Introduction
This report gives only a superficial impression of the attention given to environmental education in China in order to provide CCICED with some background for a discussion on the subject. It does not purport to be an in-depth analysis of the situation.
Present Situation in China
Much is being done in China to promote environmental education, both formal and informal.
Development of formal environmental education in China has been very rapid since the 1970s and today there are 126 Institutions of Higher Learning with environmental departments. Within these, 39 award Ph. D. s in environmental sciences. These institutions have trained more than 20,000 professionals who are now engaged in environmental management and education. The subject of environmental protect ion has been, or is being, introduced into the curricula of primary and secondary schools and is integrated into subjects such as biology, geology and Chinese language.
In respect of informal environmental education, the madia-press, radio and television-are all active, increasingly so. Not only do they report on environmental issues but they have joined in an initiative launched in 1993 by Professor Qu Geping, Chairman of the Committee for Environmental Protection of the National People's Congress, called "China's Environmental Journey across the Century". Under this programme some 40 large news agencies, including People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, are cooperating with 11 Ministries to investigate and report on the state of the environment around the country. They publicly praise those enterprises which are behaving in an environmentally responsible way and bring pressure to bear on those that are not.
The media also woks with leading agencies on public awareness campaigns for protection of the environment on anniversaries such as World Environmental Day (planned by NEPA and coordinated by the State Council), Earth Day and Tree Planting Day (Ministry of Forestry). For the most recent World Environmental Day, on 5 June 1995, a Campaign to remove "White Waste" (i.e. styrofoam and other plastics) from alongside railway lines was organised in association with the Railway authorities. Over 100 stations and cities and one million people participated in this one-day initiative.
Since 1984 there has been a regular, national, environmental newsletter, the China Environmental News, which was initiated by NEPA and the Environmental Protect ion Committee of the State Council and now has a staff of 200 in Beijing, 43 off ices and 500 contributors around the country and a readership of 500,000. Virtually every province and major city also has its own environmental newsletter and an international edition is produced in English.
Media representatives stated that, in their view, the most pressing environmental problems in China are water and air pollution, the two issues on which NEPA concentrates most attention. While large industries are considered to be the major cause of this pollution, the aggregate damage caused by the millions of village and township enterprises is not much less. What was referred to as "daily life pollution", both in rural and urban areas, is considered to be another major problem. Requiring, but receiving little, attention. The media representatives opined that there is a lack of environmental awareness among some leaders and the general public, and they acknowledged that their reporting was essentially re-active to problems and events, rather than pro-active in pursuit of specific environ mental protection goals.
NEPA is currently formulating China's Green Publicity and Education Project which will extend into the next century.
The primary targets have been identified by NEPA as being:
1.The "decision-makers" (i.e. the political and administrative leaders)
2.Leaders of enterprises
3.The general public
4.School children
While the Central Government has in the main established the policies necessary for environmental protection, the problem lies in the extent to which they can be implemented at various administrative levels. One way in which this can be fostered is by increasing inclusion of environmental criteria in the examinations which government leaders in China need to pass each year in order to qualify for promotion. Presently the emphasis is on development of the local economy and insufficient attention is paid to environmental concerns.
Leaders of enterprises, which are the main cause of pollution, are in theory only implementers of government policy and can be penalised if they do not observe environmental laws. In practice, however, there are great problems in gaining compliance with environmental laws and regulations, one reason being that the regulations and related penalties are in many instances not specific enough.
The statement was repeatedly made that the public should learn to make use of the laws and regulations to protect their rights and that they should be encouraged to exercise supervision, especially over township and village enterprises. In this regard, there appears to be both a need and an opportunity for the establishment and development of Chinese environmental NGOs. (Two environmental NGOs have recently been established, The China Environmental Protection Foundation and Friends of Nature.)
Desirability of Foreign Assistance
The essential point, before proceeding with the preparation of this paper, was to establish whether the Chinese could and would wish to benefit from expertise and support available abroad. Interviews with Dr Song Jian, Prof Qu Geping and Dr Xie Zhenhua confirmed that this was indeed the case.
Availability of Foreign Assistance
Before proceeding to China I had a series of meetings with representatives of various organisations and with other individuals to ascertain what kind of expertise and other resources which have already effectively been used in, or are planned for, other countries, might be available for use in China. Also, what the interest of the institutions or individuals concerned might be to work with China in environmental education. It was most encouraging to have 100% positive and enthusiastic response to the suggestion that we might help influence a quarter of the world's population in their approach to environment and development, and several tentative offers of practical help were made. For example:
1. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) mentioned the possibility of making available to China a Resource Kit for the introduction of Environmental Management Systems to small and medium enterprises (SMS's), which it has recently developed with UNEP and the Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC).
2.UNESCO would be interested in supporting public education projects under its " Nine Most Populous Countries" programme and recommends the submission of joint proposals before the next meeting of its General Conference starting on 25 October 1995.
3.Television Trust for the Environment(TVE) can make television footage available free of charge and can arrange access at virtually no cost to 400 television environmental education programmes.
4.Market Opinion Research International (MORI) is willing to help measure public awareness before and after a targeted public education campaign.
5.World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) can make available water pollution monitoring kits for children and other citizen groups, to be used as a tool to motivate community action in solving problems.
A most important factor causing such support to be offered was the perception that CCICED, with its influential and inpressive Chinese and international members hip, would indeed be able to help things happen in China.
