Environmental cases increasing year by year

City courts handled 2,227 cases related to the environment and resources in the past 16 months, Shanghai High People's Court announced ahead of World Environment Day on Friday.

The court said the number of such cases had been increasing over the past three years. 

The majority of the criminal cases heard by local courts related to biodiversity, including smuggling rare animals and their products, illegal killing and sales of endangered wild animals and illegal hunting and fishing.

Over the period, local courts accepted 16 public interest litigation suits, covering aspects such as fish and bird protection, oil pollution, sewage discharge, illegal burying of garbage and imports of foreign waste.

Since January, cases have been assigned to Jinshan District People's Court, Qingpu District People's Court, Chongming District People's Court and Shanghai Railway Transport Court. Appeals are dealt with by Shanghai No. 3 Intermediate People's Court.

Also on Thursday, the Shanghai People's Procuratorate said that between January 1 last year and May 30 this year, local prosecutors had charged 313 suspects in 208 cases.

Nearly 13 percent involved polluting the environment, mostly by metal processing companies or workshops in the city’s outskirts.

In cases involving damage to resources, more than 60 percent were illegal fishing in the Yangtze River or the sea.