"Four Relations" and "Three Inspiration"-"Xiamen Practice" is worth learning from

As an important birthplace and pioneer practice of Xi Jinping's thoughts on ecological civilization, Xiamen City takes the comprehensive management of the Lake as a model and marine ecological protection and restoration as the main line. It works step by step and over a long time to explore a scientific path that conforms to the laws of nature, conforms to the expectations of the people, and promotes the construction of ecological civilization. Over the past 36 years, the local area has insisted on leaving the most beautiful coastal space as a public good to citizens and tourists, writing a new chapter in the harmonious coexistence of man and nature in modern bay-type cities.

The author believes that the valuable experience of "Xiamen Practice" mainly lies in scientifically handling the four relationships-and this is obviously worth learning and learning from more places.

Properly handle the relationship between high-level protection and high-quality development, adhere to the harmonious coexistence of man and the ocean, and promote high-quality economic development through ecological restoration. As a high-value ecological garden city, Xiamen continues to attract high-tech and cutting-edge enterprises to settle in and comprehensively optimizes the marine industry. While promoting the transformation of "high-value" of the ocean into "high value" for development, it has achieved both economic development and people's living standards. Improvement not only fully reflects the support of high-quality development with high-level protection, but also profoundly demonstrates the ecological civilization concept that "man and nature are a community of life, and mankind must respect nature, adapt to nature, and protect nature."

Properly handle the relationship between key tasks and coordinated governance, adhere to systematic thinking, and improve the systematicness, integrity, and synergy of the construction of bay-type cities. In the process of cross-island development, Xiamen adheres to the concept of system, grasps the main contradictions and main aspects of contradictions, and mobilizes relevant departments in the form of a "command post" to jointly promote key tasks and tackle them in a coordinated manner. Entering a new era, the local government has taken effective measures to address outstanding ecological and environmental issues that affect the quality of life of the people, strengthened target coordination, multi-pollutant control coordination, departmental coordination, regional coordination, and policy coordination, and continuously enhanced the systematicness and integrity of various work., synergy.

Properly handle the relationship between natural restoration and artificial restoration, adhere to local conditions, and promote the sustainable development of bay-type cities. The management of the Eryan Lake has created the technology of "tide-diverting and flowing water", that is, by building a western embankment gate and a diversion embankment, the natural tidal range is used to draw seawater from the western sea area into the lake, allowing the lake body that was once separated from the ocean to re-"embrace "the sea and turn stagnant water into living water, which has greatly improved the water quality of the Eryan Lake. This innovative governance method based on local conditions has achieved significant results in improving the environmental quality of the Lake. After that, Xiamen clarified different ecological restoration and regional development goals based on the characteristics of each bay,"one bay, one policy" and multiple measures were taken simultaneously to improve the ecological function and spatial pattern as a whole, and build a protection and management plan "from the top of the mountain to the ocean". Pattern, achieve the integration and symbiosis of "mountains, rivers, seas and cities", and promote sustainable economic, social and ecological development.

Properly handle the relationship between external constraints and endogenous motivation, adhere to multi-party participation, and improve the "hard system" and "soft culture" for the development of bay-type cities. Every step forward in the comprehensive management of Eryan Lake, there is a system to protect it. According to actual needs, Xiamen took the lead in formulating and revising relevant regulations in a timely manner to organically combine the long-term and timeliness of the system and mechanism. From the promulgation of the "Measures for the Management of Eryan Lake" in the late 1980s, to the later promulgation of the "Measures for the Management of Eryan Lake in Xiamen City", to the implementation of the local regulations "Measures for the Protection of Eryan Lake Area in Xiamen Special Economic Zone," Xiamen has successively issued more than 10 lake-related, sea-related and land-related regulations, providing a strong legal guarantee for the continuous implementation of ecological and environmental protection and restoration. At the same time, Xiamen has also continuously increased the participation of enterprises, social organizations and the public in the construction of marine ecological civilization, and actively cooperated with international marine protection organizations and biodiversity conservation organizations to stimulate the endogenous motivation of the whole society to jointly protect the ecological environment., achieving the synergy and co-promotion of external pressure and endogenous power.

As a demonstration model for realizing the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, the construction of Xiamen Bay-type City fulfills the mission of the times of putting people first and green development, and brings us many inspirations.

First, from the comprehensive management of the Eryan Lake to the comprehensive management of the coastal zone, Xiamen has always "left the most beautiful beaches to the people" and has consistently provided high-quality ecological products to the people for 36 years. Whether it is building a bay-type urban governance pattern "from the top of the mountain to the ocean", or insisting that "mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and seas" are a community of life, promoting systematic governance and overall restoration, they are all inheritance and development of the Marxist ecological concept and profoundly embody the ecological and people's livelihood view of Xi Jinping's Thought on Ecological Civilization.

Second, Xiamen has carried out governance on polluted water bodies, damaged ecological environment and the deep-seated causes behind pollution, which fully reflects problem-oriented, adapting measures to local conditions, classified policies, and systematic concepts. For example, the comprehensive management of the Eryan Lake implements the 20-word policy of "managing the lake in accordance with the law, intercepting sewage, dredging and building banks, invigorating water bodies, and beautifying the environment", focusing on coordinating the left and right banks, upstream and downstream banks, land and water, surface and underground, rivers and oceans, Water ecological water resources, pollution prevention and ecological protection. For another example, in the bay remediation project, the local government clarifies different restoration goals based on the characteristics of each bay, and achieves "one bay, one policy" to achieve the best results of systematic governance. The above reflects Xiamen's methodological innovation in environmental protection and ecological restoration from different dimensions, and has important reference significance for the construction of ecological civilization in other regions of our country.

Third, by completing a number of ecological and environmental protection and restoration projects, Xiamen has accelerated industrial transformation and upgrading, actively developed emerging marine industries, explored blue carbon trading, broadened the "two mountains" transformation channel, and became a high-level protection support for high-quality development. A vivid demonstration. "Xiamen Practice" shows that as long as we adhere to the unity of protection and development, coordinate the restoration of the "mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and seas" system, and continuously improve the quality of development,"Blue Sea and Silver Beach" are also "invaluable assets", and the "ecology-society-economic" composite system is fully capable of sustainable and healthy development.

As early as the early 1990s, the comprehensive improvement project of the Zuan Lake was rated as the "East Asian Sea Pollution Prevention and Management" demonstration project by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for global promotion and demonstration. In 2023, Peter Thomson, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Ocean Affairs of the United Nations, attended the Xiamen International Ocean Week. In an interview with the media, he said: "Cities like Xiamen, which are leading in ocean governance, need to take the lead in facing global marine environmental challenges." So far, Xiamen has successfully held 18th International Ocean Week, attracting representatives from all walks of life in the ocean from more than 130 countries and more than 50 important international organizations to participate.

Obviously, today's Xiamen has become a leader in promoting high-quality development through high-level ecological restoration in global bay-type cities, and is providing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions for global marine ecological and environmental governance.

(Author: Li Hongwei and Zhang Erjin (researcher at the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era at the Central Party School [National School of Administration], doctoral candidate at the Central Party School [National School of Administration]) The original text is published in Guangming Daily on June 29, 2024. Edition 09)