3. Domestic Structures Around Environmental Protection in China
3.1. Social Structures Around Environmental Protection
3.1.2. ENGOs Links with Society
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trained and motivated staff, and are therefore capable of working in many provinces on a multitude of environmental protection issues (Johnson 2009, 68). By contrast, smaller NGOS, such as those that INGOs Pacific Environment and Global Green Grants attempted to establish working relationships with, often consist of only a few volunteers and lack even the technical skills to use a computer (Interview Wen Bo, 2009).
In fact, most grassroots groups exist on what by a Western perspective is considered basic funding, but have been nonetheless able to achieve impressive outcomes. One such example is the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) started by Ma Jun, a small NGO based in Beijing with only a handful of staff that has used basic government data along with information provided by other ENGOs to create an impressive water pollution map identifying precise areas of water pollution throughout the country (China Environment Series, 2006).
Importantly, local NGOs such as the IPE receive considerable financial and technical support from INGOs, with Ma Jun's IPE funded by the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) to develop a similar air pollution map, also using NRDC as a consultant to help them better implement reliable ways of measuring air pollution (China Environment Series, 2006). Overall, INGOS have worked hard to establish relationships with grassroots NGOs, with 71 percent of 126 surveyed NGOs reporting contact with INGOs (Yang 2004), while INGOs such as the Ford Foundation provide up to 95 percent funding for dynamic local NGOs like the Centre for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge (Chen 2010, 510). In sum, the number, extensive dispersion and capacity of ENGOs demonstrates an increasing non-state role in environmental protection, which INGOs play a vital role in supporting.
3.1.2. ENGOs Links with Society
International and domestic NGOs have been able to work with society and particularly local communities through establishing participatory programmes where local communities become a direct part of the solution in addressing environmental protection; setting up environmental education centres; and also assisting local
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communities in locating channels to raise grievances.
Participatory programs have sought to help communities play a role in environmental governance, to protect local resources or species that are at damaged or at risk, as well as developing sustainable methods of income generation at the local (mostly rural) level. One of the most difficult aspects of campaigns that promote environmental protection is that they often interfere with the short-term economic goals of local communities, who often have so few economic opportunities that they have no choice but to abuse the scarce natural resources upon which they depend so heavily (Herrold, 1999; 445). The International Crane Foundation was a pioneer in developing participatory governance, via its campaign to organise and empower villagers to conserve black necked cranes in the Caohai nature reserve in Guizhou (Chen, 2010; 510). From 1993,“with a relatively modest budget and well-trained Chinese experts instead of expensive foreign consultants” (Herrold-Menzies, 2006;
383) ICF began working closely with Guizhou villagers to understand the ways in which activities they had been engaged in for a long time (and had now become illegal under the regulations of the Caohai nature reserve regulations) were endangering the cranes existence, such as fishing during spawning season, hunting waterfowl, draining wetlands, and clearing wooded hillsides. At first this was strongly resisted and the new regulations resulted in physical confrontations between villagers and nature reserve staff (Herrold 1999; 445) However, the new regulations became largely respected, in large part because of the establishment of a successful micro-credit grants program to help farmers set up businesses- producing handicrafts, raising vegetables and livestock and establishing inter-village trade (Herrold, 1999; 444-5).
Further, beyond merely abiding by the regulations and recognising the importance of protecting the black crane, local villagers in the Caohai nature reserve region became actively involved in eco-management activities such as volunteering in lake restoration activities (Herrold Menzies. 2006; 394). This prominent example highlights the ways in which ENGOs can work in close contact with local communities to achieve the dual goals of environmental protection and development.
Another example of ENGOs working directly with local communities was derived from an interview conducted with Gladys Wang of Global Environment
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Institute (GEI)6, a domestic NGO based in Beijing, who described the ways in which GEI used market based mechanisms to help villagers in Yunnan, Guilin, Tibet, and even Sri Lanka to invest in biogas tanks, which use yak and cow manure to produce cheap and green energy. Funded heavily by the Blue Moon Fund, these initiatives fulfilled many development and environmental objectives simultaneously- alleviating the high gas prices for villagers, replacing firewood for fuel and providing fertiliser for organic vegetable crops that GEI encouraged villagers to grow (Interview Wang 2009).
ICF and GEI's programs demonstrated the capacity for ENGOs in China to successfully cooperate (and develop programs) with local communities that promote environmental protection and the sustainable use of resources. Both these examples reflect how the Chinese social structure around environmental protection is capable of spreading environmental protection norms and practices to local communities. Of course, in a broader sense, local awareness and involvement in environmental protection is weak. With only a few hundred ENGOs in a country of more than a billion people, there are many local communities for whom the terms environmental protection is completely irrelevant. Despite these challenges, ENGOs like ICF have demonstrated an increasing awareness to locate local communities that are most vulnerable to environmental degradation and unsustainable development. For instance, Yunnan province has developed as a locus for ENGOs due to the threats (and actualization of such threats) that development poses to its unique biodiversity.
