The Shanghai People's Procuratorate handled altogether 6,183 public interest litigation cases in environmental and resource protection fields spanning from traditional issues, such as air, water, and soil pollution, to emerging concerns, such as carbon emissions, invasive species, biodiversity protection, and light pollution, from 2018 to 2023.

Nearly 95 percent of such cases completed ecological restoration before litigation actually took place, according to the Shanghai White Paper on Public Interest Litigation for Environmental and Resource Protection, which was released at a news briefing jointly held by the Shanghai People's Procuratorate and the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment recently.

It is Shanghai's first white paper on public interest litigation in environmental and resource protection.

The white paper details a series of proactive measures Shanghai has taken in environmental and resource protection. For instance, the city's prosecuting authorities embraced the Supreme People's Procuratorate's Yangtze River protection strategy by monitoring ship wastewater discharge, overseeing port transfer and reception, and ensuring proper onshore pollutant disposal. They have also supported the 10-year fishing ban operation in the Yangtze River through afforestation and fish stock enhancement, and have cracked down on illegal sand mining in the river basin.

According to the white paper, many of Shanghai's environmental protection actions were the first in the field. They included the first cross-administrative region public interest lawsuit in the Yangtze River Basin and the first civil public interest lawsuit in China involving imported foreign waste.

As technology and governance systems advance, Shanghai's environmental and resource protection efforts have become increasingly efficient and transparent, said the white paper. Big data, drones, laser rangefinders, and satellite remote sensing are now part of the monitoring toolkit.

The coordination across various levels of prosecution — the three levels of procuratorates in the city, and between criminal, civil, administrative, and public interest litigation — has been strengthened. Enhanced collaboration is also evident across administrative regions, between law enforcement and judiciary bodies, and between public interest litigation and the ecological damage compensation system.

Shao Tianyu contributed to this story.