Egret perched in the Suining Garden Pavilion of the National Wetland Park Photo by Li Yongzhi/Guangming Pictures
Shaoyang Zijiang River under the blue sky and white clouds Photo by Tang Mingye/Guangming Pictures
【Beautiful China Miles Travel, Shaoyang, Hunan Province】
In Nanshan National Park, the white-necked long-tailed pheasant that likes to be lively invites friends to gather, and black bears accustomed to solitude forage freely without being disturbed; In the Huangsang National Nature Reserve, the red-bellied brocade chicken walks leisurely, while the white egret warily leads its neck around; On the World Natural Heritage Site Lao Mountain, the scenery of the "Treasure of Danxia" is beautiful, and macaques jump and climb between the cliffs... This vivid picture of the harmonious coexistence of all things is staged in Shaoyang City, Hunan Province, an important ecological barrier in the Yangtze River Basin, on the land of Sanxiang.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Shaoyang has adhered to the strategic positioning of "ecological priority and green development", practiced the development concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains", drawn a blueprint to the end, and made every effort to promote the construction of ecological civilization, so that the beautiful ecological environment will bring more sense of gain and happiness to the masses.
Declare war on pollution, and blue water becomes the norm
The Zijiang River, one of the "Three Hunan and Four Waters", flowed all the way into Shaoyang City from west to east, and when it arrived at the pavilion outside the pavilion of Shuangqing Park, it suddenly came to a 90-degree sharp turn and turned north. A river of clear water surrounds the city, forming a wide turning deep pool, attracting many photographers to squat on the shore and enjoy capturing the wonderful moments of water birds playing.
In recent years, mandarin ducks, small hawks, wild ducks and other water birds have successively settled in the surface of the Zijiang River. "The blue sky and white clouds, clear water and green trees, water birds leisurely foraging on the surface of the river or flying close to the water, the picture is mesmerizing!" Yi Jiangshi, a retired cadre of the Shaoyang branch of Xinhua Bookstore, told reporters that regardless of spring, summer, autumn or winter, he has to carry a camera to "check in" every day.
Who would have thought that Shaoyang in the past was once a different scene: due to extensive and disorderly development and overexploitation and utilization of natural resources, the ecological environment deteriorated for a while, smog weather was frequent, black and smelly water bodies were unpleasant, and even sparrows flew in the sky, and fish and shrimp were difficult to find in rivers.
It's time for a change! With the help of the central ecological and environmental protection inspectors and "looking back", and the environmental protection inspectors of Hunan Province feedback the rectification of problems, Shaoyang declared war on pollution, and set high standards and strict requirements to continue to promote the rectification effect. On the one hand, fight the battle of blue sky, clear water and pure land, and improve the quality of the ecological environment; On the other hand, practicing the development concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains", carrying people's livelihood on their shoulders and in their hearts, the city's ecological civilization construction ushered in a "comprehensive physical examination" and "in-depth treatment" to overcome difficulties.
– Strengthening the treatment of industrial waste and building a green transportation system. 5 cement clinker production enterprises have fully completed the upgrading of flue gas treatment, 142 sintered brick plants have all installed desulfurization and dust removal equipment, and 1546 new energy buses have been put into operation.
-- Attacking heavy metal pollution. It has completed 15 projects to eliminate backward production capacity in the heavy metal industry, solved 15 problems left over from history, and completed 36 special fund support projects for heavy metal pollution control.
-- Focusing on rectifying sewage treatment and discharge. At the end of June 2021, the three sewage treatment plants of Yangxiqiao, Jiangbei and Hongqiqu completed the upgrading and transformation, and the effluent discharge standard was upgraded to the first-class A standard, and some indicators were better than the first-class A standard.
-- Actively carrying out comprehensive improvement actions for the water environment in key river basins, and pioneering the "one river and one police chief" mechanism. Completed the treatment of 6 black and odorous water bodies, including Fengjiang Creek, closed more than 30 sand quarries in the water source protection zone, and cleaned up more than 200 "zombie boats" in the primary and secondary drinking water protection zone; Set up 2,908 river police chiefs at the four levels of cities, counties and villages, covering all rivers in the city...
Since 2016, Shaoyang has investigated and dealt with a total of 11,217 reports and complaints of various environmental petitions, with a completion rate of 100% within the statutory time limit, a 100% return visit rate of completed letters and petitions, and a satisfaction rate of more than 90%, solving a large number of prominent ecological and environmental problems. In 2020, the rectification and reform rate of key ecological and environmental issues assigned by Shaoyang was 97.3%, ranking first in Hunan Province. In 2022, Shaoyang's public ecological environment satisfaction rate will reach 93.53%, and the people's sense of ecological environment gain and happiness will continue to increase.
Enabled by science and technology, ecological and environmental protection has a difference
Not good! A group of children strayed into the rare wild plant protection site of the scenic area!
On October 6, 2022, staff from the Shaoyang Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau discovered this dangerous scene through surveillance video. The natural environment of the incident site is complex, and the child is exposed to certain dangers, which may also bring harm to rare wild plants nearby. The monitoring personnel immediately activated the response mechanism, and after receiving the information, the scenic area staff rushed to the scene within 3 minutes to eliminate this social and environmental hazard in time.
