Sheri Liao, Global Village Beijing (transcript)

Transcribed by Rick Baraff

Thank you everyone. I'm very pleased to be here to share some environmental experiences and some environmental point of views with you who are concerned with China's environmental issue as well as the global environmental situation.

I used to be researcher for the China Academy of Social Science for five years. I was a teacher in the Department of Philosophy from SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY. But I chose a career as NGO over the past 15 years... because... in the United States when I stay here as a visiting scholar, I know how important the role of NGO is in the environmental movement. I met a lot of NGO people here, and I thought my country is a huge country but so few NGOs, so I decided to go back to China... to establish Global Village of Beijing by giving up my Green Card, and giving up the opportunity to be a PhD... because I didn't think the earth needed another PhD! But I believe that China may really need an NGO like Global Village of Beijing.

So here I would like to share some kind of point of views about how China can be green, so what we can do to promote the "green" China. Every year, SEPA, the State Environmental Protection Administration works together with the other six big departments of government to establish awards called "Green China Fingers" and every year they chose 5 or 10 people to be the fingers of green China and I'm honored to be one of them last year... so this is something that's related to the topic of green China.

Everybody wants to know -- How serious is the environmental problems of China? I don't want to just describe the situation. I believe you understand more about it through media, through newspaper and TV programs... by the way, I was on a [CNN] program last year to talk about the environmental problem and also solutions. So, as NGO, as activists... we pay more attention to not only the problems, but the solutions... the cause of the problems.

[refers to pictures of pollution] These pictures just came to me last week. A lot of problems... some old pictures of.... dust bowls, every year... and water pollution.

What is the solution? I think we have to think comprehensively about the solution of China to deal with the environmental problem. We have to... first of all do public awareness, then make social transition, and change the production pattern from unsustainable ways to clean production.

A very important thing to mention is 'Consumption'. We have to change our lifestyle. I believe that the biggest problem in China, I think the majority of people have... fallen in love with lifestyle... especially the U.S. lifestyle. Many people want... one or two cars... a bigger house... and use a lot of one-time use products, and they're giving up their traditional values which emphasize the harmony between mind and body... individual and society... and people and nature.

Chinese lifestyle, before, was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" but now they are giving up. So this is, I think, one of the main causes of the environmental problem. So we should change the value of life, we have to establish the public participation mechanism that changes people's behavior. This is a comprehensive task that needs a partnership between government, NGO, and companies together. So, as an NGO who's dedicated to an environmental lifestyle, I would like today to mention more about the 'consumption' issue.

First of all, we have to "green" our life, if we want to "green" China. We have to "green" every individual's lifestyle. You know, environmental protection in China in the past 20 years starts from pollution control... and then eco-conservation... but since 1996, I think, my organization and other NGOs have explored a third area, which is the third area of environmental protection besides pollution control and eco-conservation. The third area is "green life".... lifestyle.

So, the green lifestyle, including environmental awareness -- including enforcement and monitoring, including public policy involvement, and especially individual's lifestyle changing. So I would like to mention the value of life. Before... since the 19th Century, Chinese people invited two persons into China. One is Mr. "Sci" -- Mr. "Science". Another one is Mr. "Tsu" -- means "Democracy". So, we believe that these two people can save China. Well, they're not two "people" really, but these two concepts can save China. But especially in the past 20 years, as a result of rapid economic growth, as a result of science and technology... [there's something missing].

So Chinese people start to realize... start to think -- how the science and democracy can work together to save China since we face so serious an environmental challenge. For example, the U.S. -- the U.S. has a very strong democracy compared with China. Of course in this country, it's sometimes just very academic issue... but 'democracy' comes from an old 'wisdom' word. And of course, the U.S. has such strong science and technology, but the U.S. still faces serious environmental problems.

For example... yesterday I [did] an interview, a radio interview (where) some citizens complained to me. They say 'Could you help us with getting some information to our government'. They asked me 'How do we use a dryer to dry the clothes... Because in San Francisco -- California -- it's so beautiful, the sunshine but we couldn't put our clothes in the sunshine or we'll get 'punished' -- they'll have to fine us twenty dollars... fifty dollars... if we hang our clothes in the sunshine!'

Some other people tell me, there's this law -- according to some consumer law -- that some have to keep their temperature in the winter at least 26 degrees Centigrade. Very hot! So that people can just wear their summer dress in winter! I'm just wondering -- what does this civilization mean? Make the winter like summer? Make the summer like winter?! Consume a lot of energy and produce a lot of CO2 ?! Greenhouse emission? Greenhouse gas?...

