Chinese walker

Forests have long been a hinterland: remote, “backward” areas largely controlled by external, often urban, actors and seen to be of little use to national development or the world except as a supply of low-valued natural resources. The year 2009 marked the beginning of the end of this era. Forest lands are booming in value for the production of food, fuel, fibre and now carbon. More than ever, forests are bargaining chips in global climate negotiations and markets.

This unprecedented exposure and pressure provides nations and the world at large tremendous opportunity to right historic wrongs, advance rural development and save forests. But the chaos at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen laid bare the looming crises that the world will face if long-term trends of ignored rights, hunger and climate change remain inadequately addressed in 2010. While the era of the hinterland is ending, the future of forest areas is not yet clear.

The year 2009 will be remembered for the global economic recession and the chaotic attempts to address climate change. But it might also be remembered as a year when governments were overthrown for ignoring local land rights and there was finally widespread realisation that addressing long-standing questions over forest and land rights and tenure is required for addressing global crises of food security, war and climate change.

In March the government of Madagascar was ousted, a move accelerated by widespread resistance to the government handover of half the island`s arable land to a South Korean corporation, Daewoo Logistics. This reality awoke many to the real political consequences of the volatile combination of insecure land rights, persistent government control of land and forests and booming demand for commodities like food, fuel and speculative forest carbon.

The Copenhagen summit neatly captured the contradictions and challenges of the year. Despite the unclear and limited outcomes, it was one of the most important global negotiations to date and indigenous and other community leaders were organised, influencing global decisions about the future of the planet.

Yet at the end of the summit, these same leaders returned home to forests where many do not have government-recognised rights to the land and trees they have used for generations. The flood of money now promised to their governments to help maintain tropical forests and secure additional carbon is putting unprecedented pressures on forest lands and also offering unprecedented opportunity to secure the rights and development of local people.

Forest communities have long been fighting for more control over their forests. Now, clarifying forest tenure and governance has become a priority for some global leaders and even carbon traders. If, and how, local, national and global actors deal with these issues will determine the future of forest areas.

Today, governments claim to own about 75% of the world`s forests, and just a little more than 9% are legally owned by communities and indigenous peoples. This unbalanced pattern of statutory ownership has begun to change over recent decades but state ownership claims remain particularly dominant in Africa. Latin America has done more to legally recognise the tenure rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities. In fact, at the present rate of change it would take 270 years for the tenure distribution in the Congo Basin to match that of the Amazon Basin.

Tenure transition from state to communities and households is both a reinstatement of traditional governance patterns and a modern development of more equitable governance, rule of law and defence of human rights. It can be peaceful and incremental but, more often than not, it has been confrontational.

The revolutions in Mexico in the early-twentieth century or China in the 1950s, for example, transferred the majority of forests from the state and large landholders to collectives and households. In Europe and the United States, communities and households own the majority of forestlands and in New Zealand and Canada, there are long processes of the indigenous Māoris and First Nations claiming their forest rights. But in a large part of the developing world, state domination over resources put in place during the colonial period has not given way to alternative models and post-colonial legislation continues to assign rights to governments at the expense of local peoples.

Conflicts between forest communities and outsiders are not a new phenomenon. Earlier in history, they were often limited in number and short in duration, with forest communities quickly overwhelmed by an external power. 2009 was different. Just as powerful global investors and national governments realised the enormous potential profit to be made from the remaining tropical forests, violent conflicts in and over forests sparked and raged anew.

Deadly conflicts in Peru and the repression of a longstanding insurgency in India are the most prominent examples but long-overlooked local disputes over resource rights have spun into major conflicts in Afghanistan and the Niger Delta. As the demand to control forest resources increases, so will violent conflict over these valuable resources.

Unready for REDD

As the dust settles from the chaos in Copenhagen, it is clear that REDD, the programme to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, is going forward with at least US$3.5 billion (23.9 billion yuan) of initial funding but without the framework or standards to guide it responsibly. The combination of new money and limited controls dramatically raises the risks and pressures on forests and forest peoples. The current lack of a comprehensive architecture for REDD means that the carbon market and funding will be global but justice and legal redress will have to be meted out locally.

REDD was held up as one of the rare points of consensus in Copenhagen: promoted by the “global north”, the world`s rich countries, because of the potential for easy and cheap emissions reductions and by the “global south”, or developing countries, for the lure of finance and investment. International programmes like the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the UN-REDD Programme were set up to have pilot results ready in time for the Copenhagen summit. But as these pilots got under way, the inherent complications of slowing deforestation came into focus: effective REDD will not be easy. The FCPF and UN-REDD have received donations and pledges of more than US$186 million (1.3 billion yuan) from a handful of governments but only a small fraction of the money has been allocated to actions on the ground to date.

Despite the doubts still haunting REDD, existing REDD-readiness funds have established innovative governance structures that include representatives of indigenous peoples and civil society. This progress cannot be discounted for it hints at the real issues that REDD will encounter in implementation. Yet even where this is recognised, the operational capacity to include local participation and ensure rights recognition in REDD is quite limited.

Where there is value and confusion, there is also high risk of corruption and 2009 may become known as the first year of major carbon crookedness. Just before the climate talks in Copenhagen, the government of Papua New Guinea quietly disbanded its Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability after longstanding and well-publicised accusations that it had illegally sold carbon-ownership certificates valued at AU$100 million (616 million yuan) to an Australian company and egregiously neglected to consult with forest communities – the clear legal owners of the forests of the country.

Last year the widespread lack of legal clarity and enforcement and rising global value of REDD attracted the attention of Interpol, the intergovernmental police organisation, and international environmental crime experts globally. In the words of Peter Younger, environment crimes specialist at Interpol, “The potential for criminality is vast and has not been taken into account by the people who set it up%26hellip;Organised crime syndicates are eyeing the nascent forest carbon market.”

2010 is the beginning of a new era for the people and forests in developing countries. Northern governments, investors of all ilk and traders of all hues will inspect and vie for forest lands, negotiating, luring and potentially bribing developing country governments – who still lay claim to most forests – to make deals. The era of forest as hinterland is over. Forests will remain remote, but they will be carved up, controlled and used as global political bargaining chips like never before. Work to strengthen local rights, local organisations, and governance is more relevant, and urgent, than ever.

This article is a summary of an original report by the Rights and Resources Initiative, co-authored by Liz Alden Wily, David Rhodes, Madhu Sarin, Mina Setra and Phil Shearman. It is used here with permission.

Homepage image by Erwyn van der Meer

The Great Barrier Reef — the world`s largest coral reef and the only living thing on earth visible from space – is one of Australia`s great natural gifts. It is home to an abundance of marine life and known for its thousands of individual reef systems, coral cays and hundreds of tropical isles.

