Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
"Detoxing" China's Huai river
Green Anhui is an established non-governmental organization based in Hefei, and with projects also in Bengbu and Wuhu, in central China’s Anhui Province. The organization’s mission is to promote environmental protection in Anhui province with a particular focus on the Huai River, a major source of water for the region.
In early 2006, as a part of the Huai River Protection Project, a group of Green Anhui volunteers traversed the Huai River identifying sources of pollution. Near Bengbu City, in north central Anhui, they came across a section of the river that was so polluted the stagnant water was red and blue. The volunteers were quickly able to identify the sources of this pollution--three chemical factories located in Qiugang village that were discharging dirty waste-water directly into the river. The volunteers reported their finding to Green Anhui staff Long Haizheng and he returned to the village for an investigation.
Long began by talking to local villagers in Qiugang about their living condition, and people came pouring with grievances. There were complaints of bad odors and toxic waters that were presumed to be killing farmland and infecting livestock. Villagers had to cover their mouths when they passed by the river, and primary schools located nearby had students getting sick with nausea and nose bleeds. In a village of eighteen hundred people, more than 10 people in their prime years reportedly died from cancers or unidentified causes every year. Many villagers believed these deaths were in fact slow poisonings from the surrounding chemical factories. The villagers’ eagerness for attention and action inspired Long and Green Anhui to embark on a campaign that generated ripple effects far beyond what had imagined.
Bengbu is a port city on the Huai River and a major commercial center for Anhui province with double-digit GDP growth in 2007. When Green Anhui launched its Huai River Protection Project in 2003, water pollution in the region was already widespread. Anhui Province’s longest river, the Huai supports approximately 50 million people and countless industries. Its condition has worsened so dramatically over the years that people started calling it “the dead river”. In Bengbu, there was no organized voice to call for change; and this is where Green Anhui came into the picture.
Green Anhui brought their volunteers to the village and swept the place for information, photos and testimonies. They then pitched the story to journalists who had worked with them in the past. The story exposed three chemical factories, Jiucailuo Chemical Ltd, Haichuan Chemical Ltd and Zuguang Microchemical Ltd. They are the three largest chemical factories located in and around Qiugang Village, on the outskirts of Bengbu City. Of the three, Jiucailuo is the worst offender, with no waste treatment procedure at all. The other two companies have waste treatment facilities, but they are inadequate and well below Chinese Ministry of Environmental Affairs’ standards.
These three companies made the village literally unlivable by tainting the local water supply. Research done by Green Anhui found that the village’s drinking water had an excessive level of sediments and chemicals and that it was not suitable for consumption. With Green Anhui’s support in March of 2007, villagers submitted petitions to the local Environmental Protection Bureau and fingerprinted their names in red ink. As part of a writing assignment, forty students wrote letters to the EPB urging them to clean up the river.
Following this action by the villagers of Qiugang, several stories ran in the Xinan Evening News and on Xinhua Net on the incident. Meanwhile, the Bengbu Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) went from denying any violations, to publically validating the villagers’ claims on television interviews. The EPB eventually sent investigators to conduct random inspections on the factories and confirmed that they were in violation of the law. Two factories were ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 RMB (15,000 USD), and one was told to reduce their waste. Unfortunately, the fine is a small price to pay for companies like Jiucailuo which has annual revenue of 6 billion dollars.
By the end of 2007, following the actions of the villagers and the flurry of press reports, the Qiugang Village incident garnered the attention of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). MEP ordered the three factories to shut down and clean up, but the order was ignored by the companies. At various points, MEP used the newly-enacted Green Credit Policy to suspend loans to these companies and the local government even cut off electricity in order to halt their operations. The EPB renewed an order that mandated these companies to shut down by December of 2008. However, an update from September 2008 on the Bengbu EPB website states that the agency has increased their monitoring of these factories and that the situation has improved.
It is still unclear whether or not these three polluters will in fact be shut down and forced to move by the end of the year. The community in Qiugang is not sure if their waterways and livelihoods will be restored. Green Anhui will continue to work on this campaign, supporting Qiugang and other communities impacted by pollution along China’s rivers.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Remembering Misha the affable long beared Environmentalist and lovely friend.
