Program of Action for Sustainable Development in China in the Early 21st Century

In the wake of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, the Chinese government published China's Agenda 21 - White Paper on China's Population, Environment and Development in the 21st Century as a platform document for guiding the country's social and economic development. That document marked the beginning of the sustainable development process in China. To help implement the sustainable development strategy, this Program of Action for Sustainable Development in China in the Early 21st Century (hereinafter referred to as the "Program") is hereby promulgated. This Program, based on past achievements and experience and taking into account new requirements for sustainable development in the new century, specifies the objectives, principles, priority areas and safeguard measures for the country's sustainable development in the early 21st century.

Part I: Achievements and Problems After a decade of efforts, China has achieved remarkable progress in sustainable development.

- Economic development. China has maintained sustained, rapid and healthy growth of its economy. As a result, the country's overall national strength has built up considerably, with its GDP topping 1 trillion RMB yuan. China today is the largest recipient of direct foreign investment in the developing world and the sixth largest trading power in the world. People's livelihood and quality of life have witnessed significant improvement. Furthermore, economic growth is increasingly based on more sustainable ways, relying on enhanced efficiency rather than heavy input of resources. The economic structure is being gradually optimized.

- Social development. The trend of excessive population growth has been checked; science, technology and education have made positive headway; and remarkable progress has also been made in social security, poverty eradication, disaster relief and prevention, medical care, and narrowing the regional gap in development.

- Ecological conservation, environmental protection and rational exploitation of resources. The central government has greatly increased spending in ecological conservation and environmental protection; the pattern of energy consumption is being gradually optimized; measures for controlling water pollution have been stepped up for key water systems; breakthrough progress has been made in curbing air pollution; comprehensive use of resources has significantly improved; and the ecological environment has improved to some extend thanks to retiring fragile farmlands and switching them to conservation purposes, such as planting trees and grass, and expanding floodwater storage.

- Capacity-building for sustainable development. The strategy of sustainable development has been incorporated into various programs and plans by central government ministries and local governments. Public awareness of sustainable development has markedly increased, and relevant laws and regulations have been enacted and enforced. However, China still faces quite a few challenges in implementing sustainable development.

- The greatest challenges are: a conflict between rapid economic growth and voluminous consumption of resources and ecological deterioration; social development lagging behind economic development; widening disparities between different regions in social and economic development; constraints posed by a large population and scarce resources; and inconsistencies between some existing laws, regulations and policies and actual needs for sustainable development.

- Major problems urgently needed to be resolved include: the comprehensive quality of the population needs improvement; aging of the population is accelerating; the social security system is inadequate; the pressure on employment is heavy; the economic structure is less than rational; the operation system of the market economy needs to be improved; clean energy has a low share in the total energy consumption; infrastructure is underdeveloped; the information infrastructure for the national economy is of a low level; a serious waste exists in the exploitation of natural resources; environmental pollution is serious; ecological deterioration is still not curbed; legislation on resources management and environmental protection needs improvement. With increasing globalization of the world economy, the international community is enhancing its understanding of and stepping up its efforts for sustainable development and common development. China should, after its accession to the WTO, give full play to the advantage of its socialist market economic system. In particular, China should give full play to the role of government in organizaing and coordinating the implementation of the sustainable development strategy and properly handle the relationship of economic globalization and sustainable development. China should also, based on the achievements of the Johannesburg world summit on sustainable development, actively participate in international cooperation, and safeguard the country's fundamental interests, including its economic and ecological security.

Part II: Guidelines, Objectives and Principles

1. Guidelines Human-centered Harmony between man and nature Centering around economic growth and proceeding from the need to improve the quality of life for the people Seeking breakthroughs via scientific and institutional innovations Unwaveringly promoting harmony between social and economic development on the one side and population, resources and the environment on the other Steadily enhancing China's overall national strength and competitiveness and laying a solid foundation for the realization of the goal of building a comprehensive xiaokang (moderate prosperity) society by 2020

