A drone photo taken on Oct. 20, 2025 shows a view of Yellow River Estuary in Dongying, east China's Shandong Province. In recent years, Shandong Province has launched initiatives to build beautiful bays through nearshore pollution control, marine ecosystem protection, and coastal environment improvement. The overall quality of the marine ecology here has continued to improve, and six bays across the province have been recognized as outstanding examples of "beautiful bays" by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. (Photo: Xinhua)

Ten government departments have moved to establish an ecological law-enforcement mechanism to strictly crack down on prominent crimes such as environmental pollution, destruction of wildlife resources, damage to ancient and valuable trees, illegal fishing, illegal mineral extraction, illegal river-sand mining, and the unlawful occupation of farmland, China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced on Monday.

The MPS, together with the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and other government bodies recently issued a policy document on strengthening the development of the ecological policing mechanism.

The document calls for establishing an ecological policing mechanism led by public security authorities and coordinated across relevant government departments, in order to crack down on environmental and natural-resources crimes in accordance with the law.

By 2027, the ecological policing mechanism is expected to be largely in place; by 2035, a fully developed, scientifically regulated, and efficiently functioning system will be fully established and standardized, according to the document.

In outlining measures for stronger early prevention, the guidelines encourage local governments to experiment with policing models tailored to their own conditions — including river- and lake-patrol chiefs, forest-patrol chiefs and other forms of "ecological police." Drawing on pilot programs in several regions, the document suggests setting up joint policing centers and field stations in areas burdened with heavy ecological-protection tasks or frequent environmental crimes.

Such platforms, it says, should integrate ecological law enforcement with routine public-security operations and embed them more deeply into grassroots governance.

For broader environmental governance, the guidelines call for a strategy of "cracking down to promote rectification." Public security agencies are instructed to promptly share any identified risks or loopholes with other authorities, pushing them to address problems at the source.

They also stress that protection and restoration must go hand in hand: investigators should guide offenders, in accordance with the law, to shoulder responsibility for repairing environmental damage, ensuring that political, legal and social outcomes are aligned.

The document further urges authorities to link crime-fighting with ecological restoration and the green transformation of local industries, arguing that stronger enforcement can enhance both economic competitiveness and the value of ecological products.

It calls for tough action against crimes that violate the rights of enterprises, as well as counterfeiting involving premium agricultural and geographic-indication products, while stepping up protection of high-value ecological resources.

The guidelines also lay out requirements for improving coordination, joint operations, inter-agency cooperation and cross-regional collaboration. They call for enhanced personnel training, digital and intelligence-driven tools, promoting the rule of law and basic infrastructure.

The document urges public security departments to work closely with agencies responsible for development planning, justice, natural resources, environmental protection, transportation, water resources, agriculture, forestry and maritime law enforcement — and to build a tiered "police plus administration" model that maximizes collective impact.

Global Times