PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Yang Jike

Vice Chairman, Environment and Resource Protection

Committee of the National People's Congress

1. Environmental Protection Is a Cause of Public Participation

Environment refers to human habituating environment and ecological environment, and its protection aims at protecting the material basis and natural conditions of human life and production so that it may be suitable for human existence and reproduction, and facilitate social development. Living in a material world, human beings forms an organic whole with he surrounding environment, which both affects and is affected by human beings through various human activities. Take an example. From the environmentally harmful human activities, many regional and global problems occur, such as the damage of ozone layer, the rising temperature of global climate, and the sharp decline of biodiversity, which in turn work on human activities. It could be said that, without the active participation of the masses in the work of environmental protection, it would be impossible to either con serve or improve the environment in which we live, no matter what strict law is applied. Therefore, public participation is essential to environmental protection. It is no exaggerating that the effect of active participation by the masses in environmental protection surpasses that of any law or administrative decrees in this respect. For instance it is more effective with the masses consciously reducing the discharge of life wastes than applying any solid waste disposal device.

Public participation includes two aspects. Firstly, every member of the society must fulfill his own obligations in environmental protection. To do this, one should have an alert environmental awareness, and take active actions accordingly. Take some examples. The individual should take good care of public vegetations, and should not litter or spit to the ground; the housewife should reduce the discharge of wastes, group the wastes before dumping, turn in regularly the discharge fees, make her own family yard green and clean; the manager of an enterprise should try to reduce the wastes discharged to the greatest extent possible, ensure that, when discharged, they meet the pollution standards, turn in regularly the discharge fees, and keep the environment within his own enterprise premises clean; the administrative official, to be responsible for the environmental quality of the district, should strengthen the laws concerning environmental protection, incorporate environmental protection with social and economic development plans, promote scientific research and monitoring, and pay attention to publicity and education concerning environmental protection. Secondly, besides fulfilling his own obligations, every member of the society should take up the responsibility for surveillance. It is his right, as well as duty, to keep watch on, interfere with, stop, and prosecute at times any action that causes pollution to environment, no matter by whom it is done. Mass surveillance is indispensable to environmental protection, and should not be neglected. There is much for us to learn from the developed countries in this respect.

Apart from surveillance on actions with polluting effects already appearing, a more important aspect of it is to guard against actions, which would have potential polluting effects in the future. The masses should take up its role of surveillance before pollution is done, and not after it. Take an example. When a big product ion project is being designed, the initiator of the project and the departments concerned should take serious considerations of the suggestions of the experts and the ordinary people with regard to the possible environmental effects of the project so as to make sure that a proper location is chosen, and that measures against possible pollution is reliably carried out. Without the verification and approval of the experts, no project should go in to operation.

Mass media is an effective means for public surveillance .By ex-posing and criticizing actions causing pollution through radio, television, newspaper, and magazines, they help to raise people’s awareness of environmental protection and urge them to take part in the work of pollution control and prevention. A successful example of mass median environmental protection is the on-going national movement-A Journey into the next Century for Environmental Protection, which is initiated by the Environment and Resource Protection Committee of the National People ’s Congress, and joined by many departments including National Environmental Protection Agency. Nearly twenty departments in the news circle in Beijing send out reporters to different parts of China to cover news about environmental protect ion and pollution. Many such activities are also carried out in local provinces and autonomous regions. A flood of criticism against illegal pollution has pervaded every aspect of the nation with unprecedented effect.

