Court halts Blue Bay project to protect bird habitats

Stopping construction

Public information indicates Blue Bay is an ecological restoration project.

It is part of the coastal environmental remediation project for the Lianyungang New City Center, as outlined in Lianyungang city's overall urban plan (2015-2030). Nearly 20 square kilometers of land in Lianyungang New City was reclaimed from the sea, causing the loss of its original natural shoreline's ecological function.

The city government proposed the construction of the "Blue Bay" in Lianyungang New City, with the project to be undertaken by Jinhaian Development and Construction Co.

The environmental assessment report shows that the project will effectively convert the ecological advantages of Lianyungang into economic benefits, bringing a series of environmental and ecological benefits, including significant improvement in seawater quality, providing excellent living space and breeding habitat for various wetland organisms and effectively curbing environmental degradation trends.

Due to its emphasis on ecological restoration, the project even received 300 million yuan in special funding from the central government in April 2019.

"The time was urgent and the situation was critical. Every day, the construction was damaging the foraging grounds of birds," said He Yini, head of the legal team for the Blue Bay case from Friends of Nature.

In April 2021, the NGO filed a public interest civil lawsuit with the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court, suing Jinhaian Development and Construction Co and the environmental assessment unit of Nanjing Normal University's Environmental Science and Technology Research Institute, requesting the stoppage of all construction activities, elimination of the ecological damage risk, ecological restoration of the damaged area and compensation.

After the court accepted the case, the NGO continued to submit complaint letters to relevant departments, and changes began to happen.

In November that year, the shoreline restoration project was suspended, followed by the suspension of the project's basement construction in January 2022.

From February to April 2022, the NGO submitted multiple letters of complaint to the Central Environmental Inspection Team and relevant authorities. A year later, the project was stopped by environmental protection inspection officials.