The Conceptions of Environmental Protection and the Relevant Legal regulations in Ancient China

The history of Chinese ecological environmental protection regulations can at least be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty and later they were promulgated in the Qin and Han dynasties. The Western Xia dynasty witnessed the formation of a relatively mature law on ecological environmental protection because of geographic factors. The Confucian ecological thoughts had been stressing a good treatment of all natural things on earth on the basis of the Confucian philosophical idea of "benevolence." According to the philosophy of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi in the Song Dynasty, the concept of "Unity of Man and Nature" is crucial to the development of the thought on ecology and ethics. It is significant to discover and collect the legal regulations on ecological environmental protection in ancient China and to explore the headstream of the thoughts on environmental protection of different schools at different stages for China's environmental protection.