In the middle of summer, Heihanling Village, Sihai Town, Yanqing District, Beijing, has beautiful scenery and forest sponges. Located here, the Xiangchuan Flower Sea Park has become a good place for tourists to enjoy leisure and entertainment. This paradise integrates workshops, accommodation, catering, and farms, and was renovated from the former Heihanling Central Primary School, which has been idle for 14 years.
Shi Yunlong, secretary of the party branch of Heihanling Village, said that each homestay in the park pays 10,000 yuan a year for the use of the ecological environment. This has increased the village's collective economic income by 70,000 yuan per year. Enjoy the Yanchuan Flower Sea Paradise has enabled many villagers to achieve employment at their doorsteps, and everyone has more energy to protect the ecological environment.
At present, 7 villages in Sihai Town have eaten such "ecological rice". Through the ecological resource rights and interests trading model, the village collective economy increased by 470,000 yuan. These revenues are used for long-term environmental management and protection, ecological resource protection, etc., forming a virtuous circle of "beautiful ecological environment to provide ecological products - homestay tourists to enjoy ecological products - homestay operators to pay ecological environment use fees to the village collective", which realizes the sustainable management and protection of the ecological environment while strengthening the collective income of the village.
A few days ago, the National Development and Reform Commission announced the first batch of pilot lists of national ecological product value realization mechanisms, and 10 regions including Yanqing District of Beijing were selected. Zhang Linbo, a professor at the Research Center for the Value Realization of Ecological Products at Shandong University, said that the exploration of the value realization mechanism of ecological products in various parts of the country has achieved remarkable results, and a number of distinctive and referenced practice models have been formed, and the ecological resource rights and interests trading model in Sihai Town, Yanqing District is one of them.
Promoting "Protector Benefits"
The value realization mechanism of ecological products is to open up the transformation path of the "two mountains" through ecological protection compensation, market operation and development, etc., to transform the value of ecological products into economic value, and to establish a benefit-oriented mechanism for ecological environmental protection to benefit, users to pay, and vandals to compensate.
Liu Hao, associate professor of the Ecological Product Value Realization Research Center of Shandong University, said that in layman's terms, ecological products are the products of natural ecosystems and the collective name for the rich and diverse benefits provided by natural ecosystems for human beings. The concept of realizing the value of ecological products is to regard the ecological environment as a necessity of human life alongside agricultural products and industrial products, and emphasize the value of the ecological environment. Protecting nature is a process of increasing the value of nature and natural capital, and it deserves reasonable returns and economic compensation.
In 2021, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Establishing and Improving the Value Realization Mechanism of Ecological Products" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions") to implement the realization of the value of ecological products at the institutional and practical levels.
Zhang Linbo said that from the perspective of domestic practice, the value realization mechanism of ecological products can be summarized into five categories: ecological protection compensation, ecological resource rights and interests trading, ecological industry development, ecological capital gains and stimulating economic development.
Ecological protection compensation refers to the behavior of paying the value of ecological products or limiting the development cost of areas with good ecological environment or ecological resource property owners, mainly including vertical ecological compensation based on financial transfer payments from higher-level governments, horizontal ecological compensation across regions, individual subsidies for ecological protection of farmers and herdsmen, and regional coordinated development. "The fiscal transfer payment for key ecological function zones implemented by the mainland is a typical vertical ecological compensation." Zhang Linbo said that the compensation methods carried out by the mainland, such as grassland awards and subsidies, subsidies for public welfare forests, and public welfare posts for ecological protection, are compensation for the individual ecological protection of farmers and herdsmen, which is conducive to forming a virtuous circle in which "protectors benefit".
The trading of ecological resources rights and interests is an important way for public ecological products to realize their value through market transactions. For example, the forest cover trading carried out in Chongqing is a mechanism for district and county governments to trade forest coverage indicators under the total control system of regional ecological resources. This mechanism has effectively opened up the transformation channel from lucid waters and lush mountains to gold and silver mountains.
The development of ecological industry is one of the forms of the value realization mechanism of ecological products. Taking Leling City, Dezhou, Shandong Province as an example, the local government integrates ecological governance with industrial development to realize the innovative development of the internalization of the economic value of ecological environmental governance. Through the development of characteristic and advantageous agriculture, eco-tourism industry, renewable energy industry, and the cultivation of regional brands of agricultural products, we will create a "circular chain" of the overall ecological economy.
Ecological capital gains refer to the mode of integrating social capital through financial means, revitalizing ecological resources, and realizing the economic returns of stock capital. For example, in view of the fragmentation of forest resources, the lack of funds and technology for single-family operation, and the difficulty in realizing forest resources, Nanping City, Fujian Province put forward the concept of "forest ecological bank" for the first time, which collects and stores fragmented ecological resources and integrates and optimizes them, attracts social capital to develop and operate, and realizes the value-added income of ecological capital. At present, the model has been extended to 14 provinces (cities), covering 40 prefecture-level cities and 121 counties and districts.