Reefs are important ecologically, economically and socially. In many parts of the developing tropical world, coastal communities depend primarily on them for food and protection from storm-generated waves. In Australia, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) generates billions of dollars annually, mainly from tourism. “The whole nation is proud of it,” says Graeme Kelleher, who served for many years as chairman and chief executive officer of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

“Ecologically, the GBR protects most of the Queensland coast — more than 2,200 kilometres — from erosion and the destructive effects of storms,” Kelleher explains. “The biological diversity of the GBR is very high — more than 350 species of reef-building corals and more than 1,500 species of fish. It is regarded internationally as one of the best-protected reefs in the world, being enclosed in a World Heritage Area and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.”

“The Great Barrier Reef contains many outstanding examples of important and significant natural habitats for in situ conservation of species of conservation significance,” added Kelleher, who is also a former vice-chairman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas. “It contains more than 2,900 individual reefs, covering more than 24,000 square kilometres, as well as about 980 islands.”

In the wake of the grounding of the Chinese coal-carrier Shen Neng 1 on the reef`s Douglas Shoal earlier this month, Australia announced that it would extend a satellite ship-tracking system to cover all of the massive reef, to reduce the risk such an incident occurring again. The system, currently in place for most of the GBR, would be extended south, Agence France-Presse said, and would force all ships to report their positions for tracking. The change must be ratified by the International Maritime Organisation, however, because much of the area is outside Australia`s territorial waters.

Until then, Australian transport minister Anthony Albanese said, safety agencies “will begin rolling out the infrastructure necessary to support the reporting system, such as sensors, communications equipment and modified navigational software. By beginning this work now, our authorities will be fully ready for the start of mandatory reporting in July 2011.”

In the Shen Neng 1 accident, oil spillage from the now-refloated ship`s tanks appears to be relatively minimal, with the greatest damage coming in the form of a three-kilometre-long scar gouged into the coral – and possible additional damage from the vessel`s paint.

The environmental scare, however, has heightened the urgency of efforts to ensure that ships can safely negotiate the Great Barrier Reef`s sensitive waters. “The key thing that we see is needed alongside this tracking system is to have pilots onboard every large ship that traverses the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area,” the BBC quoted Richard Leck of WWF Australia as saying. Such professional navigators, he said, can prevent accidents. “Most of the incidents that occur within the World Heritage area are due to human error.”

Kelleher sees long-term benefit from the Chinese ship incident “in that without doubt, specific action will now be taken to ensure that large vessels in the future will be forced to navigate through the reef in even closer accordance with the very strict rules than is normal nowadays. It needs to be recognised that those rules are enforced strictly now.”

“This accident is without doubt a major navigational error,” Kelleher added. “A lateral error of 12 kilometres in navigation is really bad and unusual. I support the idea of large vessels carrying toxic cargo through the Great Barrier Reef being required by law to be guided by a specialised marine pilot in charge.”

Olivia Boyd: Six months ago, you launched a report urging the British government to speed up its carbon capture and storage (CCS) programme. How much progress has there been since then?

Geoff French: I`m not convinced that things have moved on much. Our government has said it wants to fund four trial projects to be phased in from 2014. But, to the best of my knowledge, only two candidates have come forward, both in Scotland. One is in Fife and one is in Hunterston. [German utility] E.ON also has a proposed plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, but has said it will delay an investment for up to two to three years, based on the global recession.

Given what the country has pledged to achieve by 2020 and 2050 in terms of emissions cuts, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has been trying to encourage ministers to move forward with a bit more urgency on this. We want government to support industry, we want the results to be produced as quickly as possible and we want carbon-pricing regulations that support the behaviour we need, irrespective of the fact that it will undoubtedly make energy more expensive – that`s just something we have to accept.

OB: Assuming all of that did happen, what would be a reasonable timescale in which to expect commercial-scale CCS to be implemented widely? People talk about new technologies taking 30 years to get established. Need it take that long?

GF: I would like to think it doesn`t have to take that long. But, realistically, it will be 20 years before it is widespread. If we are only now talking about implementing pilot schemes, it will probably be the late 2010s or 2020 before we get those up and running. And, after that, we need to scale up – to go from proving it works to implementing it on a mass scale.

That needs to happen as quickly as possible and we shouldn`t wait around to get a perfect solution. If we come up with a half reasonable idea, we should be implementing it and then improving it later. When Henry Ford made the first mass-produced car, which did all of 10 miles to the gallon, people didn`t sit around and say “Good idea Henry but come back in 50 years time when you`ve got the fuel consumption up to 40 miles a gallon.” The concept of grasping what you can and continually making improvements is a good one.

China is very good at that. It has really demonstrated an ability to take ideas and plans from concept to implementation much more quickly than we have in the west. The Olympics is one example. The implementation of a high-speed rail network is another. Whatever you can think of, the Chinese have done it at a scale and speed, which, frankly, the United Kingdom can only imagine. So I would have thought, for China in particular, there is an opportunity here.

OB: Other regions including North America and the Middle East seem to be pushing ahead with CCS more quickly than Britain. What`s the reason for that?

GF: It seems to me that some of the other countries have different drivers. Canada has implemented a bit of CCS but it had a vested interest because it was using the carbon dioxide it was pumping back into the ground to enhance oil and gas production. In the Middle East, there is some CCS but it is actually being used to reduce the carbon-dioxide content in the natural gas that`s coming out of the ground – they have to get rid of the carbon dioxide before they can sell it. So there`s a vested interest. This is an important point because, unless you can arrive at a situation where you`ve got the economic drivers encouraging the behaviour you want, you are trying to push water uphill.

Regulation can help with that. The European Union has said that, from 2013, permanently stored carbon dioxide will be considered “not emitted” under its revised Emissions Trading Scheme. That sounds like a fairly simple thing. But actually, if you`re going to start carbon trading, it`s a huge step forward – suddenly you`ve got a big incentive. Take waste management as an example. Recycling and waste-to-energy plants in Europe are much more common than in the United States, by a degree of magnitude. And when you get down to it, it`s actually the regulations that have been put in place – landfill tax or other regulations – which have affected behaviour.

OB: The UK recognised the potential of CCS very early and was the first country to launch a competition to build a full-scale system. But that programme is now running years behind schedule. What has gone wrong and what lessons are there for other countries?

GF: I think there is a slight mismatch between the stated intentions, which are very good, and doing the things that will actually encourage people to come forward with these schemes. That partly comes down to carbon pricing. People can see that CCS is a good thing and that it is required in the long-term. But they would rather do it if there was an economic benefit and the economic benefit depends on there being a carbon price with a sensible floor level. We don`t want a carbon price that fluctuates wildly and we certainly don`t want a carbon price that can float back to zero, because then there`s no economic driver.