The unofficial version:
Misha is one of those old friends I would invite to my "hipster" party.
He was affable and funny, always ready to listen and empathize. At my first Salmon bbq and I introduced him to Sanjay as the Russian outlaw, which drew a big laugh from him. In the brief time that i know him, I've come to really adore his hearty laugh and long beard.
He went on a self imposed exile in the Russian far east for a simple life and a committed fight for the environment and indigenous rights and was unfortunately put into a forced exile by the Russian bureaucracy back to the US where he had to be separated from his family.
The day he left the office for Mongolia, Friday September 5, he came by my office and shyly said Good Bye and that hopefully next time he will get to come with us to China. On second thought, I got up and wrapped my arms around him and gave him a big hug, the third person in my new office/new job whom I have befriended and felt comfortable enough to give a hug to. Unfortunately it was the last time I would ever see Misha. He went for a swim in an island off of Thailand while vacationing with his wife whom he hadn't seen in almost a year and never came back.
Dearest Misha, good bye and I hope you are resting in peace which I am sure you are because of your kindness and open heart.
The official version:
Misha Jones is Pacific Environment's Russia Program Specialist and has lived in Russia since 1986. In addition, he consults on biodiversity conservation and economic development programs and is working with Russian and international groups to promote socially and environmentally responsible mining. He works with Russia's indigenous community and in the last decade has assisted the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) with its programs throughout Russia. Mr. Jones is an associate editor at the Center for the Protection of Wild Nature "Zov Taigi" and co-director of Staff Ink, an internet information network serving clients worldwide. He is fluent in Russian.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Green Student Forum - September 10, 2008
Green Student Forum – September 10, 2008
This is a sunny morning and I had been writing in my bedroom for several hours since I woke up at 5am. I had so much to say about my mere one day meeting that my blog had to be trimmed to fit on our website. But today is the real day. It is the first time I will be visiting a partner, one of the NGOs we work with in China – Green Student Forum. It is the foremost student environmental organization that is comprised of student groups across Beijing and the country. GSF is characterized by the discipline and enthusiasm of China’s new generation of leaders. Its director Fei Xiaojing is a pretty and disarming woman in her early 20s, currently a master student of forestry at People’s University of Beijing. She is soft spoken and articulated; when she smiles, her small eyes bunch into a thin line that amplifies her youthfulness. I met her for the first time when she came on the exchange PE put together. She was friendly but distant, mostly as a result of being fatigued with all the meetings she had gone through. I would ask her question and she would answer and trail off with a low sigh, unknowingly. Last night she called and said she would not be able to meet me until later on tonight because of school obligation. The coordinator who’s responsible for their water project will be showing me around.
When I finally got on the taxi and told the driver where I was going. He did not have a clue where it was. I was not surprised. GSF’s office was located in one of Beijing’s tens and thousands of residential complexes, like most NGOs. I called Wen Bo and he explained at length to the driver specifically how he gets there. I arrived at the gate and met Zhang Xiangui, the coordinator of the water project and another student who’s one of the volunteers. By the time I walked up the residential building and into the office, I saw 6 other students that had already been sitting in a circle waiting for my arrival. I had expected it but was still embarrassed by the reception. These kids were eager and shy. They shook my hand heavily and looked away as soon as I caught their eyes. I was sent to sit in the best chair in the midst of a room of tiny wooden stools. We went around introducing ourselves. These students came from the four teams of university volunteers who were assigned different sections of the Long River. They were responsible for organizing student volunteers from their own school to do survey of the river, compile information about the history and important sites in the area and interview neighborhoods along the river about their concerns. The end result would be a Green Map of Beijing’s Rivers. They showed me their draft which was closed to completion. It was hand drawn but very nicely done. Historical sites and other places of interests were marked with cute icons. They even found a Tao temple that was not marked in any official map and which will be included in their map. The plan was to include facts on the river and a conservation guide on the back of the map. This map would be distributed through various public events in schools and neighborhoods. They would also contact the Tourism bureau to see if they would be interested in carrying the map and distributing them. When I started asking specific questions about the project, Zhang said the report would be given tonight. Now we were to do a field trip to the Long River, one of the rivers covered in their “Water Cultures of Beijing” project.
