Environmental Protection Policy and Experience in the U.S. and China's Western Regions
Contributions by Sheldon Gen San Francisco State University, Qian Guo, Shiyuan Hao, Barbara A. Holzman, Joel J. Kassiola, Xiao Hang Liu, Gary W. Pahl, Yin Peng, Guoqing Shi, Fang Sumei, Guan Yi, Li Yujun, Qiu Zhong, Jian Zhou Edited by Sujian Guo, Joel J. Kassiola, Jijiao Zhang
Publication date:
14 June 2010Length of book:
214 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
243x162mm6x10"
ISBN-13: 9780739147429
China is a multiethnic country with vast territory, a land of diverse ecosystems. With the drive for industrialization in China and the implementation of 'western grand development' strategy in western regions, both governments and people face great challenges in environmental protection and sustainable use of biodiversity resources as a result of growing interaction between human activities and natural environment. To meet the challenges, governments in these regions need to adopt a series of important policy measures, not only to reduce industrial emissions, but also to return farmland to forests and pasture to grasslands and to implement measures of ecological migration to reduce human activities in ecological conservation areas. In this regard, China must not only learn profound lessons from industrialized countries but also search for international cooperation. The United States provides some good comparative case studies on the environmental protection, grassroots environmental management, and conservation policies in western regions This book attempts to address key questions about Chinese and U.S. environmental policies by looking at historical development of environmental protection and current environmental policy in the western regions of the two countries.
There is a substantial amount of unique material in this book, and particularly outstanding are the detailed case studies of environmental or environment related social issues in China’s western regions, especially the issue of ecological migration which is approached from different perspectives in two chapters. The book is also valuable for its pioneering work in comparing these two development processes through the lens of environmental issues, which has been neglected by most previous studies, and draws readers’ attention to the environmental aspect of China’s westward development. . . .Overall, this book offers a fresh methodology for researching the environmental issues that have arisen in the process of China’s development from a comparative perspective, and attempts to draw lessons from the US in its westward development more than a century earlier. This book should be read by any serious student interested in China’s environmental politics and policy, comparative environment politics, and China studies broadly construed.