Photo: Greenpeace

In the very recent memory of Tom Beeke, a passionate Canadian birder, Dalian’s Jinshitan resort was still his land of discovery. Tom got a job as English teacher at Dalian Maple Leaf International School several years ago. Besides living close to the sandy beach, it was also a great treat being able to venture around Jishintan coast, bushes and wetlands to watch birds.  This summer, Tom’s new book, Birds of Dalian, hit the local book market.

Dalian, located on the East Asia-Pacific Flyway of migratory birds, is an important stopover site for birds migrating between Siberia and Australia. For those birds, who are now in Siberia, their journeys south will soon start.  For this year’s new chicks, their first ever encounter with the coasts, islands and the sea around Dalian will begin one month later. (more…)

Zhong Yu of Greenpeace bears witness to the Dalian oil spill (Photo: Greenpeace)

Twenty-two years ago, when my high school classmates unfolded a banner with the words “Save Our Seas!”, we put the Greenpeace logo on the banner.  At that time, we were protesting marine debris littering the coasts of Dalian.

Now, twenty-two years since that unofficial Greenpeace banner hung in 1988, Dalian received its first official support from Greenpeace with the deployment of several Greenpeace teams to respond to the massive oil spill in Dalian.

Zhong Yu, senior action coordinator with Greenpeace China, was not prepared for what she saw nor for what she would encounter.  Like many clean up workers and local fishermen, Zhong did not wear protective gear when she walked into thick crude oil along the beach. The photo of her wearing a red Greenpeace T-shirt and blue jeans was the first telling image from Greenpeace bearing witness to the Dalian disaster. (more…)

Firefighters responding to the scene of the Oil spill in Dalian, China (Photo from Netease)

To Chinese firefighter Jiang Hui, his Darley fire truck was his darling. Jiang had been a driver with a $1 million fire truck since his unit purchased it three years ago, and he liked this American brand.

Jiang was among the earliest squads to reach the burning and smoky scene in Dalian. While shooting water and foam to the fire, the blazing crude oil quickly rushed near their feet. The tires of the fire truck caught fire.  Jiang jumped into the truck and tried to move it, but the flame started to engulf the fire truck.  Another firefighter ran to the truck’s front side, pulled Jiang out of the cabin and dragged him away.

The heat was too hot to bear. While some firefighters shot water canons towards the burning oil tanker, others had to shoot water towards the front line of firefighters to cool them down.

“Water, Water!”, “Foam!” were the shouts of the firefighters mixed with the sounds of continuous explosions and blazing noise of fireballs.

A Dalian TV cameraman, Lu Jianwei, captured a short conversation of a firefighter, later identified as Xu Zhiyou, talking to his wife over the cell phone. “Dear, I might not be back, treat mom well, treat our child well!”  On the other side of the line, his wife must have asked why. “Don’t ask, no time, I will stop here.” Then he turned off the phone and rushed towards the fire. (more…)

Originally posted on ChinaDialogue.net

Since late June, almost 1000 American consumers have written letters to Steve Jobs and Apple’s Public Relations Department urging them to address concerns of China’s Green Choice Alliance regarding heavy metal pollution from suppliers in China.

The IT industry is well known for its toxic legacy in its disposal cycle, but little attention has been paid to the environmental impacts of its production. In 2009, more than 4000 people, mostly children, were afflicted with lead poisoning in China inspiring the Green Choice Alliance to initiate a campaign to clean up multinational’s IT supply chains.  The Alliance is taking action where the government is unable to, namely targeting brand-conscious multinationals to attract public and media attention to the cause. (more…)

In early April, 34 Chinese environmental NGOs wrote letters to 29 IT companies regarding members of their supply chains violating Chinese environmental laws and regulations. The list included suppliers for global brands like Apple, IBM, Intel, Sony and Lenova.

Ten days of mostly silence on the part of these companies led to a press conference that attracted widespread media attention and finally some responses. According to an insider source, some companies claimed that these violations took place before they became buyers; others made vague promises of investigations and redress. Hundreds of letters and phone calls are being exchanged between the parties and much work is still needed to be done. (more…)

Xiu and Yang are on a three-week field visit in China. They are currently visiting Green Camel Bell in Gansu Province. Here’s clip of what they’ve been up to. Check it out:

Ran Liping, Green Camel Bell’s Water Program staff is introducing the town of Lingxia, an ethnic Hui-dominated city that is currently listed as Medium Level polluted in China’s Air Pollution Index. We are visiting this area to find out more about five of the polluting enterprises listed by Gansu Environmental Protection Agency and how they are affecting the area people’s lives.

This Sunday, after an hour and a half of a typically frantic and heart-stopping taxi ride through the dusty and congested streets of Lanzhou, we arrived at the Lanzhou Business School to participate in an International Youth Environmentalist Exchange Salon, organized by several university-based environmental clubs. I gave a presentation on Pacific Environment’s work, highlighting each program’s unique focus and approach to demonstrate the diverse ways that U.S. NGOs deal with different environmental issues. Simon, a French student and volunteer with Green Camel Bell (GCB) talked about sustainable development in France and Ran Liping, Green Camel Bell’s Water Program Officer presented on GCB’s work.

Although China now has over 3,500 NGOs, most concentrate in big and high profile cities like Beijing and Yunnan. In backwater regions like Western China, the concept of NGOs is still foreign. Being the only registered environmental NGO in Gansu Province and with a growing reputation both domestically and internationally, Green Camel Bell is nonetheless finding it challenging to hire qualified people to join its expansive programs. They hired two people a few months ago through a recruitment event they held at a university; one left after seeing the homey but sparse GCB office located on the ground floor of a residential complex, the other left after a field visit to GCB’s rural project after realizing how difficult the work is. (more…)

The third and final day of the conference was titled “Pondering Gaps and Needs of Stakeholders in Taihu Basin. How to Build New Clean Water Networks?”

Jun Bi, the local organizer from Nanjing University was the first to speak. In his presentation, he noted that NGOs in China are very weak and that they need to work with researchers and governments more.  He also stated that NGOs often lack funding and the necessary knowledge to be effective. He acknowledged that he also belongs to an NGO called PACE, whose members are mostly Ph.Ds, and have access to governmental officials. He indicated that no matter how hard an environmental NGO tries, there is no single comment that could be made in front of governor of Jiangsu province that would actually influence a government’s decision making.

Jun Bi made the point that most people in the Lake Tai region seem to care more about their own interests than collective interests such as environmental improvements. And, that like it or not, the economy of Lake Tai region would have to first double to keep up with the demand of the people’s wishes to develop their economy; and, that similarly, China, would have to develop first even if to some extent at the price of the environment.

(more…)

Posted by Wen Bo

On the first night during the conference I saw a CCTV- 2 documentary film on water pollution in China. When I turned it on, it was presenting on Lake Tai pollution. Then the program reported more about a series of other toxic pollution problems. Ma Jun, founder and director of Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), was interviewed as well as a retired director of Yangtze River Water Resources Management Bureau. The retired official stated that each year the amount of polluted water carried into the Yangtze is nearly the amount of the entire amount the Yellow River itself.

Ma Jun showed up on the morning of the second day of the conference and was the first one to present. Unfortunately all the governmental officials, provincial and local, had all left the conference the previous day.

(more…)