About eleven students and I went on a bus to Jishuitan, one of the subway stops I was most familiar with as it was nearest to my house when I lived in Beijing almost 7 years ago. It was still familiar but visibly renovated. A giant new bike tent was created with rows of racks two levels high. Across from the station is a shining new shopping center. The Military Theatre next door had a complete face lift. It used to be an aging building with a stale facade and a dusty ticketing booth that was always closed. Now it’s an artsy glass structure with spiky steel bars rising to the sky and a digital display of its current shows. The sidewalks have all been fixed up and along the river that run through the area, it was landscaped with plants and trees along stone walls with carvings of calligraphies and were equipped with viewing platforms dotted with people fishing, couples cuddling and old people idling. A student from Beijing Normal University met up with us and served as local guide.
The students were pleased with the makeover but skeptical it would be kept up with after the Olympics. A decorated fountain was pumping up clear water that quickly merged into the deep green river too muddled to see through more than two inches deep. Occasionally there were tiny black fishes that swam right beneath the surface and they would be met with utmost enthusiasm by the students. I asked if people fishing here would actually eat them, they laughed. They fish for pleasure and always released them back in. The fishes are not eatable. Some fish grow in the most polluted rivers. We walked along the river on a stone path. There was a long patch that ran next to residential buildings and offices. It was a mile long path with no exit in between. All the entrances were sealed off with mettle locks reinforced with mettle fences. We just walked and walked and walked. Every section of the river was heavily maintained, either through careful landscaping or heavily secured fences. But clearly no one was keeping it sanitized because the path was dotted with spotty feces and trash that the students called bombs. We paused at various spots and saw people swimming right below “No Swimming” signs. They were mostly old people who clearly had retired and had nothing else to do on a Wednesday afternoon. They swam and played cards while their trunks were hung to dry on a cloth line nearby. At another section of the riverside park, a teenage girl was doing a photo shoot of her precious years. It is something very popular in China. People continue to be obsessed with photos. From the old days when every major event was documented with a photo, now it also includes every major stage of ones’ best years as a young man or woman.
Our last stop was the reality part of the tour of the river. We arrived at a section populated by the “floating population” as the students called them – migrants who came to seek jobs and managed to stay within the city as opposed to being out on the 4th ring road on the outskirt of no man’s land. We immediately came upon foul odors as we entered a narrow alley leading to a settlement. Amongst dilapidated houses there was a hair salon and a restaurant. Three teenage girls with various styles of colored and spiky hair were lounging around in shorts and fixing their nails inside the salon where there was clearly no business. We walked to the end of the alley and came upon a fenced off train track. The students said up until two weeks ago they were still able to cross the train track to reach the other part of the river. We stood around as Zhang tried to figure out the next step. It was very sunny and the poverty was brightened. A small hill of trash piled in front of a small house standing right next to the train track. I asked them to take a picture for me as the train was approaching and its head lights shining in the sun. It had rained last night and the trash was soaking in a puddle of water. There were flies and we didn’t want to stick around anymore. As we walked off I was starting to feel the itch on my feet. By the time we got out of the settlement we realized many of us had been bitten, hot red bums had appeared in both of my feet and I was obsessively scratching them.
After dinner, we finally returned to the office for the report. Again when I asked a question, Zhang advised me to wait after the slideshow. They then showed me a slideshow of basically their midterm report. Though at various points I had questions, my question was met with a more pressing desire to get through the slideshow. By the time the slideshow was done, it was almost 9pm. The only thing new in the slideshow was their plan for next year. Inspired by Fei’s visit to the US with the Green Corp, GSF wants to implement similar program in China. Through their experience working with other environmental NGOs, they feel that many NGOs’ main obstacle is lacking good leadership/organizers. They would like to establish a training program specifically to address that. The training would include team building, project management, technical understanding of environmental issues and other basic skills like material developments. Approximately five participants would be trained on this issue while taking on a community based project. They would then be dispatched to other established NGOs as interns during the summer to gain hands’ on experience in all the elements they had been trained on. They want the students to receive a certificate with Pacific Environment’s brand to signify that they had been trained by a professional and international environmental NGO. It would bring prestige to the training and help their professional career in the future and thus increased the attractiveness of participating in such training.
