Interview: Xiamen's integrated coastal management sets good example for East Asia: PEMSEA official

Southeast China's Xiamen city has shown a very good example not only in China but in the rest of East Asian Seas because first of all it has invested a lot in human and natural resources in its integrated coastal management program, said Raphael P. M. Lotilla, executive director of partnerships in environmental management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), based in the Philippines.

"Xiamen is now assisting local governments in the upstream to preserve the watershed from which Xiamen also benefits," Lotilla told Xinhua in an exclusive interview Tuesday at the ongoing World Water Week being held in Stockholm from Sept. 5 to 11.

"And what we have seen therefore is a case where Xiamen being more developed has scientific zone relying on the development of an integrated coastal management program that puts them upon to assist in coming up with a common strategy for the different local governments administering the river basins that flow to Xiamen," Lotilla said.

To identify the source of pollution and deal with it is one of the key "from source to sea" topic during the Water Week. And Xiamen has served as one of the good practices in China as well as East Asia to deal with pollutants from upper stream.

Dr. Zhou Lumin, vice director-general of Oceans and Fisheries Bureau of Xiamen, said Xiamen has suffered a lot of pollutants from upper stream of Jiulong River which is flowing through Xiamen to the sea.

"It has been monitored that the pollutants coming from the upper reaches of Jiulong river amounted to over 50 percent of the total pollutants in Xiamen,"Zhou said.

But since 1994, with the cooperation of Global Environment Facility, United Nations Development Program and PEMSEA, Xiamen has made and implemented an Integrated Coastal Management Program. Every year Xiamen spends about 40 million yuan (about 6 million U. S. dollars) helping upper cities to prevent pollutants from discharging to the river, Zhou said.

After years of efforts, the Chemical Oxygen Demand and Biological Oxygen Demand of the whole Jiulong River reaches have been declining dramatically.

The second method is to establish a scientific management mechanism. That is to set up supervision, monitoring stations in the river reaches and conduct investigation on the source of the pollutants, Zhou said.

In addition, Xiamen has also conducted an important public campaign in pollution prevention. That is to host the World Ocean Week which is formulated with the model of the World Water Week, providing a platform for various governments and scientists to discuss coastal management and promote the effective utilization of marine resources.

"So this is indeed a good example and Xiamen started as a demonstration site of PEMSEA, Global Environment Facility and Asian Development Bank Program 16 years ago. It has come from a long way, now becoming the president of the PEMSEA network of the local governments implementing the coastal management in the East Asian Sea Region," Lotila said.

"So Xiamen has a great credibility because it has shown that you can turn around a polluted lagoon into a very clean one and become balanced between economic development and environment," Lotila added.

By Xuefei Chen Axelsson, Xinhua