2. Objectives Growing capacities for sustainable development Marked progress in economic restructuring Population aggregate brought under effective control Significant improvement in the ecological environment Markedly increased efficiency in utilization of resources Sustainable path of development characterized by rising productivity, prosperous livelihood and a well-preserved environment. Specifically, this strategy seeks to achieve the following: Economic restructuring. Complete a transition, to be brought about through a strategic restructuring of the national economy, from the old mode of economic growth characterized by high consumption of resources, high pollution and low efficiency, to a new, sustainable pattern of low consumption, low pollution and high efficiency. Promote optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, alleviate pressure on resources and the environment, bridge regional gaps in development, and narrow the urban-rural divide. Poverty relief. Continue to work on poverty alleviation and rural development; further improve the basic conditions for production and livelihood in poverty-stricken areas by building up infrastructure and improving the ecological environment; gradually lift the people there out of economic, social and cultural backwardness; improve the quality of life and the overall quality of destitute population; build on successful practices and help the poverty-stricken population shed poverty. Human resources development. Strictly control population growth; raise the overall quality of the population; build an extensive social security system that encourages quality childbirth and childrearing and make it available to all; provide as much employment as possible; significantly improve public services; build up capacities for disaster prevention and relief and reduce losses; improve vocational training and improve the quality of workers through the introduction of a national accreditation system. By 2010, the total population should be kept within 1.4 billion and annual average natural growth rate within 9per thousand. Further expand the coverage of the nine-year compulsory education; the gross enrollment rate reaches 95% for junior high schools and about 20% for higher education, and the literacy rate reaches more than 95% for adults. Resources development. Rationally develop and efficiently utilize resources; build a sustainable safeguard mechanism and strategic reserve system for important resources. Environmental protection. Significantly improve the environmental quality for most parts of the country and basically check the deterioration of the ecological balance; basically restore ecological functions and biodiversity in key regions and curb pollution of farmlands. By 2010, forest coverage will reach 20.3%; 33 million hectares of degraded, desertified and alkalized grasslands will be improved; soil erosion will be put under control on another 50 million hectares of land; discharge of main pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and industrial solid wastes will be reduced by 10% from the preceding five years; sewage treatment will be raised to over 60% in urban areas. Capacity-building. Build a sound system of laws and regulations on sustainable development; improve the information sharing and policy support systems; build up capacities for scientific decision-making and overall coordination on the part of government; greatly increase the public's participation in sustainable development efforts; participate more in international cooperation in the area of sustainable development.

3. Principles Achieving sustainable, well-balanced growth. Center around economic development while promoting harmony between man and nature; balance population growth against resources and the environment; keep social and economic development in step with ecological conservation. Invigorating the nation through science and education and persistent innovation. Give full play to the role of science and technology as the primary productive force and the role of education as the leading, all-encompassing and fundamental factor in economic development. Step up innovation, develop all categories of education, and promote the integration of the sustainable development strategy with the "revitalizing the nation through science and education" strategy. Enabling the government to exercise macro-economic regulation and control and market forces to regulate the performance of the economy. Give full play to the initiatives of government, enterprises, social organizations and the public. The government should increase spending, enhance supervision, play a leading role, and provide a sound policy environment and public services. Market forces should be used fully to encourage businesses, social organizations and the general public to participate in sustainable development. Actively participating in international cooperation. Open wider to the outside world and participate in the process of economic globalization; take advantage of the domestic and international markets and resources to promote sustainable development. Achieving breakthroughs in key areas. Make overall planning, highlight priority areas, and implement them in steps. Pool human, material and financial resources to achieve breakthroughs in key areas and regions; on the basis of all this, advance the sustainable development program in an all-round way.

