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Environmental forum urges green nation
By Sun Xiaohua (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-05 05:30
The major environmental pollution accident that occured in Songhua River
impelled the country to improve its information publicity and the public to take
more participation in environmental issues, experts and officials said on the
ninth Green China Forum held on Saturday in Beijing.
Currently, environmental problems are abundant in China and one of the main
factors behind these problems is the lack of effective public involvement,
experts said.
"Now China's environmental issues are not solely domestic issues, but of
international concern," said Xu Jialu, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee
of National People's Congress. "More and more environmentalists from around the
world are making an effort to help the country to protect its environment."
"The government should pay more attention to establishing a platform for the
public to take part in environmental causes," Xu said. "Non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) are a useful way to increase the public's involvement."
"China's environmental NGOs should play a bigger role," said Liang Congjie,
the founder of Friends of Nature, one of the country's most influential
organizations in this field.
"Due to its independence, this NGO can link different social organizations
together to urge them to make a combined contribution to improve the country's
environment," Liang said.
Lu Zhi, professor of conservation biology of Peking University, called on the
media to promote the public's participation.
"The media should not just focus on reporting environmental cases, but should
also urge people to engage in the cause," she said.
"China should carry on a green environmental reform," said Hu Angang, a
well-known economist. "The country should develop policies to promote
environmentally friendly behaviour, in areas such as food consumption, energy
use, transportation and real estate construction. An information system for
consumers to identify environmentally friendly products from harmful ones would
certainly be useful."
"And preferential policies should go to environment friendly enterprises, for
example tax exemption."
(China Daily 12/05/2005 page2)
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