UPSC’ SOUND-----Shi Nan : VALUE

Shi Nan, Doctor, Executive Vice Chairman of UPSC, Professor-level senior urban planner, member of the Communist Party of China, Vice Chairman of ISCOARP(International Society of City and Regional Planners ).

Economic value always come to our mind firstly while speaking of value. However, now ecological value is more important under the construction of ecological civilization. 

Ecological value is relative to ecological product. Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, as one of the crucial principles for Xi Jinping thought on ecological civilization, vividly demonstrates the value realization process of ecological products. 

The concept of ecological product firstly appeared in the Major Function oriented in Zoning; as stated clearly in the Report to the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the production capacity of ecological products should be enhanced; it is necessary to provide more high-quality ecological products to satisfy the increasingly demand for a beautiful ecological environment, pointed out in the Report to the nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. 

In 2019, Xi Jinping, General Secretary, published an article, Pushing China’s Development of an Ecological Civilization to a New Stage, in the 3^rd issue of Journal of Qiu Shi. He systematically explained the overall requirements for accelerating the construction of an ecological civilization system: to promote the solution of ecological issues in the period of historical convergence, we should speed up the construction of ecological culture system with ecological value as principles, the construction of the ecological economic system with industrial ecologicalization and ecological industrialization as the main body, the construction of target responsibility system with the improvement of ecological environment quality as the core, the construction of system of ecological civilization with governance system and capacities as guarantee and the construction of the ecological safety system with the virtuous cycle of ecosystem and effective prevention and control of environmental risk as the keys. 

In the field of urban development, General Secretary Xi Jinping also has put forward clear requirements on many occasions. In his earlier working in Fujian City, he pointed out that green mountains and green waters are priceless treasures and any development and utilization should follow the ecological conservation. In his thoughts, city should combine with the nature, leaving clear and green mountains to the citizens. The construction of cities and towns should fully respect and obey the nature with the harmony between the man and nature. At the end of 2013, it’s proposed to integrate the city into nature, so that urban dwellers can enjoy the view of mountains and waters and are reminded of their hometowns in the Central Urbanization Working Conference. In 2015, it’s requested that city nature ecology should be restored to further introduce ecological elements into urban areas, which make city more natural, ecological and characteristics in the Central City Working Conference. In February 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping requested that the planning and construction of Tianfu New District should highlight the features of park city and the consideration of ecological value when he inspected the Tianfu New District in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. In January 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping said that good ecology is the best standard of life in the future , which could reveal its value and strengthen the attractiveness when he visited Xiong’an New District in Hebei Province.

It’s obviously that the emphasis of ecological value is a crucial content of Xi Jinping thought on ecological civilization as well as the core area which must be broken in the construction of ecological civilization. The ecological value, to some extent, is the core concept and important cultural basis for the construction of ecological civilization. Except for ecological value, the value of ecological products, of course, also include economic value, landscape value, scientific value and historic and cultural value. However, it’s crucially necessary to emphasize the ecological value, when the resources and environment are still faced with pressure and the mode of production and consumption still follows the traditional ways of mass production, massive consumption and discharge. Only when the importance of ecological value is fully recognized can it be possible to blaze a trail for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, and it is also possible to reach the peak of CO2 emission before 2030 and further strive to fulfill the international commitment of carbon neutrality by 2060.

In this context, we deeply apprehend that the ecological civilization the important content for the overall layout integrated promotion of economic construction, political construction, cultural construction , social construction and ecological construction and coordinated promotion of Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy: finish building a moderately prosperous society, deepen reform, advance the law-based governance of China and strengthen Party self-discipline. The work of planning should adjust the fundamental thoughts; the core of planning not only refers to the resource allocation and use, but also focuses on the reduction of resource consumption and nature interference; the excellent planning objectives should consider the ecological value and promote the green development of ecological value transfer, not the economic growth regardless of environmental costs; the reasonable planning project should dedicate to promote the ecological transfer of production space and life space, besides reflecting the proportion of rivers and green land; it’s important to the achieve equalization of public service and build up the life circle with perfect public facilities, but what’s more value is to provide the most inclusive livelihood and welfare: the excellent ecological environment. 

Source: <//www.stufic.com/news/view?id=10974&cid=11>

Translated by Wang Yue