That thought tends to send people into wild panics about distorting the free market but there is no way around it. You can`t have a situation where you invest in something now because you think the carbon price is going to be at one level and then the price plummets because of some technical issue. If you`re faced with that uncertainty and you`re a commercial business, why invest? It seems to me that, if Europe can come together to tell Greece what to do to stabilise the eurozone, it shouldn`t be beyond their wits to come together to sort out a carbon price.

OB: What else would you like to see from government at this point?

GF: We need a more realistic roadmap for CCS development in this country. We can`t keep having targets that don`t get met. Of course you have to set stretching targets but, if they go too far, they become counter-productive. People just say “that`s impossible” and you lose all the drive.

If necessary, I would also like to see more financial help to try to get some of these pilot projects started as quickly as possible. That`s politically difficult at the moment but, if you believe that climate change is a universal problem that needs to be addressed, then it`s a pretty good place to choose to put your money.

OB: I`ve heard the argument put forward in the United Kingdom that CCS is an expensive distraction and government should instead be focusing public funds on nuclear new-build, a programme that is currently being left to the private sector. Do you think that argument is at all justified?

GF: There`s more justification for that argument in the United Kingdom than there is in, say, India or China, where 70% of the power comes from coal. Here, it is around 30% of our electricity. But that is still a significant chunk. I think our energy policy should be diversified. I`m not a great fan of nuclear because of what it leaves behind but I don`t see any other option if we are to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. I`m very much in favour of renewables but even when you take into account all of the installations that can sensibly be put in, it`s not enough – you need something else. And nuclear is the only thing I can see that can fill that gap.

However, we will still be using fossil fuels for some time and so we have got to do CCS as well. I don`t think we can afford to ignore one important aspect. It is better if our energy supply is diversified and not too reliant on one sector.

OB: How much room is there for international collaboration on CCS?

GF: Enormous room. It has almost become a clich%26eacute; but we are all affected by each other`s pollution so the response needs to be international. The issues are global and the opportunities are global.

Input from China will be vital, I think. In global climate talks and elsewhere, China is beginning, quite rightly, to exert its muscle, to make its voice heard. With that position comes responsibility. China has demonstrated a fantastic ability to convert ideas and concepts into reality. It has done it primarily for the economic wellbeing of its people and its succeeding incredibly well. But I would argue that it`s time to extend that into environmental wellbeing. We need the biggest contributors of carbon dioxide, the biggest nations and the biggest users of fossil fuels to stand up and really be counted on this one.

Olivia Boyd is assistant editor at chinadialogue.

Geoff French is vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vice president of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers and chairman of Scott Wilson.

Homepage image from Scott Wilson Group

On 11 June 1770, six weeks or so after becoming the first European to make landfall on the east coast of Australia, Lieutenant James Cook unexpectedly ran aground. His ship, the Endeavour, had struck a reef now known as the Endeavour Reef, within a manifestly far bigger reef system, nearly 40 kilometres from shore. Only the urgent jettisoning of 50 tonnes of stores and equipment (including all but four of the ship`s guns), a delicate operation known as fothering (in which an old sail was drawn under the hull, effectively plugging the hole), Cook`s expert seamanship and a great deal of hard pumping saved the vessel and her crew.

It would be another 30-odd years before the great English explorer and cartographer Matthew Flinders, having circumnavigated the entirety of Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown Southern Land, gave the vast reef system its name. But despite his astonishing success in charting a safe passage through its treacherous waters, mainly by the expedient of sending small boats ahead to sound the depths, Flinders himself was later stranded on it while heading home for England in 1803.

For nearly 250 years, the Great Barrier Reef has been a hazard to shipping. It is the world’s largest reef system, made up of more than 2,900 coral reefs and 900 islands scattered over 344,400 square kilometres off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia. Covering an area bigger than the United Kingdom, it is also a priceless and unimaginably fragile world heritage site, home to 30 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises; six species of sea turtles; 125 species of shark, stingray and skate; 5,000 species of mollusc; nine species of seahorse; 215 species of birds; 17 species of sea snake; 2,195 known plant species and more than 1,500 species of fish.

And it is still a hazard to shipping. In recent years, its pristine waters, in theory protected by the statutes of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, have become known as the “coal highway”, a busy thoroughfare for foreign-owned bulk carriers bound for Asia. Laden with coal and fuel oil from Australia, thousands of ships — such as the Chinese-owned Shen Neng 1, which ran aground off the country`s eastern seaboard on April 3 — continue to jeopardise the largest marine conservation site in the world. As salvage teams worked to prevent disaster, environmentalists were not slow to accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the problem.

“This is the $60-billion-a-year, largely foreign-owned coal industry that is making a coal highway out of the Great Barrier Reef,” said Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens party. “There needs to be a radical overview of this huge coal-export industry, whether these ships need to use the reef at all, and what the alternatives are,” he said. Local fishermen have dubbed it the “reef rat run”, saying ships routinely take short cuts to save time and money on their voyage to China.

It was this so-called short cut, near the Douglas Shoal, off Rockhampton, that is believed to have caused the Shen Neng 1 accident. According to reports, the 230-metre-long ship, carrying 975 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 65,000 tonnes of coal, was travelling at full speed when it hit a sandbank in a protected part of the Great Barrier Reef. Its fuel tank ruptured, causing a three-kilometre-long oil slick.

[After the vessel was refloated on April 12, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority`s senior scientist, David Wachenfeld, said the ship had gouged a channel about three kilometres long in the reef.]

The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, has said the ship`s owner, Shenzhen Energy – which allegedly has been involved in three major international incidents in four years – could face a fine of up to one million Australian dollars (nearly US$930,000) for straying from a shipping lane that is currently used by some 6,000 cargo vessels each year.

The stricken ship was travelling to China from Gladstone, a port playing a growing role in the booming export trade of Australia`s natural resources to Asia. The incident follows a similar accident in March last year when 60 kilometres of Queensland`s south-east coast were declared a disaster area after 42 tonnes of oil spilled into the ocean from the MV Pacific Adventurer during a cyclone.

Conservationists say the fact that there is no legal requirement to have marine pilots on board ships in the area, to guide them safely through the 2,500-kilometre reef system, puts it in grave danger. “The current lack of safeguards around shipping in the Great Barrier Reef is akin to playing Russian roulette with one of the world`s most treasured natural icons,” says Gilly Llewellyn, the conservation director of WWF Australia, who called for ships to be piloted. She also wants improved monitoring systems so authorities know where large vessels are situated on the reef at all times.

The Australasian Marine Pilots Institute (AMPI), the organising body for Australia`s marine pilots, says the grounding of the Shen Neng 1 should focus attention on the lack of protection Australia`s maritime regulations afford the reef. An Australian maritime law expert, Peter Glover, says public opinion and government legislative reaction to marine pollution by commercial shipping in the Great Barrier Reef have got noticeably tougher since 1996, when the Panamanian-flagged vessel Peacock, en route from Singapore to New Zealand via the inner route of the Great Barrier Reef, ran aground on Piper Reef. The ship was carrying approximately 605 tonnes of bunker heavy fuel oil, and its owners were not even prosecuted.