2.Public Participation Is the Major Trend of Environmental Protection in the 21s t Century

With regional and global environmental problems daily intensifying, and damages and economic losses caused by such problems ever increasing, every nation and region over the globe is forced to readjust their attitude toward the relation between environment and economic development. In June 1992,the United Nations held the World Conference on environment and Development. Leaders of more than a hundred nations attending the meeting signed the Rio Environment and Development Declaration, and passed the Agenda 21. People are beginning to realize that natural environment and natural resources are the material basis and essential conditions for social and economic development. Once such basis and conditions are damaged for good, economic development and social progress are impossible. Even human existence will be endangered as well. Realizing this, every region, every nation, and the international community are starting to put environmental protection on the top of the agenda as something that matters with the fate of mankind. After the1992 Conference on Environment and Development, the Chinese Government has taken active actions to fulfill its commitment to the international community, and was among the first nations to formulate its national Agenda21. In it, a particular chapter is devoted to the explanation of the importance of public participation in environmental protection, and the aim, policy and plans for social organizations and the masses in sustainable development. It could be predicted that a new irreversible flood tide of environmental protection is surging and will be pervading every aspect of the globe from national government, political parties, and social organizations to private enterprises, families and individuals.

Firstly, with the view of solving global environmental problems, more and more nations will join hands in formulating international environmental conventions, and environmental and economic policies so as to take consensus actions in improving global environment. The Participation in international affairs and multilateral cooperation on environment will also help the participating nation to raise its status in international community, and improve its bilateral and multilateral relations as well.

Secondly, with its strong sense of minssion in protecting environment, and under the international pressures, every nation will try hard to fulfill its commitment to international conventions by enhancing the work of environmental protection within the nation, such as formulating laws and rules and regulations, integrating environmental work with economic development, strengthening management, increasing input and so on. Take an example .The Chinese government has al-ready made environmental protection one of its basic state policies, and has written into the law by Congress that local government at all levels are responsible for the environmental quality of the region, and should carry out its responsibility system.

Thirdly, in order to achieve the biggest economic benefits, and to raise the competence of its product in the market, every enterprise will take environmental protection into serious consideration in its production consumption, implement pollution prevention and resource recycling, and lower production cost, or their product will face the danger of losing the market competition, and their pollution-causing actions will be condemned and even prosecuted by the public.

Fourthly, under the regulation of waste discharge formulated by the government and the policy of paying extra fees several times higher if the amount of waste discharged exceeded the regulated limitation. Every family, in order to reduce its expense, will voluntarily and actively take part in environmental protection.

Fifthly, with the increasing awareness of environmental protection, and the ever strengthening of legal and social conventions concerning environmental protection, every individual will realize that it is their duty to protect the environment, and their shame to damage it, and will do so accordingly.

In short, with the international community and national government attaching m ore importance daily to environmental problems, and the masses' increasing awareness toward the relation between environmental pollution and individual interest, the work of public participation will be carried out more profoundly and on a ever larger scale in the 12 st century. This is not only the trend but also the objective rule of environmental protection as well.

3.China’s Practices of Public Participation in Environmental Protection

In the past twenty years, China has made great efforts in encouraging public participation in environmental protection, the most successful example of which being the mass participation in afforestation. This activity, having achieved good and obvious results, is now heading to realize an immense blueprint

Forest is the major body of land ecological system and the major resources upon which human existence depends. Apart from providing timber and huge quantities of other side-products for us, the things that we need both in our daily life and in economic construction, it has, more importantly, many ecological functions such as nourishing the water resources, protecting water and soil, stabilizing the sands, guarding us against the winds, absorbing the dust, reducing the noise, generating oxygen, regulating the climate, and conserving biodiversity. According to certain documents, the ecological value of forest is 6to 12 times higher than its economic value .So afforestation means a great deal to not only economic construction, but to protecting the ecological environment as well. The Chinese Congress has called onto its citizens to actively participate in afforestation, and it has also been written into the Forest Law of China that the government should urge the masses to participate in afforestation, and encourage those who have done excellent jobs in afforestation and the protection of forest by award.

Chinese leaders have set good examples for the masses in participating in the activity of afforestation. Every year around the Afforestation Day, they would join the ordinary people in planting trees on the field or mountains. Mr. Deng Caoping, the designer of China’s reform and open -door policy, joined in this activity every year even in his eighty's. Great achievements have been made in t he work of afforestation in China, which is now progressing at a speed of afforesting 800 acres of land, sealing 5,500acres for protection, and planting 2.4bil lion trees annually. The accumulative area of land afforested in China has reached 500million acres now, with its speed and scale of afforestation all being the first in the world.

