Jiaojiang, Taizhou: Using water as ink to paint a beautiful bay
Recently, under the joint witness of the Jiaojiang District Procuratorate of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province and the Jiaojiang Branch of the Ecological Environment Bureau of Taizhou City, Sun Moumou, a party to an illegal fishing case, took the initiative to sign a "carbon sink" subscription letter of commitment, voluntarily extracting part of the compensation paid to purchase the island's "blue carbon", and the other part was used for carbon enhancement and other public welfare carbon sink projects to make up for the damage caused by illegal fishing to marine ecological resources with alternative restoration methods.
This is also the first time that Taizhou has attempted to introduce an ecological restoration method that combines "compensation + compensation" in handling criminal incidental civil public interest litigation cases involving marine environmental resources, and to preserve and increase the value of ecological dividends through carbon sink subscription, blue-green conversion, and indirect compensation. Green new development helps "carbon neutrality". In recent years, Jiaojiang has used water as ink to outline a new low-carbon ecological map of "clear and smooth water, beautiful green scenery on the banks, and harmonious people and water", effectively increasing the people's sense of gain and happiness, and writing a new chapter in the management of beautiful bays.
Dual integration of marine ecological governance and common prosperity
In the evening, the setting sun cast a soft orange light on Dachen Island. Li Hejiao, a low-income household, appeared on the shore again and began to pick up plastic foam, dilapidated fishing nets, etc. that had been washed to the shore. She often goes to the coastline to pick up plastic waste and send it to "Xiao Lan Home", which is a stable income for her.
"Xiaolan Home" is the terminal management site for "marine garbage collection". At present, six coastal counties and cities in Taizhou have set up 15 marine plastic waste sorting and temporary storage points "Xiaolan Homes" using terminal shops, etc., to attract low-income people from coastal villages to actively participate in beach garbage cleaning and collection, and recycle marine waste, enjoy subsidies and increase income.
Since 2020, Taizhou has begun to explore new models for marine waste management. Based on the "Ocean Yuncang" smart pollution control model, it has carried out a new "blue cycle" of marine plastic pollution control led by the government, enterprise-led, industrial collaboration, and public linkage. Exploration, and took the lead in implementing it in Jiaojiang District.
"'Blue Cycle 'is actually an upgraded version of' Ocean Cloud Warehouse ', expanding the scope of marine pollutant control from ship oil pollution to marine plastics." Hong Yan, a member of the Party Leadership Group of Jiaojiang Branch of the Taizhou City Ecological Environment Bureau, said. The difficulty in controlling ship pollution lies in the fragmentation of source, collection, transfer, disposal and supervision. To this end, Jiaojiang pioneered a new model for ship pollution control of "Ocean Yuncang", implemented a "five-in-one" system for receiving, transferring and disposing of ship pollutants, and developed a "Fishing Relief" APP to monitor pollutant collection in real time through digital means., transfer and disposal status, and classify and manage ship pollutants.
Hong Yan introduced that this is like a "maritime version of Didi Chuxing". It uses "Internet of Things + blockchain" technology and is based on data to establish a platform to coordinate the three-terminal information of production, waste, transportation and disposal, and collects resources such as manpower, logistics capacity, disposal capabilities, and disposal qualifications are automatically matched to create an "information highway" for marine pollutant management.
Since then, Jiaojiang has iteratively upgraded based on the "Ocean Cloud Warehouse" and used Internet of Things technology to build a "blue cloud warehouse". It was the first in the province to explore and implement a new "blue cycle" model for comprehensive management of marine garbage, and built a closed-loop visualization of the entire process of marine plastic garbage collection, transportation, disposal, and recycling. It uses digital technology to link premium links such as marine garbage collection-land recycling-carbon trading appreciation. Use blockchain technology to realize profit redistribution in the back-end industrial chain and achieve sustainable development that integrates marine ecological management and common prosperity for ordinary collectors, fishermen, and enterprises.
Through the "government guidance + market operation" model, the "Blue Cycle" has attracted low-income coastal residents and fishermen to form a physical collection team, effectively establishing a three-dimensional collection network, and has become the largest single project for recycling marine plastic waste in the country. Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment announced the 2024 "Beautiful China, I am an Actor" advanced model publicity list, and the "Blue Cycle" marine debris management project was shortlisted in the publicity list of the top ten public participation cases, which has once again become the focus of attention.
Build a platform for carbon sequestration calculation and realize dual circulation of blue economy
At the end of October 2023, the carbon asset trading auction of the Mussel Breeding and Carbon Fixation Project in Jiaojiang Dachen Island was held online. This was the first auction of the mussel Marine Blue Carbon Trading in Zhejiang Province. After multiple rounds of online auctions, Zhejiang Crystal Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. successfully won 2223 tons of shellfish carbon sinks for 100,500 yuan, equivalent to RMB 45.2/ton.