Following the grounding of the 22,000-tonne Malaysian-flagged container vessel Bunga Teratai Satu on Sudbury Reef in 2001, legislative changes were introduced to allow both state and Commonwealth authorities to prosecute those who pollute in the waters surrounding the reef.

Those changes were put to the test almost immediately in the wake of another potentially catastrophic grounding the following year, of the Greek-flagged bulk carrier Doric Chariot. But Peter Glover believes it still “remains to be seen %26hellip; how effective legislative changes are in addressing the prosecution of individuals responsible for causing damage” in the reef.

Inspecting the scene from the air, Australia`s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, expressed concern that the Shen Neng 1, balancing precariously in the crystal-clear waters, had strayed so far from official shipping lanes. “From where I see it, it is outrageous that any vessel could find itself 12 kilometres off-course, it seems, in the Great Barrier Reef,” Rudd told reporters in tropical Queensland, where the reef park is a major tourist draw. He pledged an overhaul of measures to protect the Great Barrier Reef from any future environmental disasters. “There is no greater natural asset for Australia than the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.

But maritime traffic through the Great Barrier Reef is projected only to increase, with contracts reportedly signed for the export of US$60 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from coal seams as shrinking resources spur energy companies to turn to unconventional gas reserves to feed Asian demand. Work is under way to expand the port of Gladstone in Queensland to lift capacity by up to 25 million tonnes a year, driven by surging demand from Japan, South Korea, India and China.

Local fishermen fear any increase in traffic will put Australia`s most precious environmental asset at further risk. “We see ships through there every day,” Graham Scott, who has been fishing and chartering boats on the reef for 40 years, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “We see many, many boats within 15 miles [24 kilometres] of that spot [where the Shen Neng 1 grounded]. One or two boats a day, every time we`re out. We`ve assumed in the past that they`re not coal boats, because what would a coal boat be doing there?”

www.guardian.co.uk/

Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

In early February, the results of a national pollution survey released by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) showed that the country`s pollution problems were much worse than previously estimated. The international media appeared to accept the ministry`s explanation for the discrepancy in its figures – agricultural sources of pollution had not previously been included. But such reports overlooked a more crucial factor: over the last two years the MEP has made no real headway in tackling pollution. It has merely made some feints and declared a paper victory.

On November 2 last year, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that the minister for environmental protection, Zhou Shengxian, had claimed that China had “stopped water pollution worsening” and seen slight improvements in all areas over the previous year, during a speech at the 13th World Lake Conference, held in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

This conclusion does not match the facts. On November 11, the People`s Daily reported that, in spite of a six year investment programme, which saw 91 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion) spent on efforts to improve China`s three most polluted rivers and lakes, water quality remains poor. As the development of the Yangtze Delta has charged ahead, for example, the standard of water in Lake Taihu, eastern China, has fallen by three grades – from grade two in the 1980s to grade five or worse now. The many textile-dying, chemical- and food-processing plants around the lake have caused a major accumulation of pollutants. Lake Chao, in eastern China, and Lake Dian, in the south-west, have both shrunk and become more polluted as a result of aquaculture, reclamation of land for agriculture and the building of factories.

The MEP is also aware that, over the past year, there have been 12 incidents of heavy metal and metalloid pollution in Fengxiang in central China, Wugang in south China and Dongchuan, a district of the south-western city of Kunming. These cases left 4,035 people with excessive levels of lead in their blood and 182 with excessive levels of cadmium and gave rise to 32 “mass incidents”, or public protests.

The MEP`s national pollution survey itself undermines the department`s official statements. And even without that data, the Chinese public can see, smell and taste that water quality is still falling and that the environment as a whole is worsening. So why does the ministry insist that water quality is improving? Vice-minister of environmental protection, Zhang Lijun, explains that levels of sulphur dioxide and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) – a measure that helps determine the amount of organic pollutants in surface water – both fell in 2008 and 2009. This is the basis for the MEP`s claim.

But there are many different indicators of water quality. Measuring just two of these is clearly inadequate and can lead to the wrong conclusions being drawn – as the MEP has shown. It is as if the ministry is a doctor who has declared a patient suffering from a brain tumour healthy on grounds of normal blood pressure.

As the highest of China`s environmental protection agencies, the MEP must be aware that it is impossible to get a full picture of water quality by measuring just two factors. Nor can it be ignorant of the reality of China`s deteriorating rivers and lakes – given the national pollution survey has been underway for two years, the ministry must be familiar with the actual situation. But three months before the survey results were released, it was still saying that China had “stopped water pollution worsening”.

Why would the MEP do this? A quick look at its record over the past two years provides an answer: it was in dire need of an achievement.

Two years ago, the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) was upgraded to ministry status and its powers expanded. But the department`s actions since then have been disappointing. As a mere agency, SEPA may have been weak, but it still managed to cause a stir. It launched crackdown after crackdown – known as “environmental storms” – against companies that broke regulations, including the largest of hydropower firms. It enforced regional planning restrictions, refusing to approve projects for law-breaking local governments until changes were made. It called a halt to illegal works at Beijing`s Old Summer Palace and held an unprecedented public hearing, which became a model for public participation and democratic decision-making.

New legal documents, the “Temporary Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessments” and “Regulations on Publication of Environmental Information”, were drafted to ensure the public`s right to environmental information and participation. Research on environmental planning law was conducted and the concept of Green GDP explored as a way of tackling China`s worship of unbridled growth – which lies at the heart of China`s environmental deterioration.

All of these were significant victories, achieved by a weak government agency fighting real battles against powerful interest groups and building systems for better long-term governance. In 2007, I wrote that SEPA was little more than an unarmed weakling, yet it had already fought long and hard for the environment. Its bravery was recognised – but its weakness was also clear. It was not an independent ministry under the State Council, China`s highest organ of government, and it struggled to participate in policymaking and to coordinate with other departments. It lacked executive powers and capacity. So I and many others said: “If we expect this organisation to deal with the huge issues it faces, we must change the systems and legislation that surround it, and grant them increased power.”

Two years ago, the agency finally became a ministry and won greater powers. It was no longer a dwarf, but a full-grown man. But, disappointingly, it has achieved little of note since then. New regulations on public participation in environmental impact assessments and the publication of environmental information have been implemented, but this work started before ministry status was awarded and work was only needed on the final stages. And new laws governing environmental evaluations have so far failed to resolve any issues of public concern over major construction projects.

