When protectors of the vulnerable Chinese white dolphin learned that underwater blasting was to take place in an important habitat, they used all available means to stop it. The reef blasting was set to occur in Weitou bay, Fujian province, as part of a pier construction project.
The volunteers examined potential legal breaches. They contacted the authorities to establish what was happening. All the while they raised public awareness through press and social media.
Things moved quickly. After receiving numerous complaints, the authorities in charge suspended the blasting work.
Next, Friends of Nature lodged a public-interest lawsuit over the risk of ecological damage, hoping to stop the pier project restarting. But later, in August 2025, the court rejected the application, saying environmental organisations did not have the necessary standing to bring such a case.
Staff from environmental organisations Friends of Nature and ChinaBlue later wrote an account of their efforts.
China’s system for bringing environmental public-interest lawsuits has been developing for over a decade now. Environmental groups have brought cases over pollution, wetland conservation and wildlife protection. However, ocean cases are often rejected by the courts who say environmental organisations don’t have the standing to act as plaintiffs.
So why are they able to bring cases about problems on land, but not at sea?
Marine public-interest lawsuits are a no-go for NGOs
The state encourages public oversight of environmental protection according to its new Ecological and Environmental Code, which was approved in March and has entered into force this month.
Qualified civil society organisations can bring environmental public-interest lawsuits. The aim is to have those responsible for environmental damage halt harms, restore the environment or pay compensation. Government agencies and prosecutors can also bring such cases.
These cases are also about preventing environmental harm and insisting on accountability. Organisations can ask the courts to order actions to be avoided or work to halt when there is a risk of environmental damage.
This is a more effective method of public oversight than simply making complaints or raising public attention, Wang Hui, a professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, told Dialogue Earth.
Marine ecosystems can be vast, and once damage is done, many marine species recover slowly, if at all. Human activity – whether that is port construction, land reclamation, sand dredging or offshore energy development – can have ecological impacts across different administrative jurisdictions, making management harder.
In the Weitou bay case, Friends of Nature told ChinaBlue volunteers that while the project had been approved, its environmental impact assessment had not considered underwater blasting. Also, when trying to handle the crisis, Friends of Nature found the authorities trying to pass responsibility back and forth. With nobody to engage with, they decided a lawsuit was their “last resort.“
Many academics believe environmental public-interest lawsuits brought by NGOs are important to ocean conservation. However, there is little if any scope for such cases because the rules for them favour the marine environmental authorities or prosecutors playing this role.
A legal interpretation on marine public-interest lawsuits issued by the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate in 2022 stated that administrative bodies and prosecutors can bring these cases. Civil society organisations were not mentioned.
Since then, there are no records of such an organisation successfully doing so. A revision of the Marine Environment Protection Law in 2023 said the same. The Ecological and Environmental Code made no further changes.
One reason for the NGO block is that governance of the ocean is more complex, Wang Canfa, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, told Dialogue Earth.
“A marine environmental issue can be very far-reaching,” he said. It can involve authorities with responsibility for natural resources, the environment, maritime affairs, fishing and the coastguard. It can also cross jurisdictions, with currents, tides and marine life spreading impacts even further.
Activities in some areas may even have effects across national borders or involve international ocean governance. This means marine issues can easily involve international relations and diplomatic incidents – areas where civil society organisations are not preferred to exercise oversight.
Meanwhile, Wang Canfa pointed out, assessing and evidencing damage at sea is complex and expensive. Very few civil society organisations have the technical skills and personnel to bring a public-interest lawsuit like this.
Other routes remain
Nevertheless, such organisations have found other routes to bring cases involving the coastal environment. In 2021, Friends of Nature brought an environmental public-interest lawsuit over damage to natural shoals and waterbird feeding grounds arising from a construction project in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province. It demanded that the respondent restore the environment and pay compensation.
The court agreed that the project had breached laws on wetlands and wildlife protection. It ordered a halt to construction until legal approvals were obtained. The court was willing to hear that case as it involved the protection of coastal wetlands, rather than a strictly marine environment. The outcome was different for Weitou bay as it involves a near-shore ocean environment.
Wang Hui says that as different elements of nature on land and at sea are highly interconnected, for the overall protection of ecosystems, it would be worth questioning the value of this distinction further.
How can the situation be improved?
It is understood that there are no plans to change the rules on who can bring marine environmental public-interest lawsuits. But professors Wang Hui and Wang Canfa both say civil society organisations should have the standing to bring lawsuits over marine as well as terrestrial environments.
Wang Canfa adds that most environmental groups do have much room for improvement. They should work to build their professional capabilities for investigating and evidencing, environmental monitoring and constructing legal arguments, he says.
Lin Wei from Renmin University of China’s School of Law has suggested that civil society organisations should work within the existing framework: when they discover harm to ocean environments, they could inform relevant regulators, and if the concerns are ignored, alert prosecutors to consider a public-interest lawsuit.
Over a year after the court refused to hear the Weitou case, the volunteers who first sounded the alarm continue to work to protect the Chinese white dolphin and raise awareness of its plight.
For them, these lawsuits aren’t just about getting the court judgement, but about slowing down relentless development and wining more space for legal consideration of nature.