Stimulating economic development refers to the value indirectly realized by attracting high-tech enterprises and high-end talents to settle in due to the good ecological environment, as well as the difference in housing prices caused by the natural environment. Taking Guizhou as an example, in recent years, relying on the cool climate and excellent ecological environment, Guizhou has actively introduced a large number of well-known enterprises in the field of computer and electronics by reducing production costs, and has become a big data center that has attracted the attention of the world.
Exploration and practice are in full swing
The realization of the value of ecological products has been included in the "14th Five-Year Plan". The "Opinions" make all-round deployment for the realization of the value of ecological products, and point out the path and direction of practicing the concept of realizing the value of ecological products.
In recent years, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other relevant departments have actively promoted the relevant work of the value realization mechanism of ecological products. For example, the Ministry of Natural Resources issued 43 typical cases of ecological product value realization in 4 batches, and organized and carried out pilot projects for the value realization mechanism of ecological products in the field of natural resources; The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has launched a pilot project of eco-environment-oriented development (EOD) model, naming 572 national ecological civilization construction demonstration zones and 240 "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" practice and innovation bases in seven batches. At the local level, Zhejiang, Fujian, Chongqing, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu and other places have carried out corresponding mechanism exploration, and the exploration and practice of realizing the value of ecological products has been fully rolled out across the country.
Zhang Linbo said that the practice of realizing the value of ecological products on the mainland has been at the forefront of the world. However, due to the wide range, deep level and complex problems of the value realization mechanism of ecological products, it is difficult to solve it only by county and municipal governments or a single department, and it is necessary for relevant state departments to effectively cooperate and work together to solve practical problems through top-level design and deployment.
Zhang Linbo further explained that there are spatial differences between the supply area and the beneficiary area of ecological products. To establish a cross-regional and cross-basin market-oriented ecological product value realization mechanism, it is necessary to rely on the provincial government to play an overall and coordinating role. Therefore, provincial and district governments are a key part of realizing the value of ecological products. The National Development and Reform Commission previously required to carry out the pilot of the provincial ecological product value realization mechanism, which is an important guarantee for strengthening the regional coordination mechanism, and is also an important measure to implement the overall promotion requirements of "the central government, the province is responsible for the overall responsibility, and the city and county grasp the implementation" put forward in the "Opinions".
Respect the spirit of grassroots initiative
Lishui City, Zhejiang Province was successfully selected into the first batch of pilot lists of national ecological product value realization mechanism. The reporter learned that Lishui has been exploring the realization of the value of ecological products many years ago. In May 2019, Lishui released the country's first village-based gross ecological product (GEP) accounting report. In order to solve the problem of "credit endorsement" of ecological product financing, Lishui took the lead in compiling and publishing the "Financial Innovation Guide Based on the Value Realization of Ecological Products" in the country, pioneered the "ecological credit" system, established a "positive + negative" list of ecological credit behaviors, and formed a quantitative scoring system of different grades around enterprises, administrative villages and other subjects. Among them, the positive list covers 12 positive incentive items in the five dimensions of ecological protection, ecological management, green life, ecological culture and social responsibility, and the negative list clarifies 10 negative items in the four dimensions of ecological protection, ecological management, green life and social responsibility. The local government has given full play to the power of credit, effectively strengthening the consciousness of market entities and grassroots village collectives on ecological and environmental protection.
"Regions that have achieved remarkable results in realizing the value of ecological products fully respect and stimulate the spirit of grassroots initiative. These areas encourage the grassroots to anchor the key links to realize the value of ecological products, boldly innovate, take the initiative to solve problems, and accelerate the transformation of ecological advantages into development advantages. Liu Hao said that practice also shows that the technical support of high-level professional scientific research teams is an important guarantee for the realization of the value of ecological products. For example, Lishui has established a local scientific research institution "China (Lishui) Liangshan College", and has joined forces with external scientific research forces to break through the technical bottleneck in the process of realizing the value of ecological products; Nanping hires professional technical teams in the field of ecological products to provide support for local value accounting, industrial planning, and model condensation.
Next, how should the mainland continue to explore the path of realizing the value of ecological products? Zhang Linbo suggested that all localities can rely on the high-quality ecological environment to reduce production costs, attract talents and investment, and stimulate industrial development with ecological products; Innovate the mechanism and system for realizing the marketization of the value of ecological products, such as accelerating the construction of a coordination mechanism between underdeveloped regions and developed regions through joint construction of parks and industrial cooperation; Do a good job in the circulation of property rights of rural ecological resources, and explore the establishment of systems such as total control of ecological resources, development quotas and property rights transactions; On the basis of the performance appraisal of key ecological function zones, explore the establishment of an incentive mechanism for the assessment of the value realization of ecological products in economically developed areas.
Source: Science and Technology Daily
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