Not long ago, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and four other departments jointly released the fourth batch of ten typical cases of ecological environment damage compensation. These cases involve important areas such as the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, the Yangtze River Basin, national forest parks, and aquatic germplasm resource protection areas, covering environmental elements such as surface water, soil and groundwater, and grasslands. They reflect the positive achievements of ecological environment, housing and urban-rural development, water conservancy, and agriculture and rural departments in carrying out ecological environment damage compensation work in recent years, fully demonstrating that the rule of law principle of "environmental value and responsibility for damage" has been transformed into vivid governance practices in various regions. The ecological environment damage compensation system is an important legal system in the field of ecological environment protection in China. By clarifying the responsible parties and compensation scope of ecological environment damage, it makes the units or individuals who cause damage bear the due compensation responsibility. It is an important means to implement the principle of "environmental value, damage responsibility". Since the exploration of the reform of the ecological environment damage compensation system in China in 2015, a series of positive results have been achieved. As of December 2025, relevant departments in various regions have handled about 66000 cases of ecological environment damage compensation, promoting the restoration of a large number of damaged ecological environments. The typical case released this time is like a mirror, reflecting the solid steps of the rule of law in China's ecological environment governance. From it, we not only see that the damaged ecological environment in the case has been "cured", but also that an efficient ecological environment governance system is taking shape. Firstly, the pattern of collaborative governance is becoming increasingly perfect. In recent years, joint actions and efforts by multiple departments have become the new norm for fulfilling ecological and environmental protection responsibilities. The cases of compensation for ecological environment damage caused by illegal sand mining by a sand and gravel company in Hunan and compensation for ecological environment damage caused by illegal mining at a quarry in Fujian both demonstrate the high attention of local party committees, the collaborative efforts of multiple departments, and the efficient promotion of case handling by fully leveraging their respective functional advantages. This indicates that the main leaders of the local party and government actively support and promote high-level efforts, which is of great significance for achieving coordinated governance of the ecological environment. In the case of compensation for ecological environment damage caused by the illegal disposal of waste organic solvents by 10 enterprises, including a pharmaceutical company in Chongqing, there were multiple departments working together throughout the entire process of handling the case, including the ecological environment management department, procuratorial organs, and public security organs, whether it was the transfer of case clues or the pre negotiation communication and compensation responsibility fulfillment. In the case of compensation for ecological and environmental damage caused by the illegal landfill of construction waste by Zhou in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, multiple departments jointly carried out compensation work, which not only ensured the openness and transparency of the compensation procedure, but also effectively connected with the criminal justice procedure, promoting the effective implementation of compensation liability and criminal liability. This approach of breaking down departmental division of labor barriers and integrating law enforcement and judicial resources has greatly improved the efficiency of case handling. The second is the continuous strengthening of scientific and technological support. The continuous breakthroughs in identification, evaluation, and restoration technologies have promoted the scientific assessment and precise restoration of complex ecological environment damage. For example, in the series of cases of compensation for ecological environment damage caused by illegal mining in the Muli mining area of Qinghai Province, innovative development has been made in the identification and assessment technology and ecological restoration technology for the ecological environment of high-altitude grasslands. In the compensation case for marine ecological environment damage caused by the Yellow Sea ship pollution accident in Shandong Province, in response to the difficulty of fixing the evidence in the case, the claims working group guided relevant departments to conduct multi-point and multi frequency sampling. At the same time, satellite remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicle low altitude inspection, ship monitoring and other technical means were used to accurately monitor the pollution range, achieving efficient and standardized fixation of the involved evidence. Science and technology have empowered the identification, assessment, and restoration of ecological and environmental damage, enhancing the professionalism and refinement of case handling. Thirdly, the ways of assuming responsibility are more diverse. From the case, it can be seen that many law enforcement agencies have adapted measures to local conditions, fully considering the special characteristics of the local ecosystem and the ability of the compensation obligor to fulfill their obligations, and flexibly determining the specific ways of assuming compensation and restoration responsibilities. The series of compensation cases for ecological and environmental damage caused by illegal mining in Muli mining area, Qinghai Province, is currently the highest amount of compensation for ecological and environmental damage in China. In order to ensure the implementation of compensation responsibilities, the investigating authorities actively explore new compensation models such as advance funding, advance compensation, and installment compensation to alleviate the financial turnover pressure of the involved enterprises. In the case of compensation for ecological environment damage caused by the illegal occupation of a national forest park by a mining company in Inner Mongolia, after consultation, the compensation obligor chose to replace and restore the service function during the period of ecological environment damage, thus overcoming the shortcomings of the damage during the compensation period. This classification based, pragmatic and flexible work approach enhances the operability and social acceptance of responsibility. These cases have important innovative reference value and provide rich practical samples for various regions to carry out ecological environment damage compensation work. It can also be seen from this that the sources of case clues are very extensive, including clues provided by the Central Ecological Environment Protection Inspection Group, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Law Enforcement Inspection Group, government departments, as well as exposure from news media and reports from the people. However, the proportion of cases where compensation rights holders discover case clues on their own is relatively low. The holder of the right to compensation for ecological and environmental damage is usually the department responsible for ecological and environmental protection supervision in the relevant field, and should be more sensitive to ecological and environmental violations in this field. In the future, we should further enhance its ability to actively discover clues of ecological and environmental damage, strengthen law enforcement capacity building, establish a normalized supervision and early warning mechanism, promote the reform of the ecological and environmental damage compensation system to achieve new and greater results, and further build a solid foundation of the rule of law for the construction of a beautiful China. (New Press) (Author Qin Tianbao, Director of the Institute of Environmental Law and Dean of the School of Law at Wuhan University, Vice President and Secretary General of the Environmental Resources Law Research Association of the China Law Society)