Complementary legal measures to China’s newly released soil pollution action plan must be included to make it more effective, environmentalist group Greenpeace declared.
In a press release, the East Asia leg of environment-advocacy group Greenpeace urged the Chinese government to add more teeth to their plan in alleviating soil pollution in the country by complementing it with legal measures and a reform in China's agricultural system.
Citing Greenpeace East Asia toxics manager Ada Kong, the document described China's Soil Pollution Prevention Action Plan as "a welcome first step," but urged the country to make it more effective "before it is too late."
China's New Soil Pollution Action Plan
Like its air and water counterparts, soil pollution is now considered a "severe problem" in China after "three decades of breakneck economic expansion," Deutsche Welle Asia reported.
"Rapid industrialization has left a legacy of soil pollution that is damaging health and livelihoods in villages across China," concludes a joint investigation conducted by London's Yale Environment 360 and Beijing's chinadialogue.
While the effects may not present as obviously as those of air and water pollution, soil pollution still poses a great threat for the Chinese people, particularly to their health.
"Like many conditions with environmental causes, the exact chain of consequence in any case is hard to establish," chinadialogue founder Isabel Hilton explained. "But statistical and epidemiological evidence makes a strong case for the relationship between pollution and ill-health."
Because of this, China decided to release an action plan to "curb worsening soil pollution by 2020 and stabilize and improve soil quality by 2030," per a report from Reuters.
China will set up a special fund that would be dedicated to combatting soil pollution, which the outlet believes should amount to about 5 trillion yuan or $760 billion based on its calculations on the average cost estimates in treating one hectare of land.
Greepeace's Call
But while Greenpeace acknowledges the move, the environmentalist group thinks it is still not enough to effectively curb the pollution in the soil of the largest country in the world.
"The action plan must be given the teeth to truly combat soil pollution," Kong explained. "Greenpeace urge the government to complement the plan with soil pollution law and tackle agricultural pollution, before it is too late."
According to Greenpeace's estimate, about one-fifth of China's farmland soil is already "severely polluted," which makes the Soil Pollution Prevention Action Plan "extremely ambitious."
"Its aim to have 90 percent of polluted farmland usable to grow food will put extra pressure on the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) to achieve its agriculture pollution prevention goals by 2020," the statement added.