Guizhou uses carbon sink to substitute ecological restoration

According to the Guizhou Provincial Higher People's Court on April 13, Southwest China's Guizhou province, recently decided the province's first case of using carbon sink to substitute ecological restoration.

The case shows that in 2021, a villager in Jianhe county illegally cut down 469 firs with a total volume of 126.73 cubic meters. Due to Jianhe's high forest coverage rate of more than 70 percent, it is hard to designate a place to replant trees.

In the case, Leishan county people's court discussed with the prosecutor about allowing the defendant to purchase carbon sinks instead of planting trees. According to calculations by local forestry departments, the defendant purchased 20,668.8 yuan ($3,244.32) in carbon sinks and reached an ecological and environmental damage compensation agreement with the prosecutor.

The defendant was also sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of three years for the crime of illegal denudation, suspended for four years, and fined 4,000 yuan.

A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it releases, thereby reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases.

As a national ecological civilization pilot area, Guizhou has seen its forest area increase by 24.44 percent over the past 10 years, and the forest coverage rate has reached 62 percent.

Guizhou has been a pioneer in trials related to environmental resources and was home to China's first court case related to environmental protection. In 2021, Guizhou's courts heard 9,325 cases related to environmental resources cases of first instances, 7,913 of which had concluded.