Environmental NGO in China

Appearance of China's Environmental NGOs
Looking back in China, public awareness of environmental protection was weak for a long time.
The first environmental NGO was founded on March 31, 1994. At first it was named as the Academy for Green Culture, and now it is called Friends of Nature (FON).
After that more and more environmental NGOs appeared. Global Village of Beijing and Green Home, another two organisations established around 1996, now have become the top three environmental NGOS including FON. According to the data recorded in 2001, there were over 2,000 enviromental NGOs in China and millions of members at that time.
The effort of these NGOs was enormous. They woke up individuals’ awareness about protecting environment. And now more and more volunteers joined this big family. Zhang chunshan, an ordinary peasant living in Lijiang county of Yunnan Province, has devoted himself to the protection of the Chinese yew. In order to prevent pollution, a woman form Henan Province called Tian Guirong collected 50 tons of used batteries. And these kinds of examples are countless now.

Difficulties NGOs facing now
Like a tache between government and the enterprises, NGOs are now playing a more important role in the development of the country’s modernisation progress. On the other side, government’s attitude towards the environmental NGOs is very important to their development. The main three problems they facing now are:
1. Constraints in registration
According to one organiser’s words, she spent five years for registration and still had not been granted approval. Obstacles in registration procedures continue to cause frustration to those seeking to get on with the work for their NGO.
2. Limited funding
Most environmental NGOs now have no regularly incomes and their funding are mainly raised by volunteers. Therefore NGOs’ action and activity are highly districted.
3. Lack of influence
One sad fact is commercial activities like logging and trapping in China always deeply connected or started by government. And that why some environment find it is very hard to take further action.

Lessons from the history
1. Drawing on the experience of the West
According to the research, in the west countries people will divide environmental NGOs in a more specialise and narrow way. And this helps them to focus on their own field. and work more effectively. Furthermore, their structures are much more organised in order to provide a effectiveness working system.
2. Cooperation with government
Depending on the reality in China, the best way to running environment NGOs is building partnership with government. As we know that strong government support is the foundation to make rapid progress.

For a country with 1.3 billion people, the numbers of environmental NGOs and volunteers we have now are really small compared with the demand. Even though there is still a long way to go, but luckily China’s environmental NGOs have found their way and they will go further in the future.

For more information click here:
http://www.china.org.cn/environment/index.htm