Co-operation and support can be expected from key donor institutions active in China, such as the World Bank, UNDP, the European Union and Ford Foundation, with all of whose representatives I met while in China, and also on a bilateral basis from OECD countries.
There are also many conservation, development and education NGOs that are willing and keen to assist, some of which are already active in China, such as the China Environment Fund, Friends of the Earth (FOE) and WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature.
In the business and industry sectors, opportunities exist, for example, to obtain, free of charge, design of advertisements, posters, displays and campaigns from some of the world's leading advertising agencies, and know-how and training from international industry associations and from individual companies.
Recommended Action
The country of China is so vast, the population so enormous and the environmental problems so staggering that there is a danger that isolated efforts by CCICED and its Working Group, however good they may be in themselves, will have little, long-lasting impact. Certainly, any public education in environmental protection, initiated by CCICED, should be complementary to, and supportive of, any pilot projects or other activities of CCICED Working Groups, and vicecersa.
However, what could lead to a groundswell of environmental awareness and consequent change in attitude and behaviour towards development and environmental protection throughout China is success, with a highly visible and highly publicised exemplary programme to remedy, within one generation, the chronic environmental problems, particularly water and air pollution in both the urban and rural areas of one important, substantial-size Chinese municipality. The objective would be to use this as a model to stimulate a multiplier effect. The Government would therefore need to record successes as templates for other municipalities to pick up.
There is support for this concept among senior Chinese leaders and heads of international donor agencies whom I interviewed in Beijing. It is therefore proposed that Council discuss the desirability of recommending to the Chinese government that the latter invite a forward-looking and dynamic mayor of an important municipality to take on such a challenge with the active support of CCICED-the Chinese side ensuring support and cooperation from relevant Chinese entities and the International side cooperation with China's existing partners and donors from abroad and helping to develop new partnerships and support.
The Exemplary Municipal Environmental Protection Programme should seek to involve all sectors of the municipality's community in practical activities which can have a demonstrable, positive effect in the medium term. The links between environmental degradation and pollution on the one hand and poverty and human health on the other should be explained. The fact that every single man, woman and child can make a difference through energy and water conservation, recycling, managed waste disposal, keeping the city and countryside clean, etc., should be stressed and demonstrated, Creativity in problem-solving by both management and employees within individual enterprises, and within the community in general, should be encouraged and rewarded, and should be stimulated by trained community facilitators, Civic pride and excitement in the programme should be generated. Competitions, prizes and other incentives and rewards should be introduced for individuals, enterprises and areas of the city and countryside. Compliance with environmental laws and regulations should be enforced and penalties increased where necessary.
The scope for cooperation with, and benefitting from the experience of, others is enormous. Lessons can, for example, be learned from:
-- the innovative environmental practices of some Chinese municipalities
-- the Shanxi provincial government initiative in training and testing 150,000 leaders of government and enterprises in the subject of environmental law and regulations
-- Australia's "Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World" campaign
-- the Netherlands government, in defining its Environmental Information Policy and using information as an instrument of environmental policy
-- the Norwegian government's Systemic Approach to Environmental Education
-- the Singapore government's programme for Creating an Environmentally Pro-Active Society
-- WHO'S "Healthy Cities Project" which is about to begin in Beijing and Shanghai
-- the many outstanding corporate environmental policies and training programmes in OECD countries.
Specific actions to be considered could, for example, include:
-- Involving schools in community environmental problem-solving and monitoring
-- Reviewing the school curricula to ensure that environmental education is sufficiently addressed and that school tests include questions on environmental management
-- Introducing more energy efficient technologies in all applications, from heating and cooking in the home to industrial processors, transport, agriculture and electricity generation
-- Introducing pollution-reducing technologies
-- Developing alternative sources of energy to coal, especially renewable sources such as biomass, hydro, solar and wind
-- Reviewing transportation and building policies
-- Reviewing pricing and fiscal policies
-- Reporting, during the daily news bulletin or weather forecast, on the pollution index
-- Establishing a "pollution hot-line"
-- Promoting individual saving of energy and water
-- Creating an "Environmental Protection Corps", with the objective of each member doing one good environmental deed per day (can be as simple as picking up a piece of plastic or switching off a light)
-- Introducing profit-making waste collection and recycling schemes and eliminating the stigma that attaches to garbage collection
-- Conversely, creating a stigma on the consumption of endangered species as delicacies and curios.
All of this, of course, represents far more than public education. A strategy for an integrated approach to addressing the municipality's opportunities and problems would therefore need to be developed. If the programme is to serve as a model which can be replicated, it should largely be funded from within China-relying more on increased efficiency in the use of financial, and other resources, that on infusion of additional resources.
Every form of communication including song, dance, plays, soap operas, cartoon s trips, etc. should be used. Humour should not be forgotten, since creating a healthier environment in which to live should also being happiness and laughter.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank those Council and Working Group members who responded in writing or orally to the letter I sent them last May. Their views were most valuable. I am also indebted to the many others I consulted and who provided me with useful insights, advice and undertakings of future support. I am particularly grateful to Mr Xie Zhenhua, Secretary to CCICED and his staff at the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) for arranging my visit to, and my interviews in, Beijing in June and for the time they personally spent with me. I was fortunate to be able to organise my visit so as to coincide with that of Prof Earl Drake, Director of the Canadian Support Office for CCICED, with whom I held several joint interviews and whose insights were most helpful.