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CHINA: Rough Climes for Green Activists

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Jun 19 2006 (IPS) - When earlier this spring two of China’s environmental advocates were feted internationally with prominent awards and cited by Time magazine as among the most influential people in the world, it marked the coming of age for China’s nascent green movement.

When earlier this spring two of China’s environmental advocates were feted internationally with prominent awards and cited by Time magazine as among the most influential people in the world, it marked the coming of age for China’s nascent green movement.

But despite international limelight and accolades, green activists in China still face great risks in their environmental campaigns as they run afoul of profit-minded local officials and energy companies with vested interests.

Their efforts to fight for the preservation of pristine spots and resources are seen as a hindrance to China’s rapid industrial expansion and quest for more electricity. And while China’s central leaders have pledged to make control of pollution and sustainable development top government priority, their promises have been undermined by local officials eager to capitalise on China’s runaway growth.

Raising awareness about the world’s fastest deteriorating environment and having to endure pressure, surveillance and harassment is what makes the work of Chinese green activists unique and extremely difficult.

With the help of the Chinese media and some outspoken intellectuals, they are pressing for environmental impact assessments of big projects to be openly conducted, bringing lawsuits against polluting factories, and even attempting to halt mega-dam construction.

In May, Time magazine ranked Chinese environmentalist and writer Ma Jun among “100 People Who Shape Our World”. A month earlier, civil society leader Yu Xiaogang, was awarded the 125,000 US dollar Goldman Environmental Prize, which is referred to as the “green Nobel Prize”.

“Why give it to a Chinese?” asked Yu, one of the six Goldman prizewinners. “In a way it is a recognition of the environmental awakening of the whole country. The new concept of ‘scientific development’, advocated by our leaders is a turning point for China.”

There is little disagreement that China’s environment is edging closer to a condition of crisis with each passing day. The country failed to meet nearly half of its environmental goals from 2000 to 2005 largely due to economic growth remaining a higher priority for policy makers, the State Environmental Protection Agency admitted in April.

Today China is home to 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities. Water pollution affects as much as 70 percent of the country. An estimated 320 million rural residents, and 110 out of 600 cities, are reported by official media to suffer from shortages of drinkable water. Air pollution is blamed for the premature death of some 400,000 Chinese annually.

Ma Jun, 38, a former investigative journalist-turned environmental consultant, is one of China’s green advocates that have worked hardest to raise awareness of the country’s environmental stress and growing global footprint.

He wrote a book, titled ‘China’s Water Crisis’, which is regarded as the most comprehensive analysis of the enormous water crisis confronting the country. The book describes in detail China’s floods problems, water scarcity, and pollution in all seven of China’s major drainage basins and proposes solutions for future sustainable management.

The Time magazine, which included Ma on its 2006 list of global influential people, said the book “may be for China what Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ was for the United States – the country’s first great environmental call to arms”.

Fluent in English and media-savvy, Ma Jun has become the public relations face of China’s green movement. Amid writing on China’s water issues and working as an environmental consultant, he spent a year at Yale University taking part in the World Fellows Program, which trains emerging global leaders.

Now back in Beijing, Ma Jun is in the process of setting up an environmental consultancy – The Institute of Environment and Citizens, which has an ambitious agenda of applying modern environmental management strategies into practice.

“We would aim to publicise the biggest polluters in a kind of ‘name and shame’ operation,” says Ma. “Using our data-base people would be able to trace the origins of pollution in their environment and bring about action so that polluters can be made accountable”.

Gradually, the accessibility of this information is creating greater awareness and engaging larger sections of the public in demanding control of pollution, clean air and uncontaminated water. And while Ma remains at the forefront of China’s urban green advocates, Yu Xiaogang, China’s Green Nobelist, has successfully spearheaded a grass roots green movement in the rural areas.

In 2001 Yu, founded the non-governmental organization Green Watershed based in Kunming, the capital of southwestern Yunnan province. That year Green Watershed completed a study about the social costs of hydropower development borne by local communities in the province.

The report, detailing the social impact of the Manwan Dam on the Lancang (Mekong) River, was submitted to the central leadership in 2002 and prompted Beijing to increase resettlement funding for the affected communities.

Later Yu used its Manwan Dam experience to educate local communities about the negative impacts of a series of 13 dams proposed by local authorities on the Nu (Salween) River. Both Lancang and Nu Rivers are water sources that originate in China and flow into Southeast Asia. Nu River is the last free-flowing international river in the region.

“My goal has been to empower people with knowledge and help them participate in the dam decision-making process not with their feet and hands (by rioting) but with their minds,” Yu says.

Largely thanks to Yu and Green Watershed’s efforts, now Beijing requires a social impact assessment to be conducted in the process of deciding major development projects.

In 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a temporary halt of the Nu River dams project until a social impact and environmental survey was completed. Despite this apparent victory though, Yu remains under state surveillance since bringing representatives from affected communities to a UN symposium on dam issues in Beijing that year.

“He is no longer anonymous”, says a friend of Yu who wanted his name withheld. “He is known as a whistleblower, and local officials are watching his every step.”

But nothing illustrates the risks to individuals, who take on the policies of China’s one-party state apparatus, more graphically than the fate of Fu Xiancai, a campaigner for the rights of people displaced by China’s Three Gorges Dam, who was beaten and paralysed in an attack by thugs ten days ago.

Fu, a villager of Yangguidian in Hubei province, near the dam, had repeatedly annoyed provincial authorities and local officials by his petitions for adequate compensation for some of the million people resettled to make way for the 185-metre high dam – the world’s largest.

He had been previously threatened and attacked by thugs hired by local officials. His family had received threatening phone calls and funeral wreaths had been placed in front of his door to intimidate him.

Then, on June 8, as he was leaving a meeting with local police where he was questioned about his contacts with foreign journalists, Fu was attacked from behind and struck with a heavy object. The attack fractured his neck and left him paralysed.

“As a result of his legitimate petitioning activities, Mr. Fu has been made a target of a chilling pattern of harassment, assault, death threats and abuse by individuals who have been clearly allowed to act with impunity,” Human Rights Watch in China (HRIC) said in a statement on Jun 13.