Part III: Priority Areas

1. Economic development Adjust, dynamically, the industrial and regional economic structure as well as the urban-rural economic structure; participate actively in economic globalization; gradually achieve a strategic transformation of the national economy, so that economic growth will be based on lower consumption of resources and less pollution. Industrial restructuring. Make strategic adjustments to agriculture and the rural economy; raise efficiency in the utilization of land and water resources and reduce environmental pollution and ecological deterioration. Restructure the crop-farming and animal-farming sectors, optimize the geographical distribution of farm production, promote industrialization of agriculture, and promote technical upgrading and institutional innovation in township enterprises. Restructure and retool industry and alleviate the pressure on resources and the environment by industrial development; transform and upgrade traditional industries with high technology and advanced, appropriate technology. Select a number of backbone enterprises for transformation and implement a number of high-tech projects. Develop vigorously the services sector to boost supply capacities and quality of services to meet growing demand; develop the real estate sector centering around housing construction; improve tourism infrastructure and supporting facilities; improve and boost community service facilities; transform and improve the traditional goods distribution, transportation and postal services; develop the information industry and promote the use of information technology in government, banking, foreign trade, radio and television, education, science and technology, medicine, public health, social security and public utilities sectors. Strengthen construction of infrastructure: boosting flood-control capacities centering around the harnessing of major rivers and lakes; step up the construction of major water-control projects such as the diversion of water from the south to the north; speed up the construction of key trunk line roads; and build and upgrade main railways. Regional development and poverty alleviation. Redesign the regional structure and alleviate imbalances in regional development; step up the construction of water conservation, transportation, energy, telecommunications, radio and television facilities and urban infrastructure in western China through the implementation of poverty-relief projects and the Western Development program; accelerate the development of the local economies based on local features; raise the efficiency of resources utilization; and reduce discharge of pollutants. Gradually eliminate abject poverty and reduce relative poverty: continue to implement the development-as-relief program; implement a strategy of "government taking the lead and the public participating", taking an integrated approach to alleviate poverty that encompasses social, economic, ecological and environmental measures to improve the basic conditions for production and livelihood and medical care in poverty-stricken areas; actively and prudently proceed with the emigration program in ecologically fragile regions to enhance ecological conservation and restoration. Urbanization and small-town development. Improve urban planning: actively develop medium and small-sized cities; improve the functions of regional hub cities and allow large cities to boost development of surrounding regions through their "radiating effect"; develop small towns in selected regions. Fine-tune the layout of administrative divisions and create an institutional framework, policy framework and planning system compatible with sustainable development in urban areas in China; actively and prudently promote the urbanization process in China; improve urban socioeconomic planning and guide the development of different types of towns. Develop unified markets for labor, capital and other factors across urban and rural areas and accelerate the shift of rural population to urban areas. Combine small-town development with the rational concentration of rural enterprises, improvement of rural market systems, and industrialization of agriculture including supporting services. Build up capacities of small towns to absorb rural populations; in particular, improve urban infrastructure so as to increase job opportunities. Improve the living conditions, public services and social services of towns. Improve urban community management; build and manage new orderly, civilized, harmonious communities and create a sound human settlement environment. Strengthen urban management, improve the urban environment, create different styles of towns and cities, and improve the comprehensive management of towns and cities. Economic globalization. Optimize the export goods mix and improve management of imports; increase the export of machinery and electronics products and high-tech products; restrict and prohibit the import and export of products and technologies that affect human health and safety and hurt the environment; gradually raise the environmental and quality standards for import and export products and create a regulatory system that protects human, animal and plant health and the environment; develop international trade and economic cooperation and attract foreign investment into areas and regions that are encouraged by the state's industrial policy. Encourage capable domestic enterprises to go abroad. Enhance the international competitiveness of Chinese industries and transform the traditionally resource-intensive industries into labor-, technology- and capital-intensive industries. Actively participate in formulating rules pertaining multilateral trade and the environment and work together with the international community in opposing the establishment of new trade barriers in the name of the environment and human rights and ensuring the smooth implementation of the sustainable development strategy.

2. Social development Build a sound system for population management and quality childbirth and child rearing, stabilize the fertility rate at a low level; control the population aggregate and improve the population quality. Build a health and medical care system, employment structure and social safety net compatible with the country's level of economic development; greatly improve public services; create a disaster monitoring and forecast system and an emergency relief system and build up disaster-prevention and relief capacities. Population management. Adhere to the basic state policy of family planning and maintain consistency of the current fertility policy; accelerate legislative work in population management; improve family planning work at the grassroots level, i.e. villages and hamlets in rural areas and communities in urban areas; hold the legal representatives of companies and institutions responsible for the family planning work of their units; improve the technical service network building for family planning and the management of family planning workers; improve the publicity of and education on new fertility concepts; introduce incentives to encourage responsible fertility behaviors and build a social security system that encourages family planning. Take measures to encourage households to practice family planning and step up protection of the rights and interests of those who practice family planning. Strengthen management of the migrant population. Universalize the nine-year compulsory education; ensure preschool education; universalize senior middle school education in cities and economically developed areas; improve higher education; develop continuing education; improve the quality of the population. Social security. Build a standardized social security net independent of enterprises and institutions and with multiple sources of funding. Readjust and improve the pension system for urban workers; steadily convert the existing "minimum living expense guarantee" system for laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises into a standardized unemployment insurance system and perfect such a system. Expand the coverage of basic medical care insurance, including workplace accident insurance and childbirth insurance. Strengthen and improve the social relief system based on the program of subsistence allowances for needy city dwellers; step up development of social welfare undertakings such as community old-age care facilities. In places where conditions permit, explore ways to provide rural residents with pension, medical care and subsistence allowances. Introduce a societal mechanism for social security management and services; improve the collection and management of social security funds; step up social security legislation; build up information systems for social security management; practice an proactive employment policy, expand employment opportunities and develop labor-intensive industries. Encourage people from all sectors of society to have new concepts of employment, introduce flexible forms of employment and encourage self-employment. Improve employment services, and enhance vocational training to raise the skill levels of laborers. Health care. Build a sound legal system and supervision and enforcement procedures for health care. Continue to deepen reform of the medical establishment and improve regulation of the medical sector. Rationalize the allocation of resources in the medical care sector to set up a new type of accessible and efficient urban health care system based on community services with a clear division of responsibilities between various levels of service providers. Step up health care in rural areas and build a rural health care network that meets the requirements of rural socioeconomic development and is capable of providing disease prevention, health care and other basic medical services; provide all rural residents with basic health care services. Build up capacities to handle emergencies (including the outbreak of epidemics) and improve prevention and control of serious diseases. Effectively improve health care for women and children and increase the immunization level for children. Improve health care and rehabilitation services for senior citizens, including boosting services of hospitals, community medical centers and family care. Improve prevention and treatment of occupational diseases and protect the health of workers. Publicize health care knowledge and promote healthy practices and lifestyles. Disaster management. Further improve laws and regulations on disaster management and enhance public awareness of disaster prevention and alleviation; develop plans for disaster prevention and alleviation and for tackling emergencies; build and improve the monitoring, forecast and warning systems for major natural calamities and accidents, fully upgrade and consolidate information processing capacities and raise the timeliness and accuracy of forecasts; improve inter-agency coordination and collaboration and build a crisis-management system and coordinating mechanism for disaster relief; strengthen project construction for disaster management and the reserve of relief materials and equipment; build a rapid-response disaster-relief task force and emergency relief capacities; alleviate human casualties and economic losses arising from disasters. Encourage private donations and put in place institutional arrangements that are favorable to private disaster-relief efforts.