Moreover, the “environmental storms” have stopped blowing, with the exception of last year`s decision to halt two illegal hydropower projects on the Jinsha River, south-west China. Even then, the MEP only rushed to put a stop to them after State Council leaders started to take a look at the issue of illegal projects in the area. Prior to that, the ministry had quietly approved a different dam. True, sulphur dioxide and COD levels have fallen somewhat. But how much was this the result of reduced industrial production during the economic crisis? Moreover, “green GDP” was left by the wayside, after repeated cries of “not ready yet”.

After all this, the MEP needed a success to show to its superiors and the nation. So “worsening water pollution” was – on paper – stopped. To be fair, the national pollution survey is a big step forward. It has provided relatively accurate data and proved that the ministry`s own “achievements” are not all they may seem.

A few days ago an American reporter asked me whether or not China was really committed to environmentally friendly development. Like her, many foreigners are confused. The idea of building an “ecological civilisation” was included in the report of the 17th Party Congress and China`s leaders are calling for the development of a low-carbon economy and emissions-reduction measures to combat climate change. These are all solemn undertakings. But environmental damage continues to worsen, and not only do the environmental authorities do nothing – they claim false victories.

This does not look like environmentally friendly development. I could not answer the reporter`s question, just like I cannot explain the ministry`s failings over the last two years. If I had to reply, I could only say that I believe that China`s leaders have made the decision to go down a green path, but local government and environmental authorities have not yet taken this seriously.

Liu Jianqiang is editor in chinadialogue`s Beijing office.

Homepage photo of Taihu Lake by Greenpeace

Although China`s assistant minister of foreign affairs, Hu Zhengyue, has said that “China does not have an Arctic strategy”, the country does appear to have a clear agenda. Hu made his statement while attending an Arctic forum organised by the Norwegian Government on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in June 2009. His speech at the forum, along with his comments to Chinese journalists afterwards, forms the most up-to-date and comprehensive official articulation of China`s thinking on the geopolitics of the Arctic and resulting sovereignty issues.

In line with the country`s oft-stated governing principles in international affairs, Hu emphasised China`s wish to see disputes related to sovereignty resolved peacefully through dialogue. He expressed China`s support for Arctic countries` sovereign and judicial rights, endowed by international legislation, but said these laws should to be refined and developed due to new circumstances arising from the melting of the ice.

Hu has also stressed the need for cooperation between Arctic and non-Arctic states. In his speech at Svalbard, he acknowledged that the Arctic is primarily a regional issue but said concerns over climate change and international shipping gave it inter-regional dimensions. He did not mention energy and other natural resources.

Unsurprisingly, China would like to see the Arctic states recognise the interests of non-Arctic states. In Hu`s words: “When determining the delimitation of outer-continental shelves, the Arctic states not only need to handle relationships between themselves properly, but must also consider the relationship between the outer-continental shelf and the international submarine area that is the common human heritage, to ensure a balance of coastal countries` interests and the common interests of the international community.”

After the publication of the original SIPRI report, admiral Yin Zhuo of the People`s Liberation Army Navy made a stronger assertion of Chinese rights in the region in comments carried by official media on March 5. Yin is reported to have stated that, “Under the provisions of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Arctic does not belong to any particular nation and is rather the property of all the world`s people” and that “China must play an indispensable role in Arctic exploration as it has one-fifth of the world`s population.”

Associate professor Guo Peiqing of the Ocean University of China has said: “Circumpolar nations have to understand that Arctic affairs are not only regional issues but also international ones.” Guo has estimated that about 88% of the Arctic seabed would be under the control of the Arctic littoral states if the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf were to approve all the existing or expected claims to the Arctic Ocean continental shelf. However, when considering the concerns of China and other non-Arctic states, it is worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of known but untapped energy resources lie in undisputed areas, that is within the legitimate exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the Arctic littoral states.

Canada and Norway are the only countries to have thus far engaged with China in a formal bilateral dialogue on Arctic issues. At the first China-Norway dialogue meeting in June 2009, climate change and polar research were identified as the issues of strongest common interest, although the two sides also exchanged views on Arctic policies, energy issues and sea routes. The two countries have agreed to hold follow-up talks in 2010.

It is unclear if and when China will issue a more formal Arctic strategy. The precise targets for polar expeditions and polar research projects of the 12th Five-Year Plan, which will cover the period from 2011 to 2015, were set to be finalised following the China`s 26th Antarctic expedition, which completed in March. In October 2009, on the eve of the expedition, Chen Lianzeng, deputy director of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), shed some light on the next Five-Year Plan`s general targets. These will be: to deepen China`s knowledge of the impact of climate change on the two polar regions, expand China`s scientific exploration activities and “take an active part in polar affairs and establish China`s strategic position”. To accomplish these goals, the SOA intends to build both “soft power and hard power”.

Several Chinese academics are encouraging their government to “Grasp this historical opportunity and recognise the political, economic and military value of the Arctic and then re-evaluate China`s rights in the Arctic region and adjust its strategic plan.” Chinese decision makers, on the other hand, advocate cautious Arctic policies for fear of causing alarm and provoking countermeasures among the Arctic states. Professor Guo Peiqing has even raised the alarmist possibility of an alliance of Arctic states.

China is aware that its size and rise to major-power status evoke jitters but at the same time it is striving to position itself so that it will not be excluded from access to the Arctic. China appears to be particularly wary of Russia`s intentions in the Arctic. Chinese observers made note of Russia`s decision in August 2007 to resume long-distance bomber flights over the Arctic and the planting of a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed that same month.

China and the rest of the world would be at a disadvantage if Russia`s claims over the underwater terrain between the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges were legitimised, giving Russia alone rights to the resources in that area. It is important to note, however, that Arctic issues have thus far been approached in a “spirit of cooperation, with outstanding disputes managed peacefully”. Media reports of competition in an ice-free Arctic that emphasise potential disputes and a scramble for the Arctic`s resources give rise to scenarios of armed conflict breaking out in the region, especially a conflict involving Russia. However, there is no evidence that Russia is failing to play by the rules or that it would not want to find multilateral solutions to disputes regarding sovereignty.

While the melting of the Arctic ice could create tension in China-Russia relations, the new opportunities that will arise from an ice-free Arctic could deepen cooperation between east Asian states. As non-Arctic states, China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea are all in the same boat. Each of them stands to benefit enormously from shorter commercial shipping routes and possible access to new fishing grounds and other natural resources. A unified Arctic strategy would be in their mutual interest. Finding ways to use an ice-free Arctic jointly has the potential to create a genuine win-win situation for both China and Japan, the two east Asian powers that, in so many other areas, find it difficult to find common ground.

From China`s viewpoint, an ice-free Arctic will increase the value of strong ties with the Nordic countries that otherwise struggle to be noticed by the rising power. China already has the largest foreign embassy in Reykjavik, in anticipation of Iceland becoming a major shipping hub. By actively engaging Chinese officials and academics on Arctic issues – ranging from climate change and polar research to commercial shipping routes and maritime rescue operations – Nordic countries can start laying the foundations for a special Arctic-orientated relationship with China.

