Excessive real estate development and severe land reclamation in South China's Hainan Province have eroded local coastlines and damaged the marine ecology, reported the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) on Saturday.
The MEP criticized some cities on the tropical island for ignoring environmental protection while relying heavily on real estate for economic development.
According to a press release the MEP sent to the Global Times on Saturday, the Ocean Flower Island project illegally approved by the Danzhou government has damaged large sections of coral reef and a specie of pearl oysters.
The Ocean Flower Island is a tourist resort integrating hotels, shopping malls, theaters and residential buildings. The total investment was 160 billion yuan ($24 billion), according to the island's website.
The Phoenix Island project in Sanya obtained the right to reclaim land along the city's coastline to build an international passenger terminal, but the project's main purpose was to develop properties and hotels. The western coastline at Sanya Bay was eroded through land reclamation, said the MEP's report.
"Land reclamation by real estate developers has increased over the past decade in Hainan, and many real estate projects started construction without an environmental assessment," Lin Hongmin, an adviser to Hainan Provincial Maritime Environment Protection Association, told the Global Times, adding that some assessments were only cursory.
"The MEP's current inspection was very necessary to curb deterioration of the fragile marine ecology in Hainan," Lin said, noting that coral reefs in some parts of Hainan have died due to excessive development of properties, which has also reduced the diversity of fish.
Eight of the 10 national level nature reserves contain tourist projects that failed to get approval, the MEP inspection found. Land resource, forestry and housing departments in Wenchang failed to properly manage a project at the Tongguling Natural Reserve where a hotel and road were built on an land reserved for forests.
The MEP required Hainan government to curb excessive real estate development and establish a special department to investigate the problems. It called on Hainan to hold those accountable for the ecological damage. The MEP has asked Hainan to submit plans to address the problems to the State Council within 30 work days and make the report public.
