Illustrations: Peter C. Espina/GT

"We spent 140 yuan ($19.88) on the ticket, why cannot we take away a little stone?" A visitor snapped at a staffer who was trying to stop her son from carrying away a pebble from a Changdao Island beach, near Yantai in East China's Shandong Province. The beach in Changdao is rocky with beautiful round stones. Mostly egg-shaped or looking like oblate spheroids with intricate patterns on them, the ball stones are so lovely that some visitors cannot help but take one or more away as souvenirs. However, this is forbidden. As the ecosystem of Changdao is relatively vulnerable, the Shandong government released a legislation in late July to protect the ecological environment in Changdao. The new law forbids acts that would damage marine ecology, including picking up and taking away pebbles from the beach. Parents are the best teachers. Rather than confronting the staff, the mother should have told her son to desist from picking up the stone in the interest of ecological protection.