Chen Shoupeng, a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress
(NPC), is an ecological environment expert from north China's
Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region. Once again he is putting the
environment on his agenda and asserting that an eco-friendly
environment is a feature of a well-rounded affluent society.
Chen, as chairman of the Inner Mongolia Sandstorm Research and
Control Promotion Association, says, for example, that spring
should be a time of bright seasonal sunshine and new life. On the
contrary, dust and sandstorms in his region not only cause
tremendous inconvenience but also badly affect economics and
production. If China is to set a goal for itself as an affluent,
well-rounded society then it needs to give its environment absolute
priority. Chen says the fact that affluent people live with serious
air pollution must go against the aims China sets for itself.
He
says that back in the 1950s, China experienced only five
sandstorms. It rose to 13 in the 1970s and 23 in the 1990s.
Although China has become a country with a vastly depleted ecology,
there are things that can be done, as it is largely due to human
intervention that it happened in the first place: the erosion of
grasslands into farmland has removed vital vegetation and created
deserts even though in recent times this has ceased.
Chen Shoupeng has called for an overall increase in the treatment
of the environment in China. Otherwise, he says, man will not be
thanked by nature. But he acknowledges that this process is a long
one and requires tough rules and regulations to make it work:
ecological education being a vital component that should begin in
the earliest classroom, he says.
It
is incumbent on man to strengthen its relationship with nature and
reap the reward an affluent society deserves by living in
environment that is ecologically friendly.
(China.org.cn translated by Li Jinhui, March 7, 2003)