Striving for sustainable development

BEIJING - Sustainable development nowadays is not only a fashionable term, it is becoming a requirement. Despite China's impressive economic achievements, environment officials warn that they have been for the most part gained through the high consumption of resources and ecological degradation. The country's resources and environment will be irreversibly damaged if the current development model is continued. But can sustainable development really be achieved or is it just a beautiful phrase?

Positive answers were given by participants in a recent national contest centered on sustainable development schemes. Ten of them, including local governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies, received awards for the best projects to explore sustainable development approaches.

The role of the government
Ergun is a small and remote city in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Due to its location in the Chinese hinterlands, the local environment and ecosystems are still largely unaffected by industrialization. But will the city, with an administrative area of nearly 30,000 square kilometers but a population of less than 90,000, duplicate the conventional development model which tends to exhaust resources and destroy the ecology?

Mayor Qian Ruixia said: "We do not want to turn our attention to protecting the environment only after terrible damage is already done." Accordingly, in 2002, the city government worked out a long-term development plan, which was greatly dependent on local ecological resources. According to Qian, 90% of the city's land area is covered by virgin ecosystems. "Here you can find [every type of ecosystem except] maritime resources, including grasslands, wetlands, forests and rivers," she said.

Local farmers are encouraged to turn cultivated land back to grasslands and breed livestock such as cows. A dairy industry has been set up and eco-tourism is well-developed. Ecological resources are the base of economic development, and therefore, any activities harmful to such resources are prohibited, Qian said. For example, the number of tourists entering the city is restricted because too many of them could be a heavy burden for the local environment.

The development plan has helped preserve the local ecology, while still achieving a double-digit annual rise in gross domestic product (GDP). The city's development plan was listed as one of the 10 best examples of sustainable development nationally, as selected from more than 100 entrants by a panel of experts. The experts' comments on the Ergun practices noted that the city government's plan has effectively combined the protection of ecological resources with economic development and will preserve a beautiful environment in the area for future generations.

The contribution of NGOs
In the pursuit of sustainable development, non-government organizations (NGOs) can play a role as important engines, said contest judge Sun Liping, a professor of sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, at a forum after the awards ceremony. In the contest, six of the 10 winners were domestic and international NGOs.

The Participatory Watershed Management Research and Promotion Center based in Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan province, is one of them. In 2000, the organization began to work with local government and residents in seeking sustainable development for Lashi Lake, which is a major water source for Lijiang, a World Heritage Site tourist attraction in Yunnan.

Local residents were included in the decision-making process and helped gain the capacity to make their own decisions on local development, said Yu Xiaogang, the center's director. The Lashi Lake region management committee is composed of government representatives, village committee representatives and individual villagers, such as Liang Yaojun, of the Naxi ethnic minority, who is a villager from Xihu Village in the project region. According to Liang, villagers used to fish in the lake and fell trees in mountain forests nearby. But due to such practices, "[the number of fish has declined and] the environment has been damaged."

In addition, local farmers have cultivated farms along the banks of waterways of the lake, which narrowed the waterways. Narrower waterways meant faster currents, which worsened erosion, and reduced the area of natural flood plain, creating worse flooding downstream. Yu said the riverbank fields were often flooded in rainy seasons, and each flood made the area more barren. Since the project was introduced five years ago, local farmers stopped logging and started to plant trees, and retreated from the waterways to restore the fertility of the land and improve the river's natural flood-control capacity.

Also, shanyao, or Chinese yam, has largely replaced corn, which used to be the major crop in the village. Liang said each mu (1 mu = 0.066 hectare) of corn can earn 700 yuan (US$84.60), but each mu of shanyao can earn more than 5,000 yuan. Along with the fruit trees he plants, Liang's annual income has risen from around 5,000 yuan before 2001 to more than 10,000 yuan now. "We have realized that only when the local environment [is in good condition] can we live a better life," Liang said.

"From the beginning, we thought environmental protection should not be the sole target. It should be combined with poverty elimination," said Yu. "Our goal is that by the time the project is completed, the new development scheme can be carried on by the local farmers themselves."

International NGOs
Among the 10 winners was the China Program operated by US-based NGO "The Nature Conservancy", which is carrying out a project to introduce new, sustainable energy sources to rural areas in northwestern China. At present, in this region, firewood picked from forests is local residents' major energy source for heating and cooking.

According to A Zhu, a native Tibetan with the China Program, marsh gas, solar water heaters and solar ranges have been promoted in the region since 2001. The costs are shared equally by the program, local governments and residents who are willing to adopt energy substitutes, Zhu said. The program is aimed at protecting local forests, which are important for biodiversity, and improving indoor air quality, he said. To date more than 1,000 families are using solar water heaters. About 3,500 are benefiting from marsh gas, while 2,500 have adopted solar ranges, according to Zhu. But more efforts still need to be made because such families only account for 10% of all the rural families in the region, he added.

The corporate sector
How can companies contribute to sustainable development? Contest winner Novozymes, a Danish biotechnology company, has shown one possible way. Since 1998, the company, which has a production facility in the development zone of North China's Tianjin Municipality, has been cooperating with local Teda Gardening Co to make use of its production waste. The company's sewage, after treatment, is used by the gardening company for watering, while its waste residue is processed into fertilizer and then offered freely to local farmers and the development zone community.

Entrepreneurs should bear in mind ideas for sustainable development and companies should try to assist the communities in which they are located, said Jiang Weiming, president of Novozymes China, speaking at the forum after the awards ceremony. The comment of the judging panel on the company's effort stated: "Novozymes China and Teda Gardening have developed methods to achieve harmonious development of both the economy and environment. Their entry exemplifies the concept of a circular economy, which strives to gain the maximum economic benefits through the most efficient use of energy and resources, while environmental pollution is avoided to the greatest feasible extent."

The panel also felt that the two companies' entry demonstrated a valuable example of company-community partnership, and the active role corporations can play in practicing sustainable development.

(Asia Pulse/XIC)