The central ecological and environmental protection inspection teams released their findings from Thursday to Saturday, revealing that the five provinces and three State-owned enterprises involved have improved, though challenges remain.

With the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, China's Cabinet, the fourth batch of the third round of central ecological and environmental protection inspection teams delivered their findings to the provinces of Shanxi, Shandong, and Shaanxi, the Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, as well as to China Huaneng Group, China Datang Corporation, and State Power Investment Corporation.

The inspection of the provinces and SOEs began on May 28, and has shown that though positive progress has been made, significant issues were identified.

The findings showed that in some regions, some projects were still characterized by high energy consumption and high pollution, and that they had been initiated without proper oversight.

It was also found that the effectiveness of ecological protection and governance in certain sensitive areas remained unstable, and illegal hunting and trafficking of wild birds occurred frequently.

Furthermore, progress in addressing the issue of digging lakes for landscaping has been insufficient.

In the Yellow River basin, there were notable shortcomings in the fight against pollution.

Some SOEs were found to have not effectively assumed a leading role in ecological and environmental protection, with incomplete systems and mechanisms, inadequate energy consumption control, delays in eliminating outdated equipment, and falsification of ecological and environmental monitoring data.

The inspection mandates that all provinces and central enterprises develop and submit rectification plans to the CPC Central Committee and the State Council within 45 working days.