There are 6 mussel farmers in Dachen Island, with nearly 300 acres of breeding sea area and an annual carbon sink of about 270 tons. Prior to this, mussel farmers did not know that there was additional "carbon" income from mussel farming. Farmer Guan Junwu said that this was his first exposure to carbon sinks in 10 years."This shows that environmental protection work is being focused on in detail."
"Dachen Island is rich in natural resources, with a forest coverage rate of 66%. It is the second largest fishing ground in Zhejiang." Li Zhanming, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Jiaojiang Branch of the Taizhou City Ecological Environment Bureau, said that Dachen Island also has the world's first flexible power transmission and transformation project, the first domestic green hydrogen energy project, the national blue bay ecological restoration project, wind power generation and other projects, which can provide favorable natural conditions for conducting marine blue carbon research, and the research results are very representative.
It is understood that "marine blue carbon" refers to the process, activities and mechanisms in which marine activities and marine organisms play a key role in the global carbon cycle by absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, fixing and storing it in marine ecosystems. Mangroves, seaweed beds, and salt marshes are the three major blue carbon ecosystems, with the characteristics of huge carbon sequestration, high carbon sequestration efficiency, and long carbon storage cycles. In addition, fish, large seaweed, shellfish and microscopic organisms also play a role in fixing and storing carbon.
About 55% of the carbon captured through photosynthesis in natural ecosystems around the world is captured by marine organisms and stored fixedly in marine ecosystems. This part of the "carbon" is called "blue carbon", or marine carbon sinks.
In order to do a good job in practical work related to marine blue carbon, Jiaojiang District systematically planned and joined hands with domestic universities and authoritative institutions such as Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shanghai Ocean University to form a team of academicians to provide technical support and full-process services in carbon sink measurement, statistics, and transactions. The preparation of the "Dachen Island Carbon Budget and Carbon Neutralization Demonstration Zone Construction Plan" was finally completed, and a one-year systematic survey and research on the land and ocean of Dachen Island. The marine blue carbon reserves and value of Dachen Island were comprehensively evaluated and demonstrated.
Not only that, Dachen Town has also built a "double carbon Dachen Digital Platform" for carbon sink calculation. This is a key core project of the Dachen Town Government in the "Dachen Island Carbon Neutralization Demonstration Island Construction Project", and the carbon sink accounting system is the first in China. The platform covers all aspects of the carbon budget of Dachen Island, realizes full-time and full-space situational awareness of the island's carbon source carbon sink, and calculates Dachen carbon sink data in real time.
In addition, Jiaojiang is also trying to organically integrate the "blue cycle" and "ocean blue carbon" to achieve a dual cycle of the blue economy, forming an iterative development from "ocean governance" to "island low-carbon" and then to "blue economy". By promoting financial service models such as "blue carbon loans","blue carbon storage" and "blue carbon points", we explore innovative models to achieve green energy development, transformation of production and lifestyle, synergy of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, steady growth of carbon sinks, and transformation of carbon sinks. Value.
Create benign artificial ocean pastures and improve the reproductive capacity of marine organisms
Not long ago, the Department of Marine Economic Development of Zhejiang Province organized relevant experts from the Marine Ranch Construction Expert Advisory Committee to conduct acceptance of the first phase of the artificial reef project in the National Marine Ranch Demonstration Zone in the Jiaojiang Dachen Sea Area. This is the largest investment and largest scale artificial reef project in Jiaojiang.
There are few seabed reefs near the sea area of Dachen Island, which is not conducive to long-term "habitation" of marine life. After the construction of artificial reefs, it is equivalent to creating a number of small benign artificial ecosystems along the coast to improve the reproduction of organisms in the sea area.
Judging from the monitoring data of the underwater monitoring system built last year, the ecological environment of this national-level marine ranch demonstration area has been significantly improved and the amount of fishery resources has been significantly increased. This is also a microcosm of Jiaojiang's efforts to protect biodiversity.
Dachenjilongtou is the main producing area of large yellow croaker. Due to overfishing, wild yellow croaker resources were on the verge of exhaustion. In recent years, Jiaojiang has been committed to the restoration of fishery resources. The Dachen Island Marine Ranch Demonstration Area has been built, with an investment of 30 million yuan to build 426 artificial reefs (animals and groups), with a total of 105,000 cubic meters.
It took the lead in adopting large-scale copper purse seine breeding technology in Dachen Island, achieving an annual output of more than 7000 tons of high-quality large yellow croaker, and successfully creating a "golden business card" for large yellow croaker.
Not only that, various relevant units in Jiaojiang River also often organize proliferation and release activities in the Dachen sea area to release black bream, swimming crabs, squid, thick-shelled mussels and other species, effectively restoring marine ecological resources and protecting marine species diversity.
The good ecological environment has also made Dachen Island a paradise for wild animals. More than 70 kinds of birds inhabit and reproduce here, including 5 national second-level key protected animals and 2 provincial-level key protected animals. Whenever the sun sets, the waves ripple, the sand is soft and the tide is flat, and the seabirds chirping, it seems to be playing a song of life.