3. Resource Allocation, Utilization and Protection Rationally use, conserve and protect resources and improve the efficiency of resources utilization. Create a system that ensures the security of supply of major resources and a strategic reserve system to make certain that the needs of the national economy for resources are met. Water resources. Improve laws and regulations on the development, management and protection of water resources and enforce stricter policies on water resources management. Introduce a system of water management that combines the management-by-valley model with the management-by-administrative region model. Clarify water ownership rights, introduce a system that allocates water resources along water system and administrative region lines, and ensure the reasonable consumption of water resources for daily life, industrial and ecological purposes. Introduce a water resources hearing system for the formulation of national socioeconomic development plans, urban planning, and major construction projects and promote the balanced development of water resources and the population, environment, society and the economy. Build a rational pricing system and introduce incentives; institute an integrated water-resource management mechanism that combines planned water use with rationing; introduce water use auditing and promote the rational utilization of water resources. Reallocate the water resources by diverting water from the South to the North. Encourage the development of water-efficient agriculture and industry; build water-efficient cities and communities to raise the utilization of water resources; introduce a system of water zoning for various purposes and effectively protect water resources. Promote utilization of non-conventional water resources such as waste water recycling. Carry out the south-to-north water diversion project and improve the general distribution of water resources. Develop sea water resources along the coast, and promote and apply sea water desalinization technologies to compensate for fresh water deficiencies. Rational use of land. Implement the basic state policy of treasuring and rationally utilizing land and effectively protecting farmland, practicing the strictest land-management system in the world. Strengthen land resources survey, evaluation and monitoring practices, and formulate a scientific overall plan for land use and strictly enforce it. Reinforce farmland protection and construction, prevent farmland degradation, and ensure food security of the country. Strengthen forest protection and forest resources buildup to ensure the ecological security of the country. Rationally readjust land use structure and layout to improve the efficiency of land use. Strengthen the management of land use for construction, control the scale of land use for such purposes, encourage rural residents to settle in towns and industrial enterprises to relocate to industrial parks, and guarantee land supply needed for economic development. Actively undertake land leveling and reclamation and adequately develop land reserve resources. Improve land asset management, deepening land-use restructuring by aggressively introducing a market-oriented approach to land-use rights, improving the land pricing system and land tax system, and promoting efficient land use. Improve the land property system and safeguard the contractual rights of farmers. Reform the land expropriation system. Deepen research and application of land science and technology; expand land remote sensing surveys; and improve land-use management information systems. Strengthen land legislation, improve laws and regulations and law enforcement. Energy efficiency. Develop natural gas, hydraulic power, renewable energy, new energy and other forms of clean energy; develop clean-fuel buses and electric-powered buses; utilize overseas oil and gas resources; and reduce the share of coal in energy consumption. Greatly develop clean coal and thermal-power central heating technology; strengthen energy conservation; improve efficiency of energy utilization, and reduce environmental pollution. Wherever appropriate, develop methane, fuel-efficient stoves, solar energy and wind energy; improve energy consumption in rural areas. Implement the west-east gas pipeline project and the transmission of power from the west to the east to improve the energy structure. Forest resources. Tighten protection, management and oversight of forest resources and improve law enforcement; stop unlawful felling and enhance public awareness of forest protection. Clarify the obligations, rights and interests in forest protection; deepen reform of the forestry sector by adjusting and improve outdated forest policies and reducing taxes. Apply high technology to transform traditional industries and phase out outdated production modes; accelerate the development of fast-growing, high-yield timber production bases and industries. Step up ecological conservation and implement on a full scale key projects of protecting natural forests. Grassland resources. Improve institutional building for grassland protection and strengthen grassland management and enforcement. Clarify the obligations, rights and interests in grassland protection; apply high technology to transform the way grassland resources are utilized from quantity-based to quality- and efficiency-based growth. Implement a series of projects to protect natural grasslands such as artificial grass-planting, grass-planting by airborne seed-sowing, imposing a moratorium on grazing, grassland improvement, and pest control. Double efforts to improve desertified, alkalized and degraded grasslands. Mineral resources. Improve legislation on mineral resources protection; scientifically draft and strictly implement plans for mineral resources development; strengthen macro-regulation of mineral resources development; and promote rational distribution of mineral resources exploration and development. Further improve work in mineral resources surveying, evaluation and exploration, and enhance security of mineral resources. Implement a protective development policy for strategic mineral resources. Improve the system of utilizing mineral resources at a cost. Promote structural improvement and optimization for mineral resources utilization toward greater efficiency through advances in science and technology and scientific management. Make full use of domestic and international capital, resources and markets and build large mineral resources bases and overseas mineral resources bases. Strengthen ecological conservation in mineral-rich areas and gradually build environmentally sound mines. Marine resources. Develop plans for rationally utilizing and protecting marine resources. Strictly implement plans for allocation of marine functions; strengthen marine management; tighten examination and approval of marine resources utilization; and fully introduce the practice of using marine resources at a cost. Build up capacities for maritime monitoring and enforcement management. Conduct a nationwide study on the state of the country's maritime ecology. Develop high technology to develop deep-sea and oceanic resources. Climate resources. Further enhance public awareness of climate resources. Improve legislation on climate resources utilization and protection. Develop plans for the reasonable utilization and protection of climate resources; revise and update climate resources plans in a timely fashion. Adopt advanced computer information processing technologies and remote-sensing technology and improve climate resources monitoring and evaluation. Build pilot bases for reasonably utilizing climate resources, in particular focusing on the monitoring, planning and piloting of agricultural climate resources, wind energy and solar energy. Strategic mineral resources reserves. Establish a strategic mineral resources reserve system and improve relevant economic policies and management practices. Build an early-warning system for the security of supply of strategic mineral resources and introduce a water reserve system of multiple water sources in large cities. Build up strategic reserves for oil and other major mineral resources through a combination of public and private efforts.

