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Save the Planet, Build Civil Society
Democracy Gains from Chinese Environmental Effort
By Daniel A. Viederman
Global Beat Issue Brief No. 37, June 22, 1998
 
A citizens group lobbies to halt logging in endangered species habitat. Farmers organize to close a factory whose polluted wastes are damaging crops. The government co-hosts a conference on sustainable development with a private environmental lobby. The government invites communities near giant panda habitat to co-manage nature reserves. Does this sound like the China you know?
 
Environmental ruin is endemic in China, but these surprising signs of citizen action are reasons for hope. As economic reform has loosened government control in all sectors, environmental organizations have proliferated. While these groups are fundamentally more constrained than similar organizations in the West, many are quite effective. Along with increased Chinese technical capability and improved government policies, these environmental groups are playing an important role in efforts to improve China's environment. The U.S. government and private American organizations should lend greater support to these citizen initiatives as part of a vastly increased program of interaction with China aimed at environmental protection. The opportunities for mutual benefit abound. Chinese environmental groups are essentially a phenomenon of the emerging middle class. They tend to be small and driven by well-connected leaders. They focus on raising awareness and working with the government. Technical expertise is uneven, but political sophistication runs high. National groups like Friends of Nature and Global Village Beijing have cultivated international sources for financial support. Local and school-based organizations have been closer to the grass roots and less well-funded. The Green Students Forum organizes a network of student environmental organizations at major universities around the country. The Society for the Protection of the Saunders Gull, focused on the preservation of habitat for this endangered migratory bird, was founded by a local journalist in Panjin City of Liaoning Province and has few connections beyond the city limits.
 
U.S. Business and China's Environment
Despite increased citizen participation and improved government policies, environmental problems in China remain intractable, and on a scale difficult even to imagine for us in the West. Five cities in China rank among the 10 most polluted cities in the world. Lack of water treatment means that more than 90 percent of water in urban areas is heavily contaminated. One-fifth of China's mammals and 15 percent of birds are officially endangered. The Yangtze River dolphin and South China tiger, two well-known species unique to China, will likely be extinct in the wild within a decade. Nationally, employment for hundreds of thousands of out-of-work loggers must be found if China's natural forests and the species they house are to be preserved. The county in Yunnan Province where Friends of Nature lobbied to restrict logging is abysmally poor and derives 95 percent of its governmental revenue from timber activities. Given the size of the environmental problem, helping China protect its environment is of global value. Consider the challenge of global warming. Assistance from the United States and other nations could help reduce China's greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of its economy. American aid and know-how could forestall plans to build hydropower projects on the wasteful scale of the Three Gorges Dam, and provide opportunities for U.S. businesses to export efficient technology. Energy efficiency and pollution control are areas where a U.S. business agenda and China's environmental priorities coincide. Rather than blame China and other developing nations for their contribution to global warming, Congress could more productively debate how to give practical assistance.
 
Environmental Groups Active
U.S. foundations already support China's nascent environmental protection efforts, though on a relatively small scale. The Ford Foundation's assistance for community forestry is probably the most important example. The World Wildlife Fund has the single largest program in China, providing technical and financial assistance for community-based conservation, giant panda protection, environmental education, wetlands conservation, sustainable forestry and energy efficiency. The Wildlife Conservation Society supports environmental education, particularly around issues of wildlife trade, and some biological surveys. The Nature Conservancy is developing an ambitious program in southern China's Yunnan Province to balance conservation and development. The common factor in these non-profit programs is their bottom-up nature. When Chinese citizens focus on environmental issues, civil society is strengthened, a key aspect of any movement toward greater democracy. As President Bill Clinton travels through China, he will provide us all an opportunity to focus more attention on environmental initiatives, public and private, that can benefit the global environment, Sino-American relations and China's civil society.
 
 
Daniel A. Viederman, program director of the Northern Forest Center in Concord, N.H., recently returned from four years as Director of the World Wildlife Fund's Beijing office.
 
Contact Information:
 
Daniel A. Viederman
Program Director
Northern Forest Center
108 Maple Street
Contoocook, NH 03229
(603) 746 6892
Email: danvied@aol.com
 
He wrote this article for "The Challenge of China," a project of MSNBC and the New York University Center for War, Peace, and the News Media.
 
c. 1998, MSNBC and New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. Contact the Center's Boston office for publication rights (tel: 617-497-7377).
 
 
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