Recently, the General Office of Sichuan Provincial People's Government printed and issued a notice on the Regulations on Management of Provincial Ecological Counties in Sichuan Province and the Indicators on the Construction of Provincial Ecological Counties in Sichuan Province. It means that Sichuan will soon start the construction of provincial ecological counties with a view to forming a national and provincial ecological civilization demonstration creation system.

　　The indicators on the construction of provincial ecological counties in Sichuan involve six fields, namely the ecological system, ecological safety, ecological space, ecological economy, ecological life and ecological culture. There are a total of 35 indicators, including ambient air quality, surface water environmental quality, ecological environment status index, forest coverage rate, grassland vegetation coverage, etc.

　　The notice stressed that counties (districts, county-level/prefecture-level cities) that are going to build provincial ecological localities should, in accordance with the Guidelines for Preparing the Planning of National Ecological Civilization Construction Demonstration Zones (Trial Implementation), organize the preparation of related construction planning based on the indicators of constructing national ecological civilization construction demonstration zones and provincial ecological counties.

　　The Regulations on Management of Provincial Ecological Counties in Sichuan Province clarifies that the municipal (prefectural) bureaus of ecology and environment under the local governments can apply to the Department of Ecology and Environment of Sichuan Province when their ecological locality construction planning has been issued and implemented and is still in effect, the relevant laws and regulations have been strictly implemented, all of the obligatory ones of the related provincial construction indicators meet the assessment requirements and more than 80% of the indicators for reference reach the standard.

　　Localities may not apply for the title of a provincial ecological county if they have one of the nine adverse records, including failure to complete the national, provincial and municipal (prefectural) tasks about ecological environment quality, energy conservation and emission reduction and other key ecological environmental protection work, falsification of ecological quality monitoring data, etc.

　　The title of a provincial ecological county is valid for three years. The Department of Ecology and Environment of Sichuan Province will monitor and manage the localities that win the title in a dynamic manner and conduct spot checks as appropriate. The title can be renewed on expiry if the localities' construction indicators still reach the standard through re-examination.