Implication of environmental law for mountain protection in China

The paper examines the general provisions relevant to mountain protection in China environmental law in terms of substantive rules, procedural rules and institutional mechanisms. It also reviews some implementation regulations and procedures, and other basic laws relevant to the mountain protection. The results reveal that the China environmental law contains most substantive norms relevant to mountain protection. However, it lacks of a comprehensive legal instrument and relevant procedural norms necessary to support the integrated mountain protection and management. As for the institutional mechanisms, it adopts the administration by various departments rather than by a unified administration institution. Such mechanisms are inappropriate to the required integrated mountain protection and management. These findings suggest that the legal framework of environmental protection and management has been established and environmental law can generally apply to the mountain protection and management. However, a specific regulation should be formulated in light of integrated mountain protection and management. In particular, the regulation should be formulated in consideration of good governance and by integrated approach, emphasizing the issues with which China is recently confronted and should deal.