The general offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, have jointly issued a document on establishing a long-term monitoring system for the exploitation of natural resources and the environment.

According to the document, a monitoring and alert system will be set up that will carry out real-time monitoring of the natural resources and the environment in key areas and regular evaluations of them elsewhere. Anyone found responsible for the over-exploitation of natural resources or environmental damage will be held accountable.

The new system will classify the natural resources and environmental capacity as being overloaded, near overloaded and not overloaded.

Regions will receive a red alert if there is no longer any capacity to exploit natural resources and the environment has been severely degraded, while regions that are close to reaching that point will be issued with a yellow or blue alert.

Regions that still have the capacity to exploit their natural resources and where the environment is not threatened will be labeled as green non-alert zones.

Regions with serious overexploitation of their natural resources and severe degradation of the local environment will be prohibited from starting new projects, and enterprises causing serious damage to the local environment and natural resources will face punishments including fines, production restrictions and shutdowns.

Regions that have been classified as overloaded that are able to rectify the situation will receive rewards accordingly.