4. Ecological Conservation and Development Build a scientific and sound system for ecological monitoring and management and establish nature reserves of all types with rational distribution and appropriate sizes. Build an anti-desertification system and reinforce efforts to combat soil erosion. Improve the ecological environment for farming; improve afforestation in urban areas, thereby ameliorating the quality of the ecological environment. Ecological monitoring and security evaluation. Build a sound technical and standard system for ecological monitoring and security evaluation at different levels: national, regional and protection zone. Adopt remote-sensing and terrestrial monitoring technology to monitor and manage the following: forests, grasslands, wetlands, farmlands, nature reserves, deserts, soil conservation, agricultural ecology, biodiversity, large ecological projects, major resources development areas, and changes in land use. Introduce emergency monitoring for disasters such as serious pollution accidents, red tides, oil spills and sandstorms. Build an ecological security evaluation and early-warning system. Key ecological projects. Focus on the protection of natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, and the natural forests in northeast China. Curb soil erosion, alleviate damages done by sandstorm, strengthen protection of biodiversity, build fast-growing and high-yield timber production bases, and gradually meet demands for ecological soundness and forest products. Step up implementation of six key projects: protection of natural forests and return unfit cultivated farmland to forest; remove sandstorm sources around Beijing and Tianjin; build shelter belts in north China, northeast China and northwest China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River; construction of wild animal and plant protection parks and nature reserves; and the construction of fast-growing, high-yield timber production bases in targeted regions. Nature reserves. Build up existing nature reserves - including those of forest ecosystems, rare wild animal protection zones, desert ecosystems, inland wetland and water ecosystems, grassland and meadow ecosystems, marine and coastline ecosystems, wild plants, geological sites, and paleontologic sites. Build a number of high-quality and highly-effective nature reserves in source regions for major rivers such as the Yangtze and Yellow rivers and major natural wetlands in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, and in ecologically volatile regions such as southeast, northeast and northwest China and habitats for rare and near-extinct species. Rationalize the distribution of nature reserves and step up construction of biological corridors. Ecological conservation zones. Strengthen construction and management of existing ecological conservation zones. Build new conservation zones in source areas for rivers; important wetlands (lakes) in the valleys of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Songhuajiang River and inland river systems such as the Tarim River and the Heihe River; hilly red-earth regions in the south, the Loess Plateau, and earth-rock mountainous areas in the north; areas where farming and animal husbandry are intermingled; drought-hit grassland areas; and coastal water fishing zones. Adjust the industrial structure in those conservation zones by developing environmentally-friendly industries and minimizing the impact of human activities on the ecosystem. Adhere to the principles of "conservation through moratorium on productive activities" and restore and rebuild the ecosystem. Anti-desertification. Develop operational mechanisms and policies favorable to economic development in desertified regions; study and apply appropriate farming techniques that can prevent or curb land desertification. Build an anti-desertification system that combines prevention with control and utilization. Focus on conservation of existing vegetation in desert-bordering and oasis areas and build shelter belts in peripheral areas around oases; conserve and restore vegetation in semi-desertified areas; for high-altitude desertified areas, improve desertified land in areas where there is a heavy concentration of human activities while ensuring conservation of existing vegetation. Fully improve and develop wherever possible desertified land in the semi-wet or wet parts of the Yellow-Huaihe-Haihe Plain; comprehensively improve and develop desertified land in the south. Take measures to prohibit development of whole tracts of desertified land not appropriate for control or development. Soil conservation. Improve the soil conservation policy; implement state policies that encourage retirement of unfit farmlands and switching them to planting trees and grass; improve water conservation for basic farmlands and grasslands. Integrate water conservation with development, anti-soil erosion efforts with efforts to fight poverty and develop the local economies; introduce an integrated approach to fight soil erosion by treating large river systems as backbone and small river valleys as components, so as to prevent man-made soil erosion in the course of massive development and construction. Build a comprehensive anti-soil erosion mechanism that combines engineering measures with biological and farming measures. Study, develop and apply appropriate techniques for soil preservation. Step up international cooperation and exchanges and introduce advanced technologies, superior varieties, management methods and means. "Green" agriculture. Step up enforcement of legislation on protection of wild agricultural biological resources; collect specimens from key areas and build pilot conservation areas or sites. Introduce protective farming techniques and continue to implement dry farming pilot projects in drought-hit counties. Develop effective policies and management mechanisms; develop and apply key technologies and models for "green" agriculture; encouraging farmers to adopt clean-production technologies and use less chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Recycle agricultural wastes and build a sustainable ecosystem for agricultural development. Improve legislation, standards and testing procedures for organic or pollution-free farm products; better the testing, evaluating and pre-warning systems for the agricultural ecosystem; build up agricultural production bases and improve product safety management; create demonstration bases and brands for organic or environment-friendly agricultural production. Scenic spots protection. Develop and implement plans for scenic spots in accordance with the principle of "strict protection, uniform management, rational development and sustainable utilization". Specify the scope of protection for the core part of a scenic spot (which includes ecological, natural or historic sites) when making plans for overall protection. Make special plans, identify key areas and take special measures to protect those key areas. Prevent any construction project unrelated to resources conservation from taking place within the core areas of scenic spots. Align the planning of scenic spots to local land use planning. Urban environment. Rationally plan land use for urban construction; establish and strictly implement a "green line" rule for urban management. Ensure a certain portion of public green in urban planning and a sizable area of a shelter belt around large cities as befitting modern cities. Step up urban landscaping and improve the air quality in urban areas. Promote Garden Cities and alleviate the "urban thermal-island effect". Improve management of construction sites and streets and reduce dust and noise.