In order to improve the ecological environment in China, the Chinese government has initiated five ecological construction projects involving hundreds of millions of people. They are the Shelter-Belt Afforestation Project in the Middle and Upper reaches of Changjiang River, the Shelter-Belt Afforestation Project in Coastal Areas, the Plains Afforestation Project, and the Project for Controlling an d Pre-venting Sands.

The Shelter-Belt Afforestation Project in the Three Northern Areas started from 1978. The "three northern areas" refer to the northeast and northwest of China, and the north of the central plains of China, and the north of the central plains of China, with an area of 4.069 million square kilometers, constituting 42.4% of the total area of China, and including 551counties in 13 provinces, autonomous region s and municipalities. The construction of the project is divided into three steps, the first from 1978 to 2000,the second from 2001to 2020,and the third from 2021 to 2050.From 1978to 1989,9.13million hectares of land had been afforested, and 3 billion odd trees planted. And it is planned that, from 1989to 2000,1,075 hectares of land will be afforested. After the completion of this project, the Three Northern Areas would reach to 60 million square kilometers, forest coverage would increase by 10%over that of 1977,and the total areas of land benefited from the project would reach 179.36 million square kilometers. Under the protection of the Shelter-Belt through wind and sand and erosion prevention agricultural production would have an increase of more than 10%, pasture production more than20%, and the soil erosion would be reduced to500tons per square kilometer per year, the total economic benefits of the project on ecological protection are, therefore, estimated at 1.02 trillion yuan renminbi.

Starting from 1989, the Shelter-Belt Afforestation Project in the Middle and Upper Reaches of the Changjiang River will, as is planned, afforest 20 million hectares of land in this area in 30 to 40 years. The first step of the Project will have 7.425 million hectares of land afforested by the year 2000, covering 340thousan d square kilometers, and including 144 counties in 9 provinces. 11.70 million hectares of land had already been afforested from 1989 to 1991. The ecological benefits of the project were estimated at 10.63 billion yuan renminbi per year when the first step is fulfilled

The Shelter-Belt Afforestation Project in Coastal Areas is planned to afforest the land along the 188,000 thousand kilometer coastal line from the river mouth of Yalu River of Liaoning Province in the North, to the river mouth of Beilun River of Guangxi-zhuang Autonomous Region in the south, including 195 counties in 11 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. The first step of the project will have2.469 million hectares of land afforested by the year 2000,about 70% of the total work of the project .The economic benefits of the work are estimated at 1billion yuan renminbi when the first step is fulfilled, and the ecological benefits another 1billion yuan renminbi

The Plains Afforestation Project includes 918 counties in 26 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities over the Northeastern Plain and the Northern Central Plain, 7534 counties had met the standards for plain afforestation by the end of 1991, and by the year 2000 all 918 counties will meet the standards covering an area of 3.245 million hectares of land.

The Project of Sand Control and Prevention refers to the plan of sand controlling from 1991to 2000, which involves 25 provinces , municipalities ,and autonomous regions, covering an area of 100 million hectares of land ,and with the major me and being afforested, grass -planting ,pasture improvement ,and the innovation of low production fields ,The project is expected to cover 28 million hectares of land with vegetation ,restore8 million hectares of pastural land, in-crease 2.4 million hectares of agricultural land， 0.8 million hectares of land for herb and economic crop production ,and 0.8 million hectares of surface water .Its economic benefits are estimated at 2.37 billion RMB per year.

The greatness of the five ecological construction projects mentioned above is that of public participation. They will, after several decade's time, turn out wonderful fruits that will amaze the Chinese and the world as well, It is public participation, and public participation in particular that will realize the prettiest blueprint of environmental protection for us.