Other limitations to ENGOs capacity to connect with local communities is that programs often take many years to develop successfully, as a high level of trust and understanding needs to be built up between ENGOS and the local community. As Wen Bo of Pacific Environment and Global Green Grants Fund suggested in a personal interview, sometimes these type of programs collapse after a few years because they are too difficult to administer (Interview Wen Bo, 2009). However, it is difficult to find information about such unsuccessful programs, as ENGOs are often reluctant to share their failures. Although more extensive field work on this issue is required, including perhaps personal involvement in working on such a program, the previous
6 For more information on GEI, see Buckley (2006).
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examples represent a social structure around environmental protection that has demonstrated the capacity to mobilise local communities in support of environmental development programs.
Another dimension of ENGOs mobilisation of local communities is the work they play in education. Education has been the traditional preserve of ENGOs in China, to the point where Jin Jiaman, director of GEI and formally of the Chinese Environmental Research Institute (a GONGO), encouraged Chinese ENGOS to branch out beyond education into other spheres of work (Turner, 2001). Nonetheless, environment education is important in imbuing future generations with a value for environmental protection, as well as empowering other NGOs and the state with relevant information. For instance, ENGOs have utilised education at different levels around the issue of grassland conservation throughout the country. Organisations such Friends of Nature and Han Hai Sha work at the apex of grassland conservation education, providing magazine articles, lectures and seminars on healthy agriculture in vulnerable grassland for activists and researchers in the field (China Environment Series 2003). Han Hai Sha has also worked to link together urban scientists who work on desertification with communities struggling with the problem. Owing to relationships between ENGOs and a growing sense of an ENGO community, technical and scientific information developed about grassland desertification in China is able to freely dispersed and used where it is needed. For instance, information produced by Friends of Nature has been used by Green Camel Bell in Gansu province, which works with the local education authority to edit school textbooks so that they accurately identify desertification problems (China Environment Series, 2003).
Roots and Shoots, the environmental education arm of the Jane Goodall Institute, is one of the major contributors to environmental education in urban communities in China, working with an estimate of 500 groups in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Nanchang. Unlike the way in which formal education works in most parts of China and at most education levels, Roots and Shoots actively discourages the traditional model, whereby a large group of students sit and listen attentively to a single teacher, who is assumed to have all the answers (Interview Erika Helms, 2009).
Rather, Roots and Shoots serves as a mechanism to support and encourage groups of
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young people to learn more about environmental issues, participate in lengthy group discussions, and develop ways they can learn more about environmental issues within the local community. Roots and Shoots groups exist as after school clubs, university student groups, as well as various elementary, high school and even kindergarten classes7, who connect with student groups around the country and also with Roots and Shoots groups throughout the world. As well as generally working to encourage students to develop independent thinking skills and spread public awareness about environmental issues, Roots and Shoots have also encouraged its student groups to go out into the local community and apply their knowledge. For instance, a university Roots and Shoots group in Shanghai has developed the skills and knowledge to conduct basic 'green audits' of office buildings, helping to reduce unnecessary energy and water consumption, and integrate organic gardening into office balconies and rooftops. Like other areas of the social structure, this form of education exists in pockets and reflects a dynamic fringe area rather than the mainstream. However, the work of Roots and Shoots in promoting general environmental education and of a network of NGOs in advocating grassland education, both highlight how ENGOs are able to mobilise local communities.
In recent years, ENGOs have also developed the capacity to assist local communities in airing grievances. One of the most controversial and substantial ways in which they have done this is in recent times is by assisting citizens in raising legal cases to defend their rights against companies that damage the environment. At the local level, the most prominent and active NGO involved in such work is the Beijing Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV), who are supported with financial and informational resources by the US based INGO- National Resources Defence Council (NRDC). CLAPV and NRCD have worked on a number of cases and also have connections to the China University of Political Science and Law. The most famous case CLAPV was involved in occurred in Jiangsu province, where the centre raised an action on behalf of 100 peasant families against a paper factory that was dumping toxic chemicals into the Shiliang River in eastern Jiangsu Province.
After proving that the paper factory's water pollution contravened water pollution laws, a local court ruled against the factory and awarded compensation of 5.6 million
7 The affiliation with Chinese schools is informal, and Roots and Shoots have not been unable to establish a program to work in the public education system.
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yuan to the families affected (Chan 2004; 78). This was believed to be the first time that environmental laws had been used to protect citizens in China, and was thus hailed as landmark case, and a tentative sign of growing recognition of citizens‟
rights.
It is important to stress that such legal action is a very recent development and that there often exists significant barriers, including violent harassment from business and political opponents to legal action. By no means should it be assumed that NGOs are working all across the country to launch legal actin against businesses that pollute the environment. Additionally, CLAPV must use their relationship with the China University of Political Science and Law, a state institution, to carefully choose their cases so as not to implicate political figures directly.