5. Environmental Protection and Pollution Control Control the aggregate discharge of pollutants and curb water pollution in river systems. Reinforce air pollution control in key cities and water cleanup efforts in key sea areas. Improve legislation and law enforcement on environmental protection and revise technical standards for environmental protection. Aggressively apply clean production and environmental-protection industries and actively participate in regional and global environmental initiatives, contributing to global environmental conservation while improving the quality of China's environment. Water pollution control. Step up water pollution control along major rivers and lakes and tighten protection of drinking water sources; clean up lakes and reinforce pollution control at water sources. Promote clean production and further reduce discharge of pollutants. Control the total discharge of pollutants and increase wastewater treatment. Introduce zero discharge of wastewater in selected industries. Continue to build up infrastructure for urban sewage and garbage disposal. Rationalize the industrial and product mix; develop and apply high technology and processes for curbing heavy pollution in line with China's national conditions; raise the overall level of industrial development and water pollution control. Marine pollution control. Improve the national marine monitoring network to boost monitoring of marine pollution and the ecological environment. Reduce discharge of land-based pollutants into the sea and sea pollution caused by marine production and development activities. Control the total discharge of pollutants into the sea. Clean up the environment in key sea areas and step up protection and construction of the ecological environment along the coast. Air pollution control. Control the emission of acid rain-causing substances, hazardous and harmful industrial gases; control acid rain, particulate substances, optical chemical smog and indoor air pollution. Urban traffic management. Improve urban traffic structures by giving priority to public transit. Develop rail transportation in mega-cities and build a road system that favors public transit. Control automobile exhaust emission and noise pollution in cities. Solid waste control. Gradually introduce garbage sorting, collection and recycling and increase environment-friendly garbage disposal rate and recycling rate. Further raise the recycling rate for solid wastes and step up ecological conservation and restoration efforts at mines. Improve the safe disposal of hazardous wastes. The environmental protection industry. Regulate the environmental protection industry and market; rationalize the industrial structure by building a market-oriented technical service system and a sound market mechanism through commercializing pollution control. Develop policies to support the development of the environmental protection industry and intensify R&D of key technologies and processes for environmental protection ;boost the production capacity for high-efficiency and practical environmental protection equipment and promote the serialization and standardization of key equipment. Guide the development of the environmental protection industry through standards, technical policies, demonstration projects and key practical technologies. Introduce the ISO14000 environmental management system and "environment-friendly" labeling and certification practices. Improve intermediary services, technical and engineering services to facilitate environmental protection.