"In Shaoyang, environmental protection infrastructure is included in the management scope of 'smart city' and is fully connected to the public security 'Skynet'. Through the monitoring center, we can observe the environmental protection problems in urban and rural areas of the city in real time. Li Yi, member of the party group and chief engineer of Shaoyang Ecological Environment Bureau, introduced.
Technological empowerment has given Shaoyang's ecological civilization construction a safe and reliable barrier. At present, Shaoyang has initially established a monitoring network for major environmental factors such as atmosphere, water and soil at the city and county levels. Since 2020, Shaoyang has implemented online monitoring of 51 annual key pollutant discharging units in the city, with a network connection rate and transmission rate of 100%. The city has approved 52 surface water environmental quality monitoring sections (points), completed the construction of 14 automatic monitoring stations for surface water quality and 13 soil environmental monitoring points in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and effectively carried out monitoring as required.
In August this year, soil moisture alarms were frequently sounded in the Chenjiaqiao Modern Agricultural Comprehensive Industrial Park in Beita District, Shaoyang City—it turned out that due to the continuous drought, the vegetables in the industrial park were in a state of severe "hunger and thirst". After receiving the alarm, the production organization of the industrial park immediately activated emergency measures and drilled a professional well for vegetable irrigation, ensuring that more than 9 tons of fresh vegetables could be supplied to the local area every day.
In the past 10 years, with the help of scientific and technological means, Shaoyang has attached great importance to the construction of ecological function zones, strictly abided by the red line of ecological protection, the bottom line of environmental quality, the upper line of resource utilization and the negative list of environmental access, and handed over a wonderful answer: At present, 7 counties in the city, including Chengbu, have been listed as national or provincial key ecological function areas; In 2020, Xinning County was awarded the title of "Fourth Batch of National Ecological Civilization Construction Demonstration Counties" by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and Suining County was awarded the title of "Hunan Province Ecological Civilization Construction Demonstration County"; The pilot system of Nanshan National Park in Hunan Province successfully passed the comprehensive assessment and acceptance of third-party institutions organized by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration.
The masses participated, and the "Shaoyang Beach Lord" became a beautiful talk
In Shaoyang, every morning and evening, there will always be a group of "red vests" active on both sides of the Zijiang River and Shaoshui in the urban area. In addition to picking up trash, they often remind anglers and exercisers: "Please take your trash away and protect the beach environment." These "red vests" are Shaoyang's unique "Shaoyang Beach Lord".
Previously, when carrying out river patrol and river protection operations, the staff of Shaoyang Ecological Environmental Protection Volunteer Federation found that the ancient city of Shaoyang (located at the intersection of the Zijiang River and Shaoshui) still had some urgent problems to be solved in protecting the beauty of water and shore clean. In order to better protect the mother river, in May 2021, the federation innovatively launched the "Shaoyang Beach Lord" system, that is, the Zijiang River and Shaoshuicheng districts are divided into 27 relatively independent grids bounded by major bridges, and key members of the association are mobilized to voluntarily adopt and assume the responsibility of maintaining the good appearance of the "beach". During this period, each "beach owner" also paid out of his own pocket to make and erect eye-catching "beach position" signs under the guidance and support of local environmental, river and municipal management departments.
Over the past year, the "Shaoyang Beach owners" have insisted on using their spare time and holidays to pick up garbage at their respective "stalls", and carried out "casual shooting" activities against the "stubborn diseases" of river management such as river bank dumping, river beach vegetable planting, illegal sewage discharge, private construction of fences, and random wild swimming, effectively forming a good situation for the whole people to defend the "mother river".
Zhu Jiayuan and Yang Runjun often take their 3-year-old grandson to participate in the Jinghe Beach Protection Operation, and today, the younger grandson has become the youngest "Shaoyang Beach Owner"; Taxi driver Jian Boxiong, his wife Wang Yaping and a pair of children have been carefully maintaining the environmental hygiene and living order of the responsible area for many years, and they are exemplary among the "Shaoyang Beach Lords"... With the in-depth development of the Jinghe beach protection activities, a large number of "husband and wife files", "brothers' company", "father and son soldiers", "sister flowers", "ancestor and grandson army", "neighbor team" and "classmate family" have emerged among the "Shaoyang Beach Lords", which have been passed down as beautiful talks.
On May 27 this year, the "Shaoyang Beach Lord" Jinghe Beach Protection Volunteer Service Project was awarded the "Top Ten Public Participation Cases" in Hunan Province. "Unexpectedly, our 'Shaoyang Beach Lord' really 'stalled' this great event for the well-being of future generations!" Li Zhiming, president of Shaoyang Ecological Environmental Protection Volunteer Federation, sighed.
It is reported that there are more than 100 registered environmental protection public welfare organizations in Shaoyang City, with more than 30,000 members. They work hand in hand with professional environmental protection workers, complement each other, and develop into an environmental force that cannot be underestimated.