Norway, with its deep-sea drilling expertise, has an advantage in this regard. Finding ways for Chinese and Norwegian companies to cooperate in Arctic energy resource extraction – in, for example, the ongoing project in the Shtokman field – would be of great interest to Chinese companies and would undoubtedly strengthen China-Norway relations. The notion that China has rights in the Arctic can be expected to be repeated in articles by Chinese academics and in comments by Chinese officials until it gradually begins to be perceived as an accepted state of affairs.

However, under international law, China`s rights in the Arctic are limited. Moreover, China`s insistence that respect for state sovereignty be a guiding principle of international relations makes it difficult for the country to question the Arctic states` sovereignty rights. There is some irony in the statements by Chinese officials calling on the Arctic states to consider the interests of man-kind so that all states can share the Arctic. These statements appear to be contrary to China`s long-standing principles of respect for sovereignty and the internal affairs of other states. Based on official statements by the Chinese government and the open-source literature written by Chinese Arctic scholars, China can be expected to continue to persistently, yet quietly and unobtrusively, push for the Arctic, in spirit, being accessible to all.

Linda Jakobson is the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) China and Global Security Programme.

An earlier version of this article was published as “China prepares for an ice-free Arctic”, SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security, No. 2010/2, March 2010. It is used here with permission.

Homepage image from NASA

Part one: China’s growing interest in the thawing north

Part two: The commercial lure of melting ice

As China`s economy is reliant on foreign trade, there are substantial commercial implications if shipping routes are to shorten during the summer months each year. Nearly half of China`s gross domestic product (GDP) is thought to depend on shipping. The trip from Shanghai to Hamburg via the Northeast Passage – which runs along the north coast of Russia from the Bering Strait in the east to Novaya Zemlya in the west – is 6,400 kilometres shorter than the route via the Strait of Malacca, a strip of water between Malaysia and Sumatra, and the Egypt`s Suez Canal.

Moreover, due to piracy, the cost of insurance for ships travelling via the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea, towards the Suez Canal increased more than tenfold between September 2008 and March 2009, according to a new report, to be published by Martinus Nijhoff later this year.

Chinese research remains primarily focused on how the melting Arctic will affect China`s continental and oceanic environment and how, in turn, such changes could affect domestic agricultural and economic development. However, a small number of Chinese researchers are publicly encouraging the government to prepare for the commercial and strategic opportunities that a melting Arctic presents.

Li Zhenfu, associate professor at Dalian Maritime University, together with a team of specialists, has assessed China`s advantages and disadvantages when the Arctic-sea routes open up. “Whoever has control over the Arctic route will control the new passage of world economics and international strategies,” writes Li, referring both to the shortened shipping routes between East Asia and Europe or North America and to the abundant oil, gas, mineral and fishery resources presumed to be in the Arctic.

Commenting on the successful test voyages from South Korea to the Netherlands via the Northeast Passage by two German commercial vessels in the summer of 2009, Chen Xulong of the China Institute of International Studies writes that “the opening of the Arctic route will advance the development of China`s north-east region and eastern coastal area . . . It is of importance to East Asian cooperation as well.” Chen also says that China should have a long-term vision regarding Arctic shipping.

Li Zhenfu has criticised the fact that Chinese research on the Arctic-shipping route has not been planned and conducted in a comprehensive manner to enable China to protect its interests. According to Li, China`s research “fails to provide fundamental information and scientific references for China to map out its Arctic strategy” and, therefore, limits China`s power to speak out and protect its rights in the international arena.

Li`s article, which was published in a national journal administered by the prestigious China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), points out that the Arctic also “has significant military value, a fact recognised by other countries”. And, in a rare open-source article about the Arctic by an officer of the People`s Liberation Army, senior colonel Han Xudong warns that the possibility of military force cannot be ruled out in the Arctic due to complex sovereignty disputes.

The increasing military importance of an ice-free Arctic is, indeed, reflected in recent decisions by all five littoral states to strengthen their military capabilities in the Arctic. In August 2007, Canada announced that it was setting up an Arctic military-training centre in Resolute Bay; in March, 2009, Russia announced that it would establish a military force to protect its interests in the region; and, in July 2009, the Danish parliament approved a plan to set up an Arctic military command and task force by 2014, to take just three examples.

Another Chinese researcher on Arctic politics, Guo Peiqing of the Ocean University of China, has also voiced disapproval of China`s natural sciences-oriented Arctic research and said it is not in China`s interests to remain neutral. Guo has said that China, which is transitioning from a regional to a global power, should be more active in international Arctic affairs. He notes that “any country that lacks comprehensive research on polar politics will be excluded from being a decisive power in the management of the Arctic and, therefore, be forced into a passive position.”

Chinese Arctic specialists acknowledge the same uncertainties as many of their western counterparts when contemplating how lucrative the Arctic routes would ultimately be in comparison to the current routes through the Suez and Panama canals. Although passing along the Northeast Passage from eastern China to western Europe would substantially shorten the journey, high insurance premiums, lack of infrastructure and harsh conditions may make the Arctic routes commercially unviable, at least in the short term.

Drift ice will continue to be a problem for ships, even when the Arctic passages are officially deemed ice-free. As Greenland`s ice cap melts, the number of icebergs is also expected to increase, forcing ships to proceed slowly and make detours. Furthermore, the shallow depth of some of the passages along the shipping routes (in particular the Bering Strait) makes the Arctic unsuitable for big cargo ships.

The opening up of the Arctic will also provide access to new reserves of energy and other natural resources on which China`s economic growth increasingly relies. The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic contains up to 30% of the world`s undiscovered gas and 13% of the world`s undiscovered oil. Additionally, the region contains vast amounts of coal, nickel, copper, tungsten, lead, zinc, gold, silver, diamonds, manganese, chromium and titanium.

The technological challenges associated with extracting energy and mineral deposits in the Arctic have been noted by both Chinese and Western observers and China will need to partner with foreign companies in order to exploit the Arctic`s resources. As one Chinese scholar notes, “There is a rather large gap between Chinese and advanced foreign deep-sea oil extracting technology.” Russia, which controls many of the resources in Arctic waters, lacks both the technology and the capital needed to extract them – opening the way for tri-lateral joint ventures in Russian waters using Chinese capital and western or Brazilian technology. For example, when in late 2009 Russia`s state-owned oil company Rosneft announced plans to apply for the operating licences to develop 30 offshore sites on Russia`s Arctic continental shelf, industry experts predicted that it would not be able to develop these deposits on its own.