So, you have a lot of problems... no matter how many Mr. "Tsu's" and Mr. "Sci's"! As global citizens -- I think we need another person, Mr. "Hu" -- Mr. Harmony. Harmony between people and nature. Maybe it's Ms. Hu, not Mr. Hu! Maybe Mother Hu with her two sons -- Science and Democracy. So we live on the same planet, we share the same responsibility to invite Ms. Hu, or Mother Hu, to be our leader. Science and democracy should get an evaluation from concept from Mother Hu. These are my Chinese views that I get to share with you!

Harmony, according to Chinese philosophy, includes Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese medicine, and Chinese art, which emphasizes more natural and spiritual and simple life... and also diversity of life. So we should be rethinking our traditional values. Not only Chinese traditional values, but also European traditional values, and to rethink our traditional values that has sustained our civilization for many years. We should pay more attention to our spiritual life. Not just the outside exploration of materials.

So, we talk about the four "S"...Simplicity, Spirituality, Sporting (Health), and Sustainability. Of course we should chose the five "R" lifestyle -- Reduce, Reevaluation (that means when you buy some products, you pay attention to the green labeling), Reuse, Recycle, and Rescue. Then, we've got this flower [picture of a flower with all these headings].

How can we grow this flower? We have to do something socially. We have to green our Community, green the Media. We should develop some kind of Training program for public awareness, we have to establish some green Forums, and some green Networking, and green campaigns. With the "26 degree air conditioning energy saving campaign" my organization works together with another 15 NGOs to initiate a campaign we call "26 Degree Energy Saving Action" over the past three years and eventually our Prime Minister accepted our idea and he and the government accepted the '26 Degree' as their policy... or rather as a recommendation for public buildings, especially in official buildings. That's one of the campaigns we issue. Later on, I would like to talk about some separate activities and practices.

Also, we should establish a public participation mechanism which includes: Indicator (environmental indicators), Integration, Information, and also the three "P" -- Policy, Partnership, and Public Awareness and the three "E" -- Enforcement (of environmental laws), Economic Tool (like green labeling), and also Education. Then, we can have this 'Flower of Green Life'!

Okay, now I would like to mention how we "green" the Media. As an NGO, we have been independent and we produced a documentary on Chinese national television a weekly program for five years. And after that, we produced other TV documentaries, because in the Media Age, we think that TV is a very powerful tool to raise public awareness. And also, we established what we call the ' Journalist's Forum on the Environment'. And now we're sponsored by the Energy Foundation to establish a 'Journalist's Forum on Sustainable Energy' over the past four years. Like a battery, the media needs some energy -- from the dialogue between journalists and experts and NGOs and maybe government.

As an NGO, we have three types of advantages which are environmental consciousness, media ability, and our NGO views. Then we can make the function of the media for environmental protection more powerful. We produce a lot of TV programs. We also got support from the US EPA to produce a TV documentary to introduce the good practices, broadcasting countrywide in China. I also went to many other countries -- Europe... Germany, Norway, Japan, the Philippines, and Brazil to produce a TV documentary that was broadcast in on China national television. And now I'm producing a program focusing on China's traditional values, culture, and Nature.

Almost every month, we organize this kind of journalism forum on environmental issues. We have at least 200 journalists who participate in our forum. They come from the mainstream media and from some local media which is very helpful. Some media not only have ways to deliver public messages but also have some internal channels that can reach our senior officials, including our deputy Prime Minister who, three times, made positive comments to the papers that our journalist forum reported. That's another way how NGO's can influence policy-makers -- through media. I don't think I have time to talk about all the case studies because of the time limit... so I have to go on.

Another issue -- how we can "green" communities. If we say that media is 'air' -- programs through some channel of airwaves, then communities are 'earth'. We have to look to put our feet in the community because everybody, every individual lives in a community. If we establish environmental protection mechanisms in the community, we can deliver an environmental message to everyone.

What does 'Green' community mean? First, we have what we call 'hardware' which means environmental facilities at the community level. And also, 'software' -- which means, the public participation mechanism in the community. And then, we can see the function of a green community through four areas -- Monitoring, Enforcement (concern for environmental quality and the monitoring of the enforcement of environmental law), participating in policy making like environmental impact assessment, and also choosing an environmental lifestyle -- a friendly lifestyle. Then, this kind of green community can get support from government.

Another success story of how a very small NGO can influence policy makers -- once we established the 'green community project', the Mayor of Beijing asked me to come to his office to talk about environmental issues. And he accepted my suggestion for green community development which is a very important part of the task for the "green" Olympic action plan. And he asked his officials to organize for 100 district governors to visit our project and then they could take our concept -- hardware, software -- our concept and our practice, as their policy. And after 2000, 'Green Community' became the countrywide practice. That's really important because the government needs the 'green community' to comply with their environmental targets.

