Pollutants (1990) and Regulations Concerning the Dumping of Wastes at Sea (1985) were all .
enacted and all have prevented serious damage to seawater during the past 15 years. But who is .
to say what is considered serious, these pollutants could have killed off species of marine life .
yet to be discovered by man. What if some now extinct type of marine plant held the cure to .
AIDS or cancer, mankind will never know because we are too busy dumping our wastes into .
these environments disrupting the ecosystems.
But land-based pollutants are not the only destructers of man that disturb the ecological .
balance of the sea. Uncontrolled, profit driven sand and gravel dredging and excavation have .
damaged mangroves and coral reefs, causing equally harmful effects to the marine ecology as .
does pollution from waste water. The fish breeding sites in tidal areas and major migration .
routes are sometimes destroyed by the irrational construction of dams and the uncontrolled .
reclaiming of land from the sea for building development zones. Much of the waters bordering .
China are also in contact with Japan, and Japan has a large fishing economy which is now going .
to be affected by the vast amounts of fishes either dying off of moving to cleaner waters. An .
institutional reform is to be under way, but government function have not been clearly defined .
and the overlapping of different institutions" responsibilities still prevents the effective .
implementation of the law. According to Liu Nanlai, a senior research fellow of the Law .
Institute from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "to prevent troubles from arising .
during the operation of the law, a single governmental institution to support the unified .
management of State marine protection affairs is desperately needed". But while everyone is .
running around trying to get all the legal affairs settled, manufacturers and businesses are still .
dumping excessive wastes into our oceans.