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Chen Fang, 43, still remembers that he wept when he found himself
"relegated" to study biology instead of his beloved mathematics and
chemistry when he enrolled at Sichuan University in 1978.
But it was ultimately fortuitous as he later discovered a love of
plant biology.
"My association with plants must have been decided by fate," he
said. "I was born in July, which was believed to be the month of
narcissus. Later, I devoted a great deal of time to plants such as
the great lily, saffron and canna because of my work."
Now, 25 years later, Chen has firmly established himself as a
leading plant scientist in China and director of the School of Life
Sciences at Southwest China's Sichuan University.
He
was the first in the world to discover the existence of Tannis, a
special substance, in pollen while studying in the laboratory of
Professor M. Cresti, a world-famous scholar in plant sexual
reproduction in Italy in the late 1980s. His paper was published in
Plant Sexual Reproduction, which is Germany's highest-level
academic journal in the field.
When Chen returned to China in 1989, he started many research
projects and taught graduate students. He also established China's
first plant reproduction project laboratory from scratch.
In
the past five years, Chen, a tutor of PhD candidates, has taken
charge of more than 10 important research projects at national and
provincial level in the research and development of resource plants
and biotechnology.
The projects involve molecular biology in the development of
economic plants, trans-gene technology and key technology in the
protection and utilization of resource plants. Some of the projects
have won awards for scientific advancement at provincial level and
even higher.
He
is applying for national funding for a research project on changes
in the ecological environment of western China.
Chen is in Beijing this week, attending the First Session of the
10th NPC as a newly elected deputy from Sichuan Province.
Before he left Chengdu for Beijing last Saturday, he spent his
spare time preparing suggestions and proposals to the coming NPC
session. One is an appeal for sustained efforts to develop
agriculture and improve the rural economy and farmers' lives.
"I
will be much busier after becoming an NPC deputy," Chen said on a
sofa in the corridor of the spacious Jinjiang Grand Meeting Hall in
Chengdu three hours before his departure for Beijing. The Jinjiang
Grand Meeting Hall is the office building of the Sichuan Provincial
People's Congress.
He
is also preparing another proposal on the preservation of pasture
land in Sichuan. Pastures, which account for 43 percent of the
province's total land area, are in Ganzi Tibet Autonomous
Prefecture and Aba Tibet and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Located
in northwestern Sichuan, the prefectures are in the upper reaches
of the Yangtze River.
However, Chen noted statistics from the Sichuan provincial
government which revealed 10 million hectares of pasture, or 56.2
per cent of the useful pasture in Sichuan, had degraded by the end
of 2001.
"The worsening of the environment in those places will have an
adverse effect on regions in the middle and lower reaches of the
river," he said.
The Sichuan delegation will submit a proposal to call on the
central government to take measures during the current NPC session
to stop pastures from degradation.
Having contributed greatly to the drafting of the proposal, Chen
said he would speak at the NPC session to help solve the shortage
of funds hampering efforts to improve pastures.
Chen is also concerned with raising the issue of biodiversity.
Following the massive flooding in the middle and lower reaches of
the Yangtze River in the summer of 1998, Sichuan was the first
province to ban the logging of virgin forests. It has banned
logging in 174 cities and counties and reinforced protection of
19.2 million hectares of virgin forests.
Despite the achievements, farmers in some places were not very
enthusiastic because they have not benefited greatly from efforts
to improve the ecological environment.
As
a result, they only planted the seedlings given to them.
"In some places, only one kind of tree was planted without
consideration to biodiversity," Chen said.
"When a particular kind of pest arrived, all the trees withered. I
will appeal for a solution to these problems in the NPC session,
too."
(China Daily March 5, 2003)
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