Another potential multilateral joint venture in which China`s capital could be used in exchange for the opportunity to gain the experience it seeks in deep-water drilling is the ongoing cooperation between Statoil, Total and Gazprom to develop the first phase of the Shtokman gas fields in the Barents Sea, a section of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and Russia. This is regarded not only as a huge commercial opportunity but also a formidable technological challenge.

Linda Jakobson is the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) China and Global Security Programme.

An earlier version of this article was published as “China prepares for an ice-free Arctic”, SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security, No. 2010/2, March 2010. It is used here with permission.

NEXT: Charting political waters

Part one: China’s growing interest in the thawing north

Homepage image from Combat Camera shows a Canadian military training exercise in Resolute Bay.

China is paying increasing attention to the melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean as a result of climate change. The prospect of the Arctic being navigable during summer months, leading to both shorter shipping routes and access to untapped energy resources, has impelled the government to allocate more resources to Arctic research. Chinese officials have also started to think about what kind of policies would help the country to benefit from an ice-free Arctic environment.

China is at a disadvantage because it is neither an Arctic littoral state – it has no Arctic coast and so no sovereign rights to underwater continental shelves – nor an Arctic Council member state with the right to participate in the discussion of regional policies. Despite its seemingly weak position, China can be expected to seek a role in determining the political framework and legal foundation for future Arctic activities.

The formerly ice-covered Arctic is undergoing an extraordinary transformation as a result of the unprecedented rate at which the ice is diminishing. According to one report, the annual average extent of Arctic Ocean ice has shrunk by 2.7% per decade, with a decrease of 7.4% per decade during the summer months since 1979. Estimates about when the Arctic Ocean could be consistently ice-free during the summer season vary greatly, ranging from 2013 to 2060.

The melting of the Arctic ice poses economic, military and environmental challenges to the governance of the region. In 2008 the five littoral states, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States, committed themselves to the existing legal framework of the Arctic and the “orderly settlement of possible overlapping claims”. Despite these assurances, the evolving situation in the Arctic could potentially lead to new geopolitical disputes, also involving non-littoral states, especially regarding issues related to free passage and resource-extraction rights. Consequently, policymakers – not only in China but across Asia, Europe and North America – are turning their attention to the region in order to assess this transformation and its economic, territorial and geopolitical implications.

To date, China has adopted a wait-and-see approach to Arctic developments, wary that active overtures would cause alarm in other countries due to its size and status as a rising global power. Chinese officials and researchers have told me privately that they are very cautious when formulating their views on the country`s interests in the Arctic. They stress that China`s Arctic research activities remain primarily focused on the climatic and environmental consequences of the ice melting. However, in recent years, the academic and policymaking communities have also started to assess the commercial, political and security implications of a seasonally ice-free Arctic region.

China has one of the world`s strongest polar research capabilities. Since 1984, the country has organised 26 expeditions and established three research stations in the Antarctic. The Arctic became a focus from 1995, when a group of Chinese scientists and journalists travelled to the North Pole on foot and conducted research on the Arctic Ocean`s ice cover, climate and environment. China`s first Arctic research expedition by sea took place in 1999 and, since then, it has carried out two more expeditions, in 2003 and 2008, with a fourth planned for the summer of 2010.

China`s first Arctic research station, Huanghe (Yellow River), was founded at Ny-%26Aring;lesund in Norway`s Svalbard archipelago in July, 2004. Since 1994, China has conducted polar exploration onboard the research vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon), which was purchased from Ukraine in 1993.

The 163-metre-long vessel, with a displacement of 21,000 tonnes, is the world`s largest, non-nuclear icebreaker. However, in October 2009, the State Council (the Chinese cabinet) decided that Xue Long alone no longer met the demand of the country`s expanding polar research activities and needed “brothers and sisters”. After months of deliberating between purchasing a second-hand foreign vessel and building a Chinese one, the government approved the building of a new high-tech ice-breaker. Preliminary plans to order a Chinese-built ice-breaker at a cost of 2 billion yuan (US$300 million) had been under way within the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA) since at least early 2009. The new vessel, expected to become operational in 2013, will be co-designed by Chinese and foreign partners and built in China. It will be smaller than Xue Long, with a displacement of only 8000 tonnes.

Besides its own scientific expeditions, China has collaborated with international partners to monitor the Arctic`s environmental changes. In 1997, China joined the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), a nongovernmental organisation that aims to facilitate multidisciplinary research on the Arctic region and its role in the earth system. At the 2005 Arctic Science Summit Week, held at Kunming, in China`s south-western Yunnan Province, China was also invited to join the Ny-%26Aring;lesund Science Managers Committee, which was established in 1994 to enhance cooperation among the research centres at Ny-%26Aring;lesund.

China has several Arctic-focused research institutions of its own. The primary ones are: the Shanghai-based Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC), which is in charge of polar expeditions on Xue Long and conducts comprehensive studies of the polar regions; the China Institute for Marine Affairs, the research department within the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) in Beijing, which concentrates on international maritime law and China`s ocean-development strategy; and the Institute of Oceanology, a multidisciplinary marine science research and development institute within the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Other organisations conducting Arctic-related research include: the Ocean University of China, Dalian Maritime University, Xiamen University, Tongji University, the Chinese Antarctic Centre of Surveying and Mapping and the Research Centre for Marine Developments of China.

Although there is no Chinese institution devoted specifically to research on Arctic politics, there are a handful of individuals who have published articles and book chapters that focus on Arctic strategies and geopolitics. Since the mid-2000s, Chinese researchers and officials have expanded their participation in international seminars focusing on commercial, legal and geopolitical Arctic issues.

In a major step to enhance China`s understanding of the political, legal and military dimensions of the Arctic, in September 2007 the Chinese government launched a project entitled Arctic Issues Research, which involved scholars and officials from around China and included such research topics as “Arctic resources and their exploitation”, “Arctic scientific research”, “Arctic transportation”, “Arctic law” and “military factors in the Arctic”. The research project, organised by the CAA, was completed by 2009, but the reports were not made public.

Linda Jakobson is the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) China and Global Security Programme.

An earlier version of this article was published as “China prepares for an ice-free Arctic”, SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security, No. 2010/2, March 2010. It is used here with permission.

NEXT: The commercial lure of melting ice

Part 3: Charting political waters

Homepage image from Xilin Gol Meteorological Bureau

The document now facing me, from the Kunming City Planning Commission Office, in the south-west Chinese province of Yunnan, is certainly worth a read. It states that in project planning for residential apartments under 40 storeys in downtown Kunming, “approval in principle is no longer required except as regards urban landscape considerations, requirements for aircraft clearance and controls on land construction sites%26hellip; detailed plans for %26lsquo;urban village` remodelling will, in line with this, undertake a comprehensive reorganisation.”

