When the Government Has the Will, It Has the Ways
I arrived in Hong Kong, China thinking that I had packed a perfect amount of clothes. The weather was warm and humid but also slightly breezy at times. Weather.com was once again reliable until the Chinese government decided to shoot some silver iodide and dry ice into the sky, to induce rain to relieve the drought in the north. It set off a snow storm and extreme weather conditions across the country that was to claim 40 lives and billions of dollars in lost agricultural and industrial productions. Luckily, all it gave me was a cold that lasted for weeks. When I arrived in Guangzhou it was as if I had walked into a freezer. I scrambled to a nearby mall and filled up my suitcase with new winter clothes. By the time I sat down at Green Eyes’ office near Zhongshan University, I was appropriately bundled up.
Green Eyes had opened the office early this year and already had an exciting and widely reported victory saving a gray nurse shark. Now we are sitting down to talk about their plan with water. They reported on their work organizing students on river trips to investigate Guangzhou’s water pollution problems. The problems seem so massive that some students were at a loss as to what they can do. The government has already spent billions on cleaning up the rivers, what can “little people” like them do? They asked. I pointed out a recent South China Morning Post article about a report by China’s Department of Auditing regarding billions of dollars that were earmarked for water pollution cleanup that were wasted because of corruption and mismanagement. In China, only the government is trying to do something to save the environment. If the government is failing, civil society is the environment’s only hope.
We then visited a project area near a Pearl River tributary that has large farm field and fruit plantation. The rivers were heavily polluted by the small dye factories and leather workshops located nearby. A volunteer came along in our site visit and told us her findings. She seemed quite passionate about the issue but felt helpless and lost about what to do with the situation. They are hoping to put together an area map which will locate all the factories and highlight the situation. They thought the river investigation was helpful and interesting because they were never exposed to the situation. They knew the rivers are polluted, but until their investigation, they didn’t know how badly polluted they are and why.
It’s hard to feel motivated to do anything when you see the amount of government efforts being put into cleaning up when it has the will to do so. The area was undergoing a face-lift because of the upcoming Asia Games that will be held in Guangzhou in 2010. Some of the waterways were successively drained and their polluted soils dug out. Streets were being paved and buildings were getting painted. All of these were happening all over the city and I couldn’t help but think that the Asia Games might actually help clean up the waterways faster than any amount of public pressure. But what happens after the games are over is of course a whole other set of questions.
Tags: China, community partners, rivers, Water
