planting" is that it often causes unnecessary burdens on nature, and even causes examples of “not worth”.

The "tree" belongs to the category of "species" in the three levels of "biodiversity" (genes, species, ecology), and it does not reflect the mountains, water, forests, sky, lakes, and grasses in nature and the idea of “ a shared community of life”. Different ecological conditions in different regions have their own requirements and attributes for nature. We emphasize that we should let nature grow, respect nature, conform to nature, and give nature peace, harmony, and beauty. Therefore, if the "planting trees" is replaced by " protection of biodiversity" in the Constitution, the effectiveness of ecological civilization construction will be better exerted.

(2)  Planting trees as the basic law is no longer in line with the requirements of ecological civilization.

"Tree planting" is the core practice of environmental protection in the era of agricultural civilization and industrial civilization. It has been unable to adapt to the new challenges and new requirements of the era of ecological civilization and the construction of beautiful China. When human beings enter a new era of ecological civilization, they must think more from a scientific and comprehensive perspective and use a close-knit, organically unified ideology to replace the focus on the greening on a small number of intuitive tall plants, and focus on the indicators of the assessment on the forest coverage.

Of course, there is no doubt that the advocacy of “planting trees” has indeed made a great contribution in the past, so it is not that it is recommended not to plant trees, but rather to plant trees in the entire ecosystem.

(3)  Incorporating the protection of biodiversity into the Constitution, which is conducive to the system construction of the ecological civilization system.

Biodiversity includes three levels: species level, gene level, and ecological level. The advocacy of “planting trees” focuses on the level of species and is a tall tree at the species level. The scope of the concept of “biodiversity” not only reflects the good intention of “planting trees”, but also reflects the essence of the ecological civilization thoughts of President Xi.

President Xi pointed out that it is necessary to improve the ecological civilization system and protect the ecological environment with the strictest system and the strictest rule of law. The Constitution is the fundamental law of our country, the general statute of governing the country and the state, and the product of the comprehensive social, political, economic and ideological and cultural conditions. It has fundamental guiding significance for all other laws and regulations. In the era of ecological civilization, we believe that from the top-level design, the description of tree planting in the Constitution can no longer reflect the needs of the new era, and it is necessary to replace the description of “tree planting” with “protecting biodiversity”.

(4)  Support for scientific evidence: Biodiversity can promote productivity and bring economic benefits.

The inclusion of “biodiversity conservation” in the fundamental law of the country will help guide the whole society to benefit from ecosystem services, promote the health of soil, water and atmosphere, and achieve sustainable development. For example, not long ago, a study by a Chinese research team showed that forests are planted with trees and the mix is more scientific. The study also found that a 10% reduction in the diversity of tree species worldwide would result in an economic loss of $20 billion per year.

(5)  Facing the best historical opportunity to amend the Constitution.

2020 is a super-year: it is the closing year of the UN Aichi Biodiversity Targets. China is one of the parties to UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In 2020, the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties of CBD (CBD COP15) will be held in Beijing. The development and implementation of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework expected to be adopted in Beijing. In this critical historical node, if “protecting biodiversity” is written into the Constitution, it will be beneficial the participating in global environmental governance after 2020, and demonstrate to the world China's global leadership in the field of ecological civilization.

In summary, the description of "planting trees" can no longer reflect the requirements of the era of ecological civilization; one-sided emphasis on "planting trees" more and more shows the drawbacks. Therefore, Dr. Zhou Jinfeng suggested changing the description of “tree planting” in the Constitution to “protecting biodiversity”. This will not only continue the good intention of "planting trees", but also avoid a lot of unnecessary waste, and truly reflect the core requirements of the "life community" of people and mountains, water, forests, fields, lakes and grasslands, and generate and promote the long-term effects of people's livelihood and protection of the ecological environment.

(6)  If the conditions and cognition are still immature, it can be changed slightly: it is absolutely correct and necessary to change “protecting forest and trees” to “protecting biodiversity”.

(This article is based on the oral narration of Dr. Zhou Jinfeng and has not been reviewed by him.)

(Photo source: Internet)

Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/7358.html

By / Niu Jingmei