I was positive about the project but felt that it would be far too expensive with unpredictable results. Students usually have to return to their hometown during school breaks, I worried that although people may want to do that they may not be able to. As I looked around the room, most students including Fei and Zhang were not from Beijing, with many from the countryside which desperately needed attention to their most basic environmental needs. I suggested the project being base on people doing a project in their own hometown. Fei brought up some good points, that people may not be trained enough to run their own project in their own town where they may also not have existing environmental organization or network to work with. From the perspective of building a widespread environmental movement across China, including backwater regions, I felt that it was important to have an element in their training that involves students doing a small project to fix a small problem facing their own home town/village. They agreed that this would be appropriate at a more advance stage of their training, once they’ve been trained of all the elements of doing a project and gotten experience working with a successful NGO seeing how a project plays out in real life, it would then be a logical step to bring their new found knowledge to make a difference in their hometown.
This is a sunny morning and I had been writing in my bedroom for several hours since I woke up at 5am. I had so much to say about my mere one day meeting that my blog had to be trimmed to fit on our website. But today is the real day. It is the first time I will be visiting a partner, one of the NGOs we work with in China – Green Student Forum. It is the foremost student environmental organization that is comprised of student groups across Beijing and the country. GSF is characterized by the discipline and enthusiasm of China’s new generation of leaders. Its director Fei Xiaojing is a pretty and disarming woman in her early 20s, currently a master student of forestry at People’s University of Beijing. She is soft spoken and articulated; when she smiles, her small eyes bunch into a thin line that amplifies her youthfulness. I met her for the first time when she came on the exchange PE put together. She was friendly but distant, mostly as a result of being fatigued with all the meetings she had gone through. I would ask her question and she would answer and trail off with a low sigh, unknowingly. Last night she called and said she would not be able to meet me until later on tonight because of school obligation. The coordinator who’s responsible for their water project will be showing me around.
When I finally got on the taxi and told the driver where I was going. He did not have a clue where it was. I was not surprised. GSF’s office was located in one of Beijing’s tens and thousands of residential complexes, like most NGOs. I called Wen Bo and he explained at length to the driver specifically how he gets there. I arrived at the gate and met Zhang Xiangui, the coordinator of the water project and another student who’s one of the volunteers. By the time I walked up the residential building and into the office, I saw 6 other students that had already been sitting in a circle waiting for my arrival. I had expected it but was still embarrassed by the reception. These kids were eager and shy. They shook my hand heavily and looked away as soon as I caught their eyes. I was sent to sit in the best chair in the midst of a room of tiny wooden stools. We went around introducing ourselves. These students came from the four teams of university volunteers who were assigned different sections of the Long River. They were responsible for organizing student volunteers from their own school to do survey of the river, compile information about the history and important sites in the area and interview neighborhoods along the river about their concerns. The end result would be a Green Map of Beijing’s Rivers. They showed me their draft which was closed to completion. It was hand drawn but very nicely done. Historical sites and other places of interests were marked with cute icons. They even found a Tao temple that was not marked in any official map and which will be included in their map. The plan was to include facts on the river and a conservation guide on the back of the map. This map would be distributed through various public events in schools and neighborhoods. They would also contact the Tourism bureau to see if they would be interested in carrying the map and distributing them. When I started asking specific questions about the project, Zhang said the report would be given tonight. Now we were to do a field trip to the Long River, one of the rivers covered in their “Water Cultures of Beijing” project.