Also, some companies started to do activities at the community level. And of course NGO's need the community as our base for activities. Then we've got this whole picture of green community. We organize the university students to go to the community, and also we help the residents in the community to organize their own NGO called the "Environmental Consultation Committee". They do environmental activity and environmental education themselves. What we do is provide the capacity building for these community NGOs, and I think that is very essential. [referring to slides] A government official visited our project of green community in 2000. And the International Olympic Committee visited our project of green community. Green community also includes some rural areas, villages.

Another area we promote is 'Green Tourism'. We work together with the Minister of the railway to establish the project of the 'green train'. We [educate and train] the crews and also put environmental messages through the radio. We also develop some volunteers on the train who can help us to monitor the illegal animal trade. Many programs start in the train and the Minister of the railway liked this program very much, so we worked together to develop more green train lines. Also, we rent a 200 hectare mountain area for our training program. It was donated by Mr. Jentai Yang, he used his personal money to help us rent this 200 hectare mountain area for 50 years as [the base] for our training program.

So we develop a lot of training programs there. Eco-Tourism and Eco-Village development to help the villagers to use recycling and solar panels and other things like water conservation. Grasslands are also a very beautiful place and we work together with the local authorities and with the Mayors to talk about how we can develop 'green' tourism. Last month, my colleagues initiated a media campaign to ask [the] Tourism [Board] to be more 'green' with tourism. We also work with the Olympic Committee to promote and implement the Green Olympic Action Plan.

Finally, I would like to mention the function of the NGO in China. Maybe some people have an "old map" where they think everything is done by government, there's no true NGOs... I would like to give you some other information on how NGOs developed in the past 10 years. Of course NGO is a new phenomenon in China over the past ten years... Mr. Liang Congjie established the first true grassroots NGO in China in 1994. My organization, I think, was the second one. And now in the past 10 years, around 70 or 80 truly grassroots NGOs have grown. Since 2000, we have mobilized countrywide NGO activities in 12 provinces that we call 'Earth Day Activities China'.

Dennis Hayes, who is the Executive Director of Earth Day U.S. participated in our activities. He was so impressed by our activities that he said to his colleagues when he came back to the U.S. that the three days he stayed in China was the most unforgettable experience in his 30 years of environmental experience. We are so proud of this kind of comment. He's our very good friend now.

Every year we organize an annual NGO networking conference. When we went to Johannesburg, that was the first time for a [Chinese] grassroots NGO to show up at a UN conference. Then we developed the 10-Year NGO action plan. Almost every year or two years, we review this plan. In 2004, a number of NGO's not only had a conference, but took action together to initiate a "26 degree energy saving action plan". Also, this year, my organization worked with another 20 NGOs to initiate a program called "Green Choice" which deals with water pollution.

[Another famous Chinese NGO leader], developed a water pollution map for China. 5000 companies who illegally discharge wastewater into rivers were put on a map. And individuals can find [these companies] through the internet to know who is doing bad things. And then we [make] appeal[s] -- the consumer should never buy the products of this company. We also appeal to the company's supply chains and we refuse to buy from these companies who are on what we call the "Black List". So we want to get the consumers and producers together to deal with water pollution.

Another campaign we are doing is to work with the Ministry of construction to initiate recovery day activities this year. 106 cities have made a commitment to join the big event mainly organized by the Department of construction. But as NGO, we have appealed for this kind of concept for many years. Also we write letters to the Mayor and some senior officials and now we work together with them to initiate this kind of campaign. I think 'Recovery Day' is September 22nd. Before September 22nd, 106 cities will join the week-long campaign to support public transportation, and review a private car campaign that will be very influential.

Survival of NGO's is so very difficult. One of the reasons is that it is difficult to survive financially. I know that in many countries, especially in the U.S., NGOs get resources through three [main] channels: government grants, foundations, and memberships. In China, these three channels are so limited... some channels are almost completely closed. My organization is a little better off. We have some international ties where we can get support from the international society, but for other NGOs, it's very, very difficult. So we need a lot of improvements for the development of NGOs which will benefit not only China, but the world.

As for what NGOs can use -- we can use our traditional cultural resources. So we have to think "What kind of resources can we get, what can we use?" I think that one of the very important resources is the traditional values that have sustained Chinese history for 5000 years. So we are exploring another way... a spiritual way... a cultural way to encourage public participation in the environmental movement.

Okay, I have to finish my speech now, but please support Chinese NGOs and share your concern for the environmental movement because we all live on the same planet. Thank you very much.