Building an Ecological China

Ecological culture is emerging in China as a growing trend," opens the launch brochure of the China Ecological Culture Association. The association was first proposed by the International Center for Bamboo and Ratten, the first international organization headquartered in China. Jiang Zehui is the chairperson of the association's board, and concurrently serves as the vice chairman of the Population, Resources and Environment Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and chief scientist of the Chinese Academy of Forestry.

Jiang says China is going to build an ecological society, which will include sustainable forestry development relying on ecological principles, building a homeland ecological security system with forestry vegetation as its mainstay, and building an ecological society with beautiful landscapes. In an ecological society, ecological construction is the foundation, ecological security the guarantee and an ecological civilization the final goal.

The building of an ecological society in China is a humanist idea in accordance with a scientific development outlook, as it proposes a harmonious relationship between human-beings and nature, in order to improve the environment we live in, and to not encroach on the rights of future generations. An ecological civilization will bring many changes to people's lives, including their ideology, education, literature, production mode, consumption mode and lifestyle.

According to Jiang Zehui, the core of an ecological civilization is to build a harmonious relationship between people, between people and nature, and between people and society, to achieve coordinated development. To live in such a civilization, people must learn how to deal with the relationship between the environment and population, to change their economic development mode to reduce the burden on the environment, and to protect the natural environment in order to build an ecological society. To realize these goals, China will carry out research in ten fields: how to stimulate modern forestry development as the basis of building an ecological civilization; building national ecological protection zones and ecological projects; how to change the economic development mode in line with environmental protection purposes; the influence of human activities on climate change; the relationship between biological protection and utilization of ecological tourism resources; assessment and control of air, water and forest quality and drinking water safety; rural ecological environment construction and pollution prevention; residential environment improvement and physical and psychological health; formulation of ecological environment protection rules and policies; and development of ecological culture and civilization.