About eleven students and I went on a bus to Jishuitan, one of the subway stops I was most familiar with as it was nearest to my house when I lived in Beijing almost 7 years ago. It was still familiar but visibly renovated. A giant new bike tent was created with rows of racks two levels high. Across from the station is a shining new shopping center. The Military Theatre next door had a complete face lift. It used to be an aging building with a stale facade and a dusty ticketing booth that was always closed. Now it’s an artsy glass structure with spiky steel bars rising to the sky and a digital display of its current shows. The sidewalks have all been fixed up and along the river that run through the area, it was landscaped with plants and trees along stone walls with carvings of calligraphies and were equipped with viewing platforms dotted with people fishing, couples cuddling and old people idling. A student from Beijing Normal University met up with us and served as local guide.
The students were pleased with the makeover but skeptical it would be kept up with after the Olympics. A decorated fountain was pumping up clear water that quickly merged into the deep green river too muddled to see through more than two inches deep. Occasionally there were tiny black fishes that swam right beneath the surface and they would be met with utmost enthusiasm by the students. I asked if people fishing here would actually eat them, they laughed. They fish for pleasure and always released them back in. The fishes are not eatable. Some fish grow in the most polluted rivers. We walked along the river on a stone path. There was a long patch that ran next to residential buildings and offices. It was a mile long path with no exit in between. All the entrances were sealed off with mettle locks reinforced with mettle fences. We just walked and walked and walked. Every section of the river was heavily maintained, either through careful landscaping or heavily secured fences. But clearly no one was keeping it sanitized because the path was dotted with spotty feces and trash that the students called bombs. We paused at various spots and saw people swimming right below “No Swimming” signs. They were mostly old people who clearly had retired and had nothing else to do on a Wednesday afternoon. They swam and played cards while their trunks were hung to dry on a cloth line nearby. At another section of the riverside park, a teenage girl was doing a photo shoot of her precious years. It is something very popular in China. People continue to be obsessed with photos. From the old days when every major event was documented with a photo, now it also includes every major stage of ones’ best years as a young man or woman.
Our last stop was the reality part of the tour of the river. We arrived at a section populated by the “floating population” as the students called them – migrants who came to seek jobs and managed to stay within the city as opposed to being out on the 4th ring road on the outskirt of no man’s land. We immediately came upon foul odors as we entered a narrow alley leading to a settlement. Amongst dilapidated houses there was a hair salon and a restaurant. Three teenage girls with various styles of colored and spiky hair were lounging around in shorts and fixing their nails inside the salon where there was clearly no business. We walked to the end of the alley and came upon a fenced off train track. The students said up until two weeks ago they were still able to cross the train track to reach the other part of the river. We stood around as Zhang tried to figure out the next step. It was very sunny and the poverty was brightened. A small hill of trash piled in front of a small house standing right next to the train track. I asked them to take a picture for me as the train was approaching and its head lights shining in the sun. It had rained last night and the trash was soaking in a puddle of water. There were flies and we didn’t want to stick around anymore. As we walked off I was starting to feel the itch on my feet. By the time we got out of the settlement we realized many of us had been bitten, hot red bums had appeared in both of my feet and I was obsessively scratching them.
After dinner, we finally returned to the office for the report. Again when I asked a question, Zhang advised me to wait after the slideshow. They then showed me a slideshow of basically their midterm report. Though at various points I had questions, my question was met with a more pressing desire to get through the slideshow. By the time the slideshow was done, it was almost 9pm. The only thing new in the slideshow was their plan for next year. Inspired by Fei’s visit to the US with the Green Corp, GSF wants to implement similar program in China. Through their experience working with other environmental NGOs, they feel that many NGOs’ main obstacle is lacking good leadership/organizers. They would like to establish a training program specifically to address that. The training would include team building, project management, technical understanding of environmental issues and other basic skills like material developments. Approximately five participants would be trained on this issue while taking on a community based project. They would then be dispatched to other established NGOs as interns during the summer to gain hands’ on experience in all the elements they had been trained on. They want the students to receive a certificate with Pacific Environment’s brand to signify that they had been trained by a professional and international environmental NGO. It would bring prestige to the training and help their professional career in the future and thus increased the attractiveness of participating in such training.
