While praising a city in eastern China for its plan to audit its natural resources before an official leaves office, Hu Jianbing, a media professional, argued that day-to-day supervision should be enhanced to prevent recklessness early on, in a piece for
The Beijing News.
Nanjing, capital city of East China’s Jiangsu Province, rolled out recently the “Implementation Measures for Off-office Auditing of Natural Resources Assets (Trial),” requiring that right before leaving office, officials are subject to natural resources assets auditing, reported the Xinhua News Agency.
This marks a major breakthrough, as previously, off-office auditing focused solely on whether an official took bribes or mishandled fiscal expenditures, Hu said, adding that natural resources, according to China’s Constitution and related laws, include, among others, land, mineral resources, waters, forests and mountains.
Modern technology will be extensively used in this process. Satellite remote imaging, for example, helps to compare and analyze changes in land, water conservancy and atmospheric quality. This will make forgery nearly impossible, compared with other auditing forms, he said.
Protecting natural resources is, in essence, about our choice of the economic development mode. In the past, certain local governments carried out large-scale, reckless development, in the hope of higher GDP but at the expense of natural resources, Hu wrote.
The practice of auditing natural resources assets illustrates the determination to bid farewell to the extensive model of exchanging environment and resources for unsustainable growth. By this new practice, Nanjing will be able to push its officials to adopt a scientific outlook on development and forsake the GDP-centered view on political achievement, according to Hu.
But he also conceded that if a place’s natural resources have already suffered serious losses, it is extremely difficult or even impossible to repair. So it is imperative to strengthen day-to-day supervision to maximize protection.
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