Yu Lixiang asked me to meet him on a sunny afternoon in March on the banks of the Xiang River. He waited for me by a bridge where he was making a routine stop to test the water quality of the Xiang River, the main freshwater artery flowing through China’s eastern Hunan Province. The spot … Read more
With all of the negative attention Russia is receiving in the news lately, it’s easy to overlook the many inspiring people who are fighting for social and environmental justice in Russia. One such courageous activist is Suren Gazaryan, winner of a 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize for challenging government corruption and environmental degradation—at great personal risk. … Read more
Air pollution is strongly linked to premature death in China. According to a study by the World Health Organization, it contributed to some 1.2 million deaths in 2010. The country’s top officials have pledged to declare a war on smog. Yet coal, the main culprit in this tragedy, still rules China’s energy sector. In March … Read more
First published on Rivers without Boundaries On March 14, 2014, at public hearings in the town of Mogocha, located in Zabaikalsky Province in eastern Russia near the border of China, local people endorsed an ambitious plan to develop a nature reserve on 330,000 hectares. This protected area is being designed to safeguard the upper flow of … Read more
Zhao Zhong joined Pacific Environment’s China team one year ago. After a successful career at the helm of Green Camel Bell, a grassroots environmental group based in Gansu Province, Zhao Zhong was eager to help share his skills with other up-and coming grassroots leaders. As Pacific Environment expands to the air pollution and energy sphere … Read more
After years of local and international resistance, Russia’s oil giant Gazprom finally abandoned plans to build a gas pipeline that threatened indigenous cultural sites and untouched wilderness in the Altai Republic in Siberia. In the last decade, the construction of multi-national pipelines has received worldwide attention—the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S. … Read more
First published in China Water Risk Mao Ge is a volunteer from the small city of Xiangtan, Hunan Province. He was contacted two years ago by our partner Green Hunan to join a network of river monitors who would get to know their stretch of the Xiang River, investigate pollution sources, and report on problems they … Read more
Pacific Environment brought together conservationists from Russia and the United States to protect two of the world’s most important freshwater lake ecosystems from hydropower damage. The North American Great Lakes form the largest group of freshwater lakes on earth. Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, Russia, is the world’s deepest lake at 5,387 ft. and likely … Read more
We lost a great soul last week when Rebecca Tarbotton died. Becky was the inspiring leader of the Rainforest Action Network, and the progressive community is widely mourning her death. I count myself very lucky to have known Becky. We first met in the very early 2000’s when her organization and mine were fumbling toward … Read more
Brother Mao was walking along the Xiangtan River near his home of Xiangtan, Hunan Province, when he noticed thick red sewage streaming into the river from a nearby chemical plant. He quickly whipped out his cell phone and snapped a picture of the chemical assault on his town’s water supply. Then he uploaded it to … Read more
I’m so thrilled to welcome Zhao Zhong, a TIME Hero of the Environment, to our China team. Zhao Zhong is an experienced and incredibly well-respected and successful grassroots leader. He founded Green Camel Bell, the first environmental organization in Gansu province in northwestern China, in 2003. A nuclear engineer by trade, Zhao Zhong came to … Read more