I was positive about the project but felt that it would be far too expensive with unpredictable results. Students usually have to return to their hometown during school breaks, I worried that although people may want to do that they may not be able to. As I looked around the room, most students including Fei and Zhang were not from Beijing, with many from the countryside which desperately needed attention to their most basic environmental needs. I suggested the project being base on people doing a project in their own hometown. Fei brought up some good points, that people may not be trained enough to run their own project in their own town where they may also not have existing environmental organization or network to work with. From the perspective of building a widespread environmental movement across China, including backwater regions, I felt that it was important to have an element in their training that involves students doing a small project to fix a small problem facing their own home town/village. They agreed that this would be appropriate at a more advance stage of their training, once they’ve been trained of all the elements of doing a project and gotten experience working with a successful NGO seeing how a project plays out in real life, it would then be a logical step to bring their new found knowledge to make a difference in their hometown.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Arriving Beijing
I arrived in Beijing today. It was actually nice to be arriving in the evening, because I could adjust more quickly to the time here. Since I hadn’t slept much during the 14 hours or so flight, I kept myself awake for a few more hours and then let myself sleep past midnight. I went to bed at 9 am San Francisco time, by the time I woke up at 9am, I was a Beijinger!
Beijing was wet and grey this morning. There was no chance for a blue sky! It made it easy to stay in my hotel room and start working. I started making calls to people; confirming meetings; and reading up on background infos. Today I’ll be meeting Yu Zhijiao of CLAPV, the short name for Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims and Alex Wang, a senior attorney of the Natural Resource Defense Council.
Established in 1998, CLAPV is the foremost legal aid center in China for victims of environmental pollutions. The center is involved in a wide range of programs to promote China’s environmental laws: it conducts legal research; produces popular guides to increase public understanding of environmental laws; trains lawyers, judges and NGOs on legal advocacy; it also runs a hotline for pollution victims. The center is almost completely fund by foreign foundations and entities. Yet it is registered with Ministry of Justice and affiliated with the University of Legal and Political Science where it is located.
I came and met with Yu Zhijiao, the Assistant Director of CLAPV. She was a short, baby-faced woman recently completed her PhD at the university and just started working full time at the center. Like many Chinese students who spent most of their life in the academic world, she was confident and plainly dressed. She spoke very softly and even when she was being critical about something, her voice seemed to convey the opposite.
The center is doing some really good work, representing victims that have no where to turn for their grievance. There’s a victim’s hotline staffed by volunteers 5 days a week to take reports. People can also write letters or send emails, faxes, etc. I asked her how many complains they received on a daily basis. She said an average of 6-7. I was shocked. For a country of 1.3 billion people and with such notorious environmental record, I would expect the country’s only hotline for victims of environmental pollution to be receiving hundreds of calls. But then again the center is staffed by one volunteer a day, using one phone line. Yu explained to me that when she first started, the phone would ring off the hook throughout the day. She realized that it was because the center got a lot of publicity when it first got started. Their director Wang Canfa was constantly being interviewed by newspapers and televisions programs. But the center proved unequipped for the massive amounts of complains it was getting from across the country. Since then, they’ve limited their publicity and the calls gradually went down. Now the center is dealing with about 14 active cases with an additional 4 cases pending further investigation to determine their eligibility.
My main question today was regarding the new Public Disclosure of Environmental Information Law that went into effect in May of this year. The center has been utilizing it on behalf of the alleged victims of environmental pollution. Yu showed me an information request form for one of their clients. Two fish farmers from Henan province was suspecting that a shoe factory nearby the farm was polluting the river and killing their fishes. They called the center and this form was filled out for them. I looked at the form and found that it contained fairly technical terminology. One has to know what information to request in order to get the right information. An ordinary person would not know how to request the right information. Yu then explained to me that this is a case that has already been accepted by the center and two lawyers from Henan province is now dealing with it with funding from the Center. The plaintiffs in this case, the fish farmers were suing for compensation of their lost fishes. I asked Yu how does this type of litigation lawsuit fair in China’s legal culture? She said it is still very rare that judges would grant financial rewards to victims of environmental pollution. More often than not, the judges would order the polluting factories to stop its practice. That is the best they could hope for.