In fact, the Jiangsu case was the only instance when CLAPV won a case, however it also reached financial settlements in two other cases (Shigetomi and Makino, 2009; 92). CLAPV also played an important role in working with other smaller NGOs like Pingnan Green Association (PGA). Moreover, the experience of PGA is useful because it demonstrates both the improvements in the social structure around green issues but also the overwhelming obstacles that must be overcome. In March 2006, an Intermediate People‟s Court in Fujian Province found in favour of PGA and the people of Xiping in an action against the Fujian based Rongping Chemical Affiliated company, China's largest chlorate manufacturer (Pitkin, 2006;
142). Rongping was ordered to pay the people of Xiping nearly $85000 for health and environmental damages caused, which at first was taken as a great victory. However, more than a year after the case the local people had not received the money, and PGA's leader Dr. Zhang Changjian was the target of police harassment, which ultimately led to the closure of his medical practice clinic. Despite extensive research on my part, this case has not been referred to in any publications since 2007 and the PGA website is currently unavailable in either Chinese or English. This leads one to believe that even if the money awarded to the people of Xiping was received, PGA is no longer able to function as an NGO that articulates local grievances.
Despite the limitations of PGA and CLAPV and other similar organisations, the involvement of ENGO in producing such a drastic breakthrough in elevating and recognising the legal rights of the citizens is evident that social structures surrounding
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environmental protection are developing in ways that challenge the status quo.
3.1.3. Media
The media's role in social structures around environmental protection is intriguing.
Since the reform era, most elements of the old economy that are capable of drawing profits have seen significant economic liberalisation. As a profit making institution the media is no exception, and hundreds of thousands of private newspapers, magazines and television channels have flourished. However, owing to the media's unique capacity to influence public opinion, and therefore threaten the legitimacy of one party rule, it has also been regulated a great deal more than most other spheres of economic activity. Particularly when it comes to reporting on foreign policy and sensitive domestic political issues like Tibet, the domestic media is heavily censored.
Notwithstanding censorship in these areas, in the realm of what might be deemed to be 'softer' social, economic and cultural issues, media outlets do exhibit many vestiges of freedom of expression. Environmental issues have emerged as one of the most open social areas of media coverage. The first basic reason for this is that the central government advocates a sustainable development policy, and thus coverage of environmental issues can be framed in pro-central government terms.
The central government's position provides the media the impetus to probe interesting and politically sensitive environmental issues, which often involve powerful institutions like state organs and enterprises (both state and private) and are
“news-worthy, loaded with moral and political meanings and policy implications”
(Yang, 2005; 56). These characteristics of environmental journalism, of fitting in with the state's policy and yet challenging many of the core underpinnings of the way Chinese politics and business operate, have encouraged independent media and reporters to pay close attention to environmental issues, evident in the extensive coverage of environmental issues and also of media professionals‟ direct participation as ENGO organisers or members (Yang 2005; 56). One notable instance of such media activism can be found in the example of Wang Yongchen, a prolific reporter of
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environmental issues on China National Radio and also the founder of Green Earth Volunteers, an ENGO that will be explored in greater detail in the following chapter.
Central to an understanding of the scope of environmental stories the media can report are the methods they employ when covering environmental issues.
Identifying the approach that both the media and ENGOs can (and must) adopt when covering environmental issues, the director of Pacific Environment's China Program, Wen Bo and Senior Consultant for Global Greengrants Fund explains:
Everyone loves the environment. If you're only highlighting the environmental problem without targeting any specific government official or trying to undermine the (Communist) Party authority, you can have an influence. You shouldn't make a personal enemy, (with a state official) otherwise the official in power will make it personal (Interview B)8.
Using this approach, major newspapers such as the China Youth Daily, Beijing Youth Daily, Southern Weekly, China Newsweek and the Legal Morning Post all reported on Greenpeace's campaign against Asia Pulp and Paper Co. Ltd. (APP)‟s illegal logging in Yunnan province (Wang, 2006; 147). Rather than identifying public officials at fault, or focussing on the Yunnan provincial authorities who attempted to shield APP from criticism, the media framed the issue in emotional environmental protection terms and directed there anger towards the corporation involved. For instance, local media in Zhejiang province showed a piece of APP-made paper to the audience and said, “looking at this piece of paper is like witnessing the vast area of forests in Yunnan falling down (Wang, 2006; 150). The use of a media and ENGO approach where passions were dedicated to generating indignation at the unsustainable practices taking place and the company that perpetrated them, rather than any specific government officials, helped to prevent the ENGO issue from being censored, and insulated journalists and activists from personal attacks by government officials.
8 Of particular importance is avoiding direct criticism of the central government. For instance, no media outlet dares to support the Western argument that China undermined the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit. I thank Dr. Chen Jie at the University of Western Australia for this point.
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Media are increasingly involved in covering environmental problems in China, and are able to raise the profile of environmental issues within society as part of a mobilised social force advocating greater environmental protection. This has been achieved through close linkages with Chinese green NGOs and a sophisticated understanding of effective ways to report on environmental issues while avoiding political censure. Additionally, while there exists scant empirical information for such a phenomenon, media have been able to provide internal references to relevant state bodies in cases where publication of issues would be to sensitive (Lu, 2007; 63).