Activist Profile: Huo Taishan, Huai River Defender

May 15th, 2005

By Humphrey Wou and Melinda Kramer

Huo Taishan wants to change the course of a river. Only ten years ago, China's Huai River had enough clean, fresh water for dozens of villages along its route to thrive, with plenty of fish to support the economies and appetites along its 5,500 kilometer path. However, industrial pollution from tanning, paper, chemical factories and illegal discharges has turned the river into a black, sudsy, and lethal flow.

Huo is a small and unassuming 52-year old photo-journalist, and resident of the city of Henan. Alarmed by the rapid degradation of the Huai, he recently quit his job and formed the Huai River Defenders. He is but one example of a rising trend in China--citizens taking matters into their own hands, and building grassroots organizations to fight the onslaught of pollution coming from rapid industrialization.

Life along the Huai is a risky prospect. Eating fish from the river is so dangerous that local restaurants no longer offer it on the menu. The riverside village of Huangmengying has become so poisoned that it's now known as "cancer village." The rates of pollution-related disease are shocking, with over half of Huangmengying's residents dying either from cancer or from unknown diseases. 84 percent of the young men living in the village are plagued by constant diarrhea, birth rates have declined precipitously, and many newborns are deformed. At least two entire families have died of cancer, and cancer is occurring in victims as young as one year old.

School children living near the Huai River protect themselves from pollutants.

Protecting people's health along the Huai is an uphill battle. Hundreds of communities like Huangmengying have no choice but to use the river's bitter and gritty water. Unless you can afford about $110,000 to dig a ground water deep well, the Huai is the only choice for 100 million Chinese people. Few along the river can afford this amount of money.

Huo and the Defenders have responded to this challenge by organizing citizens and developing innovative solutions to restore the Huai, and the health of those who depend on it. Huo has investigated more than 100 villages along the Huai, and has documented the suffering and the diseases that villagers have endured. His work has brought international attention to the Huai, and The Huai River Defenders now have a membership of over one thousand local citizens.

The Defenders are providing villagers with clean drinking water and medical aid as well as education to those living along the river. As a short-term solution, Huo has begun researching home-based purifying technologies, and he has worked on implementing a slow processing filtration system that uses the same principles as a wetland ecosystem. This costs about $250 per family.

 The Huai is an example of how poor water quality has become a top environmental threat in China. According to China scholar Elizabeth Economy, more than 75 percent of China's rivers contain so much pollution that they cannot support fish or be tapped for drinking water. The Huai stands as an extreme example of how China has prioritized economic growth over the environment and public health. However, an increasing number of grassroots activists like Huo are demonstrating how China's grassroots are fertile with people like him who hope to stem the tide, one river at a time.

Humpherey Wou is the Program Director at the AIDS Relief Fund for China.

Melinda Kramer is Program Associate at Pacific Environment.