China unveiled the results of its first national pollution census this week, a survey that's been in the works for two years, involving 570,000 people.
The results of the survey provide China with a detailed map of whom and what are polluting where — a tool that other developing countries lack — reporting close to 6 million sources of residential, industrial, and agricultural waste. The survey has been described as "a huge step forward," and "an excellent basis for being able to track and manage what they're doing" by an advisor for the World Resources Institute on China's climate and energy issues.
The survey is significant because it marks the first time in which China factored agricultural sources in examining national pollution.
In the past, a thorough examination of the effects of China's farming on water and other areas of serious pollution has been met with heavy resistance by China's agriculture ministry. The ministry previously insisted pollution from farms contributed to only a fraction of the nation's overall pollution.
And until now, agricultural pollution was not included in plans for environmental policy by Chinese leaders — a severe oversight when you consider the country's first-place ranking in worldwide farm output in its production of rice, potatoes, peanuts, tea, major grains like wheat and barley, cotton, pork, and fish.
So while China's vice minister of environmental protection said in a statement that the results of the survey did not reveal any surprises, you may be surprised to hear that farms are in fact bigger contributors to the country's pollution than its factories...
The survey assigns 43.7% of the nation's chemical oxygen demand, 67% of phosphorous and 57% of nitrogen discharges to agriculture. Livestock breeding and aquaculture has also contributed to major pollution in China's rural areas.
Farming is a mammoth pollution source due in part to the sector's size: China uses only 7% of the world's land to feed 22% of the global population.
However, the country's dependence on artificial fertilizers and pesticides contributes greatly to agriculture taking the cake as the leading pollution source in the Middle Kingdom. The ministry of agriculture is looking to improve and replace these methods with greener, more efficient farming practices, like expanding biogas generation from animal waste.
The census is exclusively available to government and country officials, and not yet available to the public.
Greenpeace China Campaign Director Sze Pang Cheung commented on the importance of making the survey results public: "We urge the government to immediately establish a strong platform through which the public could easily access a wide range of pollution data."
Public access to this information would allow citizens to monitor the pollution culprits and keep an eye on the most heavily polluted regions, providing a civil societal element to residential and commercial pollution.
China's central government will spend the next twelve months sorting through and applying the results of the survey to shaping its next five-year environmental protection plan.
It's hard to wag a disapproving finger at the world's leading polluter when that polluter is also the only country among developing nations to conduct a study of such ambitious and thorough proportions.
Today, I tip my hat to China for her efforts.
But I join those who are interested in seeing just how Chinese officials apply the results of the survey in policy and the country's environmental protection plan, as they plan to.
As the oft-quoted Yogi Berra said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
Brigid
Subscribe to