6. Capacity Building Build a legal framework for population, resources and environmental management and improve law enforcement. Make full use of the mass media to enhance public awareness of sustainable development. Build a set of indicators and monitoring system for sustainable development and establish an information-sharing system for government offices, the general public and the research community. Legislation and enforcement. Strengthen legislation on sustainable development and improve the legal system. Draft and improve laws and regulations on population, resources, the ecological environment, prevention and alleviation of natural disasters, and information sharing and utilization, based on the principle of sustainable development. Revise relevant laws and regulations in line with market rules and the WTO rules. Establish and improve a law enforcement mechanism to ensure that laws are enforced. Indicator system, monitoring and evaluation. Build an indicator system and monitoring/evaluation system in line with China's conditions to measure sustainable development. Monitor and evaluate sustainable development at both national and regional levels and regularly publish relevant reports. Information sharing. Build databases on basic public data, population, socioeconomics, resources, ecology, the environment and disasters to allow information sharing based on high-speed networking; make information publicly available and enable the databases to process and analyze data. Build an information-sharing network that meets the government's needs for decision-making.

Part IV: Safeguard Measures Adopt administrative, economic, scientific and technological and legal measures to realize the goals set forth in this Program against the backdrop of the current international and domestic environment. Steps include better inter-agency coordination, expanded funding channels, bolstered support for science, technology and education, and improved laws and regulations. Implement the sustainable development strategy with a heightened sense of responsibility and mission, in compliance with the requirements of the "Three Represents" theory (the Chinese Communist Party represents the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people in China).

1. Employ administrative means to improve decision-making Strengthen leadership. Governments at all levels should carry out the sustainable development strategy conscientiously, incorporating the tasks listed in the Program on population, resources and the environment into their routine work agendas. The policy of holding the chief executive responsible for population, resources and the environmental work should be continued and faithfully executed. Responsibilities should be divided clearly between governments at different levels. Governments should be responsible for coordinating different departments in decision-making, ensuring that responsibilities, measures and funding fall into the right places. The government should make continuous efforts to improve its ability to plan, coordinate and standardize management. Reinforce supervision. Develop a standardized and rational performance review and award system for public servants to motivate leading government officials at all levels to pay great attention to sustainable development of population, resources and the environment. Governments at all levels should ensure that the idea of sustainable development be incorporated into relevant strategies, programs and plans and be integrated into the entire process of implementation. Over time, government officials should be evaluated chiefly by their performance in implementing sustainable development, as measured by the outcome of the evaluation and final inspection mission. Balanced development. Build and improve a coordinating mechanism for balanced development of the population, resources and the environment and social and economic development, as well as an incentive mechanism for integrated decision-making. Develop an indicator system favorable to measuring the level of sustainable development in targeted areas and enterprises and introduce, on a trial basis, the cost of resources and the environment into the accounting system of the national economy. Introduce, on a trial basis, the system of assessing the impact on sustainable development for major projects and decisions. Create ways for public participation in decision-making and improve public services for promoting sustainable development.