By the time our meeting ended, the rain had started again. Yu gave me very detailed directions on a piece of paper on how to get to my next meeting and walked me to the gate. She offered to give me the umbrella and I politely rejected. As I waved goodbye to her after getting into the cab, I saw again the bright and optimistic smiles of Yu.
My next meeting was with Alex Wang, the senior attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council. I just recalled that there is a large poster in the hallway of my apartment in San Francisco from the NRDC which I collected many years ago in a Green Festival. It aptly pronounced, “Because the earth needs a good lawyer”. I would not have thought that one day I would be stepping into the office of NRDC’s Beijing office.
The NRDC office was located in a very different part of town. It is inside the International Center in Chaoyang district, where all the major embassies and western hotels and venues are located. It is also right across the street from Xiushui Shopping Center, the center for China’s counterfeit industry. I joked to Alex upon arriving at his office on the 16th floor that he’s getting a very good view of Beijing’s polluted skyline. With 15 staff, the NRDC office occupied half of the floor spanning three offices. It was a shining contrast to the CLAPV’s two staff office with dimmed lights and crammed space.
Wang grew up in the States and has been living in China for four years. He came here like many, to experience all the exciting changes that were happening in China. Knowing that he’s a busy guy I jumped right into business. “Greening China” has become one of the NRDC’s top priorities. Being a country that has overtaken the US as the top emitter of Greenhouse gas and one of the U.S’s top importers of low cost goods, the NRDC saw a critical need to directly engage in China to increase its energy efficiency and foster a strong legal culture of environmental governance.
Wang was a hesitant spokesperson for the state of China’s environmental law. With a legal background and lots of experience working with the government on a policy level, he often refrained from jumping to conclusion on a given topic. I asked him how the Public Disclosure of Environmental Information Law is doing, he said he heard a lot of resistance and implementation is being assessed. Regarding the question of whether if the government is prepared to risk its short term interest of rapid economic growth to pursue the kind of restructuring that’s necessary for long term sustainable development, he said it’s difficult to say at this point. Wang explained that the Council focuses on public engagement in environmental governance. That is why it promotes training for lawyers but also journalists and disseminates information about current environmental laws and trends that are accessible to the public. They work very closely with CLAPV on a policy level, primarily to help assess the effectiveness of environmental laws and their implementation.
Our meeting was cut short because Alex had to run to another conference call that he needed to prepare for. I hastily gathered my belongings and thanked his time. As I walked out of the International building, the rain had turned into drizzles. It was rush hour and I struggled to even get into the subway station along with hundreds of others getting off work from their envious jobs in Beijing’s glitzy high rises in the commercial district.
Beijing was wet and grey this morning. There was no chance for a blue sky! It made it easy to stay in my hotel room and start working. I started making calls to people; confirming meetings; and reading up on background infos. Today I’ll be meeting Yu Zhijiao of CLAPV, the short name for Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims and Alex Wang, a senior attorney of the Natural Resource Defense Council.
Established in 1998, CLAPV is the foremost legal aid center in China for victims of environmental pollutions. The center is involved in a wide range of programs to promote China’s environmental laws: it conducts legal research; produces popular guides to increase public understanding of environmental laws; trains lawyers, judges and NGOs on legal advocacy; it also runs a hotline for pollution victims. The center is almost completely fund by foreign foundations and entities. Yet it is registered with Ministry of Justice and affiliated with the University of Legal and Political Science where it is located.
I came and met with Yu Zhijiao, the Assistant Director of CLAPV. She was a short, baby-faced woman recently completed her PhD at the university and just started working full time at the center. Like many Chinese students who spent most of their life in the academic world, she was confident and plainly dressed. She spoke very softly and even when she was being critical about something, her voice seemed to convey the opposite.
