Shandong courts accepted 16,989 new environment and resource cases in 2025

On June 4, the Shandong Provincial Higher People's Court reported that in 2025, courts in Shandong accepted 16,989 new cases involving environmental and resource matters and concluded 16,891 cases. Among them, 168 new firstinstance environmental civil, administrative public interest litigation, and ecological environment damage compensation cases were accepted, and 197 cases were concluded. The report showed that Shandong courts concluded 267 criminal cases related to air, water, and soil pollution, as well as smuggling of waste, throughout the year in accordance with the law, and handled 1,886 environmental tort disputes involving noise pollution, adjacent relations, and similar matters. At the same time, the courts also concluded 333 cases involving illegal mining, illegal logging, and destructive logging, as well as 405 cases involving endangering precious and endangered wild animals, illegal hunting, and illegal fishing of aquatic products. In terms of ecological protection in the Yellow River basin, courts in 25 counties, cities, and districts along the Yellow River in Shandong concluded more than 2,200 environmental and resource cases in total. The Shandong High Court also held judicial dialogues with the Qinghai High Court and strengthened cooperation with railway courts in the upper and lower reaches of the Yellow River, promoting coordinated basin governance. In addition, Shandong courts jointly carried out special campaigns on solid waste remediation and bird protection with departments such as ecological environment and natural resources, and heard 256 criminal cases involving pollution of the environment by solid waste and 106 criminal cases involving bird protection. In one illegal clam fishing case mentioned in the article, in addition to sentencing the relevant defendants to imprisonment, the court also required them to fulfill their ecological and environmental damage compensation obligations by purchasing carbon sinks.