A stone tablet dating back more than 300 years, containing environmental protection regulations for the local area, was found in north China's Hebei Province.
The 63-cm-tall and 48-cm-wide tablet, discovered in Huoshui Township in the city of Wu'an, was built 311 years ago during the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), according to the city's cultural relics protection institute.
The inscriptions in the form of a rural regulation had included dozens of names of nearby places. The regulation prohibited damaging trees, logging and burning, and earth cutting in the mountains and nearby villages.
The regulation is a relatively comprehensive environmental protection law at the local level and is significant to the research of the ecological protection culture, said Wang Wei, head of the institute.