The center is doing some really good work, representing victims that have no where to turn for their grievance. There’s a victim’s hotline staffed by volunteers 5 days a week to take reports. People can also write letters or send emails, faxes, etc. I asked her how many complains they received on a daily basis. She said an average of 6-7. I was shocked. For a country of 1.3 billion people and with such notorious environmental record, I would expect the country’s only hotline for victims of environmental pollution to be receiving hundreds of calls. But then again the center is staffed by one volunteer a day, using one phone line. Yu explained to me that when she first started, the phone would ring off the hook throughout the day. She realized that it was because the center got a lot of publicity when it first got started. Their director Wang Canfa was constantly being interviewed by newspapers and televisions programs. But the center proved unequipped for the massive amounts of complains it was getting from across the country. Since then, they’ve limited their publicity and the calls gradually went down. Now the center is dealing with about 14 active cases with an additional 4 cases pending further investigation to determine their eligibility.
My main question today was regarding the new Public Disclosure of Environmental Information Law that went into effect in May of this year. The center has been utilizing it on behalf of the alleged victims of environmental pollution. Yu showed me an information request form for one of their clients. Two fish farmers from Henan province was suspecting that a shoe factory nearby the farm was polluting the river and killing their fishes. They called the center and this form was filled out for them. I looked at the form and found that it contained fairly technical terminology. One has to know what information to request in order to get the right information. An ordinary person would not know how to request the right information. Yu then explained to me that this is a case that has already been accepted by the center and two lawyers from Henan province is now dealing with it with funding from the Center. The plaintiffs in this case, the fish farmers were suing for compensation of their lost fishes. I asked Yu how does this type of litigation lawsuit fair in China’s legal culture? She said it is still very rare that judges would grant financial rewards to victims of environmental pollution. More often than not, the judges would order the polluting factories to stop its practice. That is the best they could hope for.
By the time our meeting ended, the rain had started again. Yu gave me very detailed directions on a piece of paper on how to get to my next meeting and walked me to the gate. She offered to give me the umbrella and I politely rejected. As I waved goodbye to her after getting into the cab, I saw again the bright and optimistic smiles of Yu.
My next meeting was with Alex Wang, the senior attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council. I just recalled that there is a large poster in the hallway of my apartment in San Francisco from the NRDC which I collected many years ago in a Green Festival. It aptly pronounced, “Because the earth needs a good lawyer”. I would not have thought that one day I would be stepping into the office of NRDC’s Beijing office.
The NRDC office was located in a very different part of town. It is inside the International Center in Chaoyang district, where all the major embassies and western hotels and venues are located. It is also right across the street from Xiushui Shopping Center, the center for China’s counterfeit industry. I joked to Alex upon arriving at his office on the 16th floor that he’s getting a very good view of Beijing’s polluted skyline. With 15 staff, the NRDC office occupied half of the floor spanning three offices. It was a shining contrast to the CLAPV’s two staff office with dimmed lights and crammed space.
Wang grew up in the States and has been living in China for four years. He came here like many, to experience all the exciting changes that were happening in China. Knowing that he’s a busy guy I jumped right into business. “Greening China” has become one of the NRDC’s top priorities. Being a country that has overtaken the US as the top emitter of Greenhouse gas and one of the U.S’s top importers of low cost goods, the NRDC saw a critical need to directly engage in China to increase its energy efficiency and foster a strong legal culture of environmental governance.
Wang was a hesitant spokesperson for the state of China’s environmental law. With a legal background and lots of experience working with the government on a policy level, he often refrained from jumping to conclusion on a given topic. I asked him how the Public Disclosure of Environmental Information Law is doing, he said he heard a lot of resistance and implementation is being assessed. Regarding the question of whether if the government is prepared to risk its short term interest of rapid economic growth to pursue the kind of restructuring that’s necessary for long term sustainable development, he said it’s difficult to say at this point. Wang explained that the Council focuses on public engagement in environmental governance. That is why it promotes training for lawyers but also journalists and disseminates information about current environmental laws and trends that are accessible to the public. They work very closely with CLAPV on a policy level, primarily to help assess the effectiveness of environmental laws and their implementation.
Our meeting was cut short because Alex had to run to another conference call that he needed to prepare for. I hastily gathered my belongings and thanked his time. As I walked out of the International building, the rain had turned into drizzles. It was rush hour and I struggled to even get into the subway station along with hundreds of others getting off work from their envious jobs in Beijing’s glitzy high rises in the commercial district.
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