Recently, the Ministry of Finance issued the revised "Measures for the Management of Key Ecological Protection and Restoration Governance Funds", which makes specific provisions on the budget management, scope of support, and allocation methods of key ecological protection and restoration funds, which will improve the efficiency of fund use and promote ecosystem protection and restoration.
The "Opinions of the Communist Party of China on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China" issued at the end of last year proposed to "accelerate the implementation of major projects for the protection and restoration of important ecosystems, and promote the recreation of grasslands, forests, rivers, lakes and wetlands". The funds for key ecological protection and restoration shall be arranged by the first budget to carry out ecological protection and restoration work such as the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands, and the consolidation of abandoned industrial and mining land left over from history, so as to improve the diversity, stability and sustainability of the ecosystem.
In recent years, the government has continued to increase investment to systematically promote the protection and restoration of ecosystems. ** Fiscal overall consideration of all elements of the natural ecology, starting from the integrity of the ecosystem, according to local and time conditions, zoning and classification policies, with financial strength to promote the overall protection, system restoration, comprehensive management of the ecological environment, with points to lead lines, from lines to surfaces, continue to promote the overall improvement and overall improvement of the quality of the ecosystem. According to the 2023 budget report, 17.2 billion yuan will be allocated for key ecological protection and restoration.
Since the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the Ministry of Finance has selected 52 pilot projects for the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands, with a total of more than 100 billion yuan in awards and subsidies, and a total of about 5.37 million hectares of system treatment have been completed. Gao Jinxing, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Ecology and Environment of the Ministry of Finance, said that on the whole, with the support of the first financial department, the systematic ecological protection and restoration work has achieved significant ecological, economic and social benefits, and the diversity, stability and sustainability of the ecosystem have been significantly improved, further building an ecological foundation to support Chinese-style modernization.
The revised "Administrative Measures" stipulate that the use and management of governance funds shall follow the principles of adhering to the direction of public welfare, reasonable division of powers, overall planning and centralized use, and open and transparent fund arrangements. Governance funds are to be managed by the Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the Ministry of Natural Resources and other departments, and organize the implementation of budget performance management of governance funds, strengthen the management of performance targets, do a good job in performance monitoring, and organize performance evaluation.
The scope of governance fund support is mainly used in two aspects: the integrated protection and restoration project of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands, and the remediation of abandoned industrial and mining land left over from history. Governance funds should be prioritized for solving outstanding ecosystem problems, and should not be used for expenditures in the following areas: projects that do not meet national control requirements such as nature reserves, ecological protection redlines, and cultivated land protection redlines; Projects with clear responsibility for restoration; Projects that have been supported by ** financial funds; Parks, squares, sculptures and other tourist facilities and "bonsai" projects and other landscape engineering construction.
The governance funds are allocated by the project method, and the project with a total investment of 1 billion yuan to 2 billion yuan (excluding 2 billion yuan) for the integrated protection and restoration project of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands will be awarded and subsidized 500 million yuan; The total investment of the project is 2 billion yuan - 5 billion yuan (excluding 5 billion yuan) and the project award is 1 billion yuan; Projects with a total investment of 5 billion yuan or more will be rewarded and subsidized by 2 billion yuan. Projects with a total investment of 500 million yuan or more in the remediation of abandoned industrial and mining land left over from history will be awarded and subsidized 300 million yuan. The Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Natural Resources and other departments, will openly select the best supported projects through competitive evaluation.
Fan Yixia, a researcher at the Research Center for Resources, Environment and Ecological Civilization of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, believes that under the situation of tight fiscal balance, the supporting role of financial funds in key ecological protection and restoration governance continues to increase.
* The government pays close attention to key areas and key links such as ecological protection and restoration, not only strengthens the guarantee of financial funds and policy support, but also pays attention to further improving the efficiency of the use of funds through the construction of long-term mechanisms, which reflects the overall requirements for improving the quality and efficiency of financial funds. Fan Yixia said. (Economic ** reporter Zeng Jinhua).
*:Economy**.