Abstract: The development of ecological environment is a top priority for the sustainable development of China. Based on the main achievements and important measures of ecological environment development since the founding of the People's Republic of China (the P.R.C.), the basic experience and future prospect of ecological environment development are explored. Since the founding of the P.R.C., a series of significant achievements has been made in China, including the rise of the ecological environment development from the "government consciousness" to the "state will", the improvement of supervision mechanism and the enhancement of supervision ability, the formation of mutual promotion system between ecological environment protection and development, the preliminary complement of framework of national ecological security defense and the improvement of guarantee ability, the achievement of environment management, and the promotion of human settlement, and so on. The achievement of China's ecological environment development has benefited from the implementation of the top-level design and system-building, the collaboration of government-led and multi-element co-treatment, the combination of engineering measures and biological measures, and the co-treatment of urban and rural human settlement. In the process of ecological environment development, some basic experience has been concluded, such as the equality of ecological environment conservation and productivity protection, the precedence of long-term development over short-term interests and the importance of universal participation to ecological environment development. Opportunities and challenges coexist in the development of ecological environment in the new period. To continue to promote the development of ecological environment in China, the green concept should be established in the green production and green life, the national ecological environment should be implemented as a whole by constructing the F.A.S.T. and the whole society should be guided to participate in the development of ecological environment by strengthening behavioral consciousness.