2. Create an investment regime that favors sustainable development through economic leverages Build a fund-raising mechanism conducive to sustainable development. Gradually increase spending by governments at all levels in sustainable development, encouraging non-state sector capital or even foreign capital to go into sustainable development and drastically improving the security and stability of funding for sustainable development. Improve management and efficiency of funding. Establish a more reasonable pricing mechanism that encourages all stakeholders to participate in sustainable development. Use pricing to encourage all stakeholders to strengthen conservation of resources, strictly protect the ecological environment in both urban and rural areas, and give full play to the role of pricing in regulating resources supply and demand and sustainable utilization.

3. Provide strong support for promotion of sustainable development through scientific advances and advocacy. Deepening the reform of the system for science and technology. Establish a science and technology regime that meets market requirements while conforming to development of science and technology. Rationalize the allocation of resources; further boost R&D and services for sustainable development; motivate scientists and technicians to engage in R&D and commercialization of sustainable development; promote the sustainable development of population, resources and the environment. Development and application of environmentally friendly technologies. Pool resources to develop a host of key technologies that are key to sustainable development and raise the technical level and capacity. Promote clean production in the course of business restructuring. Accelerate the transition at all types of enterprises from end-control to whole process control by combining clean production with technical advancement, energy conservation, resources recycling and management improvement. Step up the establishment of an integrated industrial pollution control model focusing on clean production; encourage and support enterprises to adopt high and new technologies, new types of energy and clean production techniques with less consumption of energy and materials and less pollution. Select qualified regions or enterprises and support the establishment of a number of ecological and environmental R&D centers; pool resources to tackle key problems in technological and equipment development, so as to boost China's capacity to manufacture complete and serialized setsof equipment. Develop education at all levels and enhance public awareness of sustainable development. Reinforce human resources development and build up the public's capacities to participate in sustainable development. Add sustainable development to the textbooks used in elementary and higher education; introduce "science" courses in primary and middle schools; build a number of model parks (zones) at selected colleges; increase spending in publicity, promotion and application of sustainable development. Open research institutes to the public; use mass media to disseminate knowledge on sustainable development. Train a large number of researchers, public servants and volunteers who are well-versed in quality childbirth and child rearing, environmental protection, resources conservation and environmentally friendly consumption. Actively encourage and support social organizations and non-governmental organizations to participate in activities promoting sustainable development.

4. Improve legislation on sustainable development Continue to improve legislation. Study and draft a number of new laws and rules; step up revision of existing laws and regulations; form a legal framework for sustainable development. Draft local regulations in line with national laws and regulationsand local conditions, in order to promote sustainable development on a local level. Supporting institutions and standard-development. Build and improve rules and procedures for sustainable development, including existing ones on environmental management, management ofownership rights for natural resources, compensation rights, transfer of use (property) rights, and management of migrant population; establish an institutional framework for the management of population, resources and the environment with Chinese characteristics. Public supervision. Improve governance by law and strengthen the personnel resources of law enforcement and step up law enforcement. Allow the mass media and social organizations to playtheir due role in supervision and ensure that governments and law enforcement departments at different levels exercise their duties in accordance with law. Pay attention to the publicity, promotion and education on laws and regulations on sustainable development to enhance public awareness of those laws and regulations.

5. Select key regions and fields as model projects Improve pilot work for sustainable development, summarize experience, and gradually promote the implementation of the sustainable development strategy. Build a number of bases of sustainable development through modeling that integrates technology with management, policy and institutionalization. Conduct policy and strategic studies and key technology R&D centering around key issues in sustainable development. Solve problems faced universally by local governments such as how to utilize resources, how to preserve the ecological environment, andhow to restructure the economy toward efficiency-based growth. Develop different models and apply those models in neighboring regions.

6. Strengthen international cooperation to create a sound external environment for sustainable development at home. Actively participate in global cooperation in environmental protection and develop strategies for participating in various environmental treaties and conventions. Implement in earnest all the international treaties that China has acceded to and carry outresolutions and decisions reached at the Johannesburg summit meeting and other international meetings. Pay great attention to and actively participate in bilateral and multilateral cooperation;capitalize on all occasions to promote environmental protection athome and safeguard China's national interests. Create a sound international environment for sustainable development. Meet the requirements of globalization and China's accession to the WTO. Establish and improve an investment and trade policy framework spearheaded by "green" products, technology and services, in lightof economic globalization and China's accession to the World TradeOrganization; make full use of both domestic and international resources and markets to advance the cause of sustainable development in China.