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Beijing Buzz: Olympics, Dumplings and Activism

Beijing, Day 1--- With more than a thousand new cars and trucks on the road every day and construction cranes dominating the skyline, Beijing is a city with a smoky haze, even on its clear days. But today the sky is blue.

This city of 17 million people is gearing up for its centre stage performance with the Olympics. The buzz is palpable. With the Opening Ceremony only 150 odd days away, everything is about the Games. The subway is crowded with billboards about the Olympics. Even shopping malls are cashing in on the Games slogan of “One World. One Dream” declaring “One World. One Shopping Paradise.”

Even though it’s the talk of the town and crossing Beijing roads is an Olympic sport in its own right, the Games are not why I’m here.

China is becoming increasingly important as a global leader in publishing, printing and paper production. And not surprisingly, its scale of impact and influence is (and will be) massive. So for the next 11 days, I’ve been brought over to build capacity in the Chinese environmental movement and to start work with Chinese publishers and printers to shift to environmental papers. It promises to be an exciting few days.

But first I need to eat dumplings, get into the time zone and do a couple of prep meetings with activists in Beijing.

Tiananmen, One Dog and Elephants: Day 2
I made it to Tiananmen Square today. It’s so big, it has two metro stops: Tiananmen East and West. Tiananmen epitomizes regime scale power architecture. Massive space, imposing buildings, red flags flapping in the wind.

As an activist, Tiananmen has lived large in my imagination since those pivotal days in 1989. Images that shocked the world. Actions that quashed a generation of pro-democracy activists in China.

But these past two days I’ve been meeting a new generation of activists who are starting to work for the environment. Before I took off to Tiananmen today, I had lunch with a campaigner from Greenpeace China. Born in 1979 he is one of the first in the generation of kids born in the One Child policy era. We chatted about the One Child policy, China’s One Dog policy, and how he came to join the ENGO movement!

Ma Luping was catapulted from the role of scientist into activist when Asia Pulp and Paper, an Indonesian logging-paper company with a notorious reputation, illegally logged the buffer zone of the elephant reserve he was studying near his hometown in Southern China. This was the turning point for him.

Ma Luping now works on forest issues (hence our lunch date). Although the Chinese paper industry represents only 2% of the Chinese GDP it generates a disproportionately high 17% of water and air pollution here. Also, with few domestic forests, Chinese paper production relies on massive imports from countries such as Canada, Indonesia and Brazil, impacting forests around the globe.

There’s a lot of hope riding on this new generation of activists like Ma Luping.

Faux Pas of the Day: Suggesting origami cranes as a good public mobilization event, (remember the Thai government did it a few years ago in attempts to bring peace to Southern Thailand). Apparently, in China, origami cranes are given when there’s been a death in the family. The idea went over like a lead balloon,

Nicole Rycroft is Executive Director of Markets Initiative and organization devoted to protecting ancient forests and creating new markets.

Photo above Lama Temple in Beijing by Nicole Rycroft

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