By Wu Ping，DRC

With the dual demands of economic development and ecological protection being put on the development agenda, it has become increasingly important to distinguish and protect the ecological red line for territorial development. The ecological red line is the ecological guarantee of sustainable development, thus the exploitation and utilization of national territory must be based on the ecological condition and total layout of land.

1. Ecological security should be ensured and multiple objectives should be taken into consideration. Ecological base provides abundant and complete ecological services to meet various needs of the people. The ecological system includes multiple basic functions such as climate regulation, water conservation and oxygen supply and these functions cannot be maximized at the same time, and each function shows positive or negative correlation with another. Therefore, it is necessary to give a balanced analysis of the main functions to achieve the coordinated development and multiple objectives and to form a comprehensive ecological security pattern, so that city planning and construction projects could be based on ecological condition and total layout of land, which will enhance the basic security of development.

2. More attention should be paid to ecological security under the new normal of economic development. In different stages of development, territorial development has different demands on ecological environment, transforming from the exploitation of resources to restoration and conservation, and further to cooperation for win-win results. People have different requirements for ecosystem services, gradually changing from survival needs to intellectual needs, and then to harmonious coexistence. Under the new normal, it is urgent to construct an ecological security pattern suitable to the current development stage, so as to flesh out economic development needs, and minimize the destruction to ecological environment.

3. Multiple strategies should be applied to ensure the development of territory. First, the land-scale ecological security pattern should be included into the statutory planning system. Second, the government should set up a management department responsible for the maintenance of regional ecological security pattern. Third, the promotion of the establishment of territorial security pattern and intensive development should be advanced in line with the principal functional zones.

4. The development pattern should be based on ecological security. The construction of territorial development pattern should be based on the ecological security pattern. The government should pay attention to the precise positioning of cities and development speed to achieve the integration of urban development boundary and the ecological red line, as well as the integration of national economic and social development planning including urban and rural planning, land use planning, and ecological and environmental protection planning. To stop the practice of setting different ecological red lines for individual needs, it is necessary to co-ordinate the business-based red line of various departments so as to fulfill development goals based on a common map and a common line.