Biodiversity and Environmentalism

China’s Environment: Growth, Resources, Politics

Stevan HarrellCreative Retirement Institute

November 2013

Historical biodiversity loss

Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants

Conventional Wisdom: Humans and Conservation

• Humans are the primary cause of biodiversity loss

• The way to conserve biodiversity is to stop human activity

• Preservation of wild environments is the key to conservation and biodiversity

• A Chinese view: Native peoples are particularly responsible for biodiversity loss in their own regions.

What’s right and wrong about the conventional wisdom

Right• Human activities can cause

species loss– Directly by hunting, fishing,

trapping– Indirectly by habitat loss

• Many species thrive in environments without humans

Wrong or at least questionable

• Human activities can increase biodiversity

• Conservation is not the same as preservation

• People living directly on the land are usually not the problem

The Great Conservation-Preservation controversyConservation• Resources• Sustainable Use• Anthropocentric• Balanced goals• Gifford Pinchot

Preservation• Nature• Minimal interaction• Biocentric• Single goal• John Muir

China’s Developmental Dilemma

Policy and Government Institutions:Unbridled development

• 1950s: Some attention, but development the main focus

• 1958-60 Great Leap Forward: massive environmental conversion

• 1966-76 Cultural Revolution: Politics and Pseudo-science

• 1979-98 Economic development at all costs• 1994 First Environmental NGO: Friends of Nature• 1998: The floods come

Policy and Government Institutions: The turn after 1998

• Growth of local environmental NGOs• Logging ban in the Southwest• Two great nationwide reforestation schemes• Elevation of the Environmental Protection

Bureau to Ministry status• Inclusion of environmental targets in cadre

evaluation • General growth in environmental propaganda

and education

Dealing with Pollution

Environmental Protests

• Average 29% per year increase since 1996• As many as 50,000 per year• 300,000 petitions 2006-2010• Large-scale protests against chemical plants

most common

Char’ismatic Meg’afauna

Ecotibet.org cultural-china.org

Questions to End On

• Does the Environmental Kuznets Curve work?

• Will the political system allow for prioritizing the environment?

• Will public consciousness go beyond personal health?

• How to manage the A in I=PAT?

URL for .pptx presentations and book list:http://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/CRI%20China's%20Environment.html