IN A NATIONAL WATER SOURCE conservation area in Fuzhou, Fujian province, more than 100 graves appear like gray rashes on the lush green mountains. China Daily reporter Li Yang comments:

Many of the grave plots cover an area of more than 100 square meters each. In the aerial photos of the mountains provided by the Xinhua News Agency, scenes of devastation are everywhere. All of the tombs are empty. Most of the people, who sponsored the projects, are middle aged and in good health. They have laid out way stations to prepare for their final journeys in this life, which for most will not come until decades later.

According to the local funeral custom, which is in itself a kind of superstition, an elaborate funeral and a luxurious grave can guarantee a comfortable afterlife for the dead. And it is also a tradition to make a coffin or build a grave way ahead of one's death, which it is believed can bring inner peace and longevity to their owners.

The local residents attach great importance to the feng shui of the location of their graves, and building a grave early means they will have more choices for graves in areas with good feng shui.

Reportedly, most of the graves are owned by local villagers, who believe that building a final resting place near one's home is a private affair. And, in most cases, the local governments are reluctant to interfere with burial affairs－for instance, by forcing the villagers to demolish a tomb once they are finished－because as well as being deemed as overstepping their powers, such an act is considered baleful in itself.

The inaction of the authorities is then taken as acquiescence, and more tombs are built, which emboldens more villagers to follow suit.

Given the power of superstition, the local villagers will even offer sacrifices to local power holders to persuade them to turn a blind eye to their "private" projects until the graves become a fait accompli.

However, all of these, including the superficial tranquillity, come at great cost of the environment and ecology, and harm the credibility of the law and government.

Hopefully, the media's involvement will spur the higher authorities to look into the bold grave building movement in a forbidden zone and put an end to the practice once and for all.