Let`s stop for a moment and consider the contemporary landscape of greater Kunming. There are now 330 areas classified as “urban villages” covering 18 square kilometres in the main city construction zone. Imagine, if you will, all this “remodelling” of the urban villages as a form of “strip integration”, which draws in neighbouring localities – even those that were outside the initial demolition and remodelling plans. A recent example is the urban village renovation of Panjiawan in Kunming. Although this urban village is only 39 acres (0.16 square kilometres), the area to be demolished is 129 acres (0.5 square kilometres).

Imagine now the picture of this future city: high-rise towers; every residence over 40-storeys high; the concrete forests and steel cities interspersed, of course, with green space and plazas. Imagine the legendary “Oriental Geneva”, the “bridgehead to south-east Asia”, the “Radiant Garden City Beautiful”.

This is no isolated case, but increasingly a model of Chinese urbanisation. I call this sort of city renovation and urbanisation “urban dinosaurisation”. The dinosaurs refer the enormous bodies formed by this urban expansion; to the unsustainability of this urban development; and also to their eventual, dinosaur-like fate. It can be fairly predict%26shy;ed that the cost of these dinosaurs will not be borne by those who created them: the city leaders, planners and real-estate developers. These people will leave early – and the price will be paid by those living in these areas.

It`s not going too far to call such cities dinosaurs. While satisfying a modernist desire to gaze over the human realm from some cosmic vantage point, such high-rise communities are hollow and will extinguish the intrinsic vitality of the city. In the cities of China today, vitality comes from three types of residential areas. First, traditional neighbourhoods like the hutongs of the Xuanwu and Chongwen districts of old Beijing. These have centuries of history; the city`s life was formed in these neighbourhoods, with their mixtures of residents always in view of each other. Second are the work unit communities formed in the 1950s. While the architecture of these areas is unremarkable, they have, like the older city neighbourhoods, social capital and vitality.

Third are the urban villages: city communities formed in a village framework. These are completely stigmatised in the current urban remodelling movement. However, as serious researchers and those who have lived in these places will attest, they are the same as the first two types of urban community in terms of being places that are functionally intact and orderly (albeit not in the eyes of city leaders), and whose residents are in close contact in a liveable environment.

It is these places that extend the life of the city, and promote the vitality that the modernist dinosaur city wants to extinguish. Can communities in the dinosaur city promote urban vitality? When a host of such communities emerged in the 1990s, planners designed ideal social spaces for these places, such as democratic homeowners` committees and market-oriented property management systems. But still the most fundamental problem of these communities remains: the impossibility of the community to organise and the difficulty of forming committees of homeowners, leaving residents to skirmish with – rather than resist – the property companies.

Superficially, these areas look bright, but apart from minority groups of residents brought in from work-units that bought their housing collectively, they cannot properly solve residents` or management problems. A great deal of social scientific investigation has confirmed this view. Such modernised communities need several decades of people living among each other before enough vitality gathers to change them from being empty giants.

Urban dinosaurisation is reflected further in the city`s external expansion and its engulfing of land and other resources to sustain it. Let me stay with Kunming as a case I know well. The area of the entire Dianchi Lake watershed is 2,920 square kilometres. Counting the plains and basin alone, the area is only 590 square kilometres. According to official plans, the central city area of Kunming should have been confined to 164.25 square kilometres by 2010, but the main urban region of Kunming already reached 249 square kilometres in 2008.

The consequences of such “urban dinosaurisation” have already been expressed by experts on resources and ecosystems. Following this year`s devastating drought in the Kunming region, experts pointed out that one of its causes was the rapid advance of urbanisation in the Dianchi Lake Basin, which has brought the capacity of its supporting water resources to the limit.

A muck-rake farmer by Dianchi Lake

Another example is the insertion of the north-south Kunluo Road, which extinguished “muck-rake” farming – where crops are planted in raked, muddy flats – along the east coast of Dianchi Lake: the route of the road destroyed irrigation system built in the 1950s, so that a place that in former times maintained high yields has been turned into one of alternating droughts and floods. Such roads also intensify urban expansion: once there is a road, property-development frenzy ensues. Kunming in the pre-drought years was already one of the nation`s 14 most water-stressed cities. This may seem ridiculous, but it`s true.

My warnings about urban dinosaurisation were once based on the notion that the dinosaur-makers entertained a na%26iuml;ve, modernist aesthetic. But I see that, in fact, all the 40-storey buildings imagined by these people are nothing but heaps of silver reaching to the sky, from the huge land transfer fees arising from urban village demolitions to the astronomical prices of the buildings and the so-called political merit that results. Such are the dreams of the dinosaur creators.

So, how can we put an end to urban dinosaurisation? Let`s start by giving up on the utopia described by Jane Jacobs as the “Radiant Garden City Beautiful”. The violence of profit-driven demolition and construction finds legitimacy within the enchantment of this utopian ideal, while the world of daily life of countless people meets its end. Let us hold fast to each “decrepit” neighbourhood and compound, and firmly reject the hard and soft violence of this silvery utopia. If we take this stand, we can stop the spread of the urban dinosaurs.

Zhu Xiaoyang is associate professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Peking University.

This article first appeared in Southern Weekend. It is translated and reproduced here with permission.

Homepage image by Philou.cn

Marching in the drizzle against wars in far-off countries, writing letters protesting the government`s latest reactionary policy, sitting through interminable meetings that keep sprouting Any Other Business. It may be noble, but political activism is hardly a barrel of laughs. And yet it makes you happier.

So find two university psychologists in new research that looks for the first time at the link between political activity and wellbeing. Malte Klar — of the University of G%26ouml;ttingen in Germany — and Tim Kasser — of Knox College in the United States — started by interviewing two sets of around 350 college students, both about their degree of political engagement and their levels of happiness and optimism. Both times, they found that those most inclined to go on a protest march were also the cheeriest.

So there`s a link – but can politics actually make a person happier? In the third study, the academics took a bunch of students and divided them up into groups. The first were encouraged to write to the management of the college cafeteria asking for tastier food. The next lot wrote asking the caf%26eacute; to source local or Fairtrade products. They were then tested on their well-being, and those who had involved themselves in the political debate were far and away the strongest on the “vitality” scale: they felt more alive and enriched than those who merely complained about the menu.

There are many fascinating aspects to this. First, the activist-students didn`t necessarily care about food ethics, but just taking action made them feel better. Second, sending a memo is hardly the most engaging political action – and yet it had a big impact on those taking it. Third, the study flies in the face of the popular wisdom that happiness resides in creature comforts and relative affluence.

Perhaps activism gives people a sense of purpose, or of agency or just a chance to hang out with other people. Most likely it does all of the above.

“I will fight for what I believe in until I drop dead,” the socialist British politician Barbara Castle told The Guardian in 1998. “And that`s what keeps you alive.” Maybe the “red queen” was on to something.

www.guardian.co.uk/

Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Homepage image from Climate Chance