30 years of industrialization in China has destroyed at least 80% of coral reefs

by | Dec 27, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Agence France-Presse

China’s economic boom has seen its coral reefs shrink by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years, according to a joint Australian study, with researchers describing “grim” levels of damage and loss.

Scientists from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology said their survey of mainland China and South China Sea reefs showed alarming degradation.

“We found that coral abundance has declined by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years on coastal fringing reefs along the Chinese mainland and adjoining Hainan Island,” said the study, published in the latest edition of the journal Conservation Biology.

“On offshore atolls and archipelagos claimed by six countries in the South China Sea, coral cover has declined from an average of greater than 60 percent to around 20 percent within the past 10-15 years,” it added.

Coastal development, pollution and overfishing linked to the Asian giant’s aggressive economic expansion were the major drivers, the authors said, describing a “grim picture of decline, degradation and destruction”.

“China’s ongoing economic expansion has exacerbated many wicked environmental problems, including widespread habitat loss due to coastal development, unsustainable levels of fishing, and pollution,” the study said.

Coral loss in the South China Sea — where reefs stretch across some 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 square miles) — was compounded by poor governance stemming from competing territorial claims.

Some marine parks aimed at conservation had been established but study author Terry Hughes said they were too small and too far apart to arrest the decline in coral cover.

“The window of opportunity to recover the reefs of the South China Sea is closing rapidly, given the state of degradation revealed in this study,” he said.

The South China Sea is strategically significant, home to some of the world’s most important shipping lanes and believed to be rich in resources.

China claims most of the sea including waters close to the shores of its neighbours. Rival claimants include Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and tensions over the issue have flared in recent years.

From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/26/study-coral-reefs-decimated-by-chinese-economic-boom/

China funding construction of 308 dams in 70 countries

by | Dec 10, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

A new report by the NGO, International Rivers, takes an in-depth look at the role China is playing in building mega-dams worldwide. According to the report, Chinese companies are involved in 308 hydroelectric projects across 70 nations. While dams are often billed as “green energy,” they can have massive ecological impacts on rivers, raise local conflict, and even expel significant levels of greenhouse gases when built in the tropics.

“The Chinese state owned Sinohydro Corporation is now the largest hydropower company in the world. Many Chinese companies involved in the construction of large hydropower projects such as the Three Gorges Dam are now taking the lead role in new hydropower projects around the world,” reads the report which adds that “the China Export-Import Bank (China Exim Bank) has become a major funder of large dams.”

Nearly half of the dams in question are planned for Southeast Asia, while 28 percent are planned for Africa and 8 percent for Latin America. Since 2008, the number of dams that the Chinese are involved in has grown by 300 percent. Yet many of these projects lack any or stringent environmental and social policies.

“Few Chinese dam builders and financiers have adopted environmental policies in line with international standards,” the report notes, adding that Chinese companies have been involved with building notorious dams, such as the Gibe III in Ethiopia, the Bukan Dam in Malaysia, the Myitsone Dam in Myanmar, and the Merowe Dam in Sudan.

For example, over 50,000 people were forcibly moved in order to build the Merowe Dam. According to the report, the Sudan government “brutally oppressed any protests. Several people were killed and many more were injured in crack-downs by the security forces.”

A number of Chinese-financed dams have faced local and global resistance. Progress has been made in some cases: this year the Sinohydro Corporation has adopted its first ever environmental policy.

“Among other provisions, the world’s biggest hydropower company commits to fully comply with applicable laws on all levels, adopt all World Bank safeguard policies, respect ‘no go’ zones including national parks and World heritage sites, conduct an open dialogue with local communities and NGOs, and create complaint mechanisms for all of its projects,” according to the report.

Still International Rivers warns that “environmental policies are only as good as their implementation on the ground. This will be the next great challenge for Sinohydro.”

Electric cars and wind farms spurring ecological and social devastation in China

by | Aug 7, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification

By Le Monde

From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.

The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing.

The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou.

The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. “Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes,” says Li Guirong with a sigh.

It was in 1958 – when he was 10 – that a state-owned concern, the Baotou Iron and Steel company (Baogang), started producing rare-earth minerals. The lake appeared at that time. “To begin with we didn’t notice the pollution it was causing. How could we have known?” As secretary general of the local branch of the Communist party, he is one of the few residents who dares to speak out.

Towards the end of the 1980s, Li explains, crops in nearby villages started to fail: “Plants grew badly. They would flower all right, but sometimes there was no fruit or they were small or smelt awful.” Ten years later the villagers had to accept that vegetables simply would not grow any longer. In the village of Xinguang Sancun – much as in all those near the Baotou factories – farmers let some fields run wild and stopped planting anything but wheat and corn.

A study by the municipal environmental protection agency showed that rare-earth minerals were the source of their problems. The minerals themselves caused pollution, but also the dozens of new factories that had sprung up around the processing facilities and a fossil-fuel power station feeding Baotou’s new industrial fabric. Residents of what was now known as the “rare-earth capital of the world” were inhaling solvent vapour, particularly sulphuric acid, as well as coal dust, clearly visible in the air between houses.

Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution

Protesters in China force cancellation of industrial waste pipeline

by | Jul 28, 2012 | Defensive Violence, Obstruction & Occupation, Property & Material Destruction, Toxification

By Shiv Malik for The Guardian

Officials in eastern China have cancelled a planned industrial waste pipeline project after up to 1,000 environmental demonstrators occupied a government office, overturned cars, destroyed computers and beat police officers.

The demonstration in the city of Qidong was the latest in a string of protests sparked by fears of environmental degradation.

Zhang Guohua, mayor of the eastern city of Nantong, announced the cancellation of the pipeline, which would have emptied waste water from a Japanese-owned paper factory via the coastal town of Qidong into the sea. It is the second industrial project to be cancelled in a month.

The decision came hours after about 1,000 protesters marched through the city of Qidong, about one hour north of Shanghai, shouting slogans against the pipeline.

Several protesters entered the city government’s main building and were seen smashing computers, overturning desks and throwing documents out of the windows to loud cheers from the crowd. Five cars and one minibus were also upended, according to Reuters reporters at the scene.

At least two police officers were dragged into the crowd at the government office and punched and beaten bloody.

Environmental worries have stoked calls for expanded rights for citizens and greater consultation in the tightly controlled one-party state and come before a once-in-a-decade leadership transition this year.

The protest followed similar demonstrations against projects in the Sichuan town of Shifang earlier this month and in the cities of Dalian in the north-east and Haimen in southern Guangdong province in the past year.

The government in Shifang halted a multimillion-pound copper alloy plant project because it said there was insufficient public understanding and support after teargas was used to disperse protesters.

The Chinese government has vowed to clean up China’s skies and waterways and increasingly tried to appear responsive to complaints about pollution.

But environmental disputes pit citizens against local officials, whose aim is to lure fresh investment and revenue into their areas.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/28/chinese-protesters-industrial-waste-pipeline

Protestors in China force government to halt construction of chemical factory

by | Jul 4, 2012 | Property & Material Destruction, Repression at Home, Toxification

By Tania Branigan / The Guardian

Thousands of anti-pollution protesters took to the streets of a south-west Chinese city on Monday, halting the construction of a multimillion pound molybdenum copper plant.

Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds after rioters lobbed bricks at government offices in Shifang, Sichuan province, the English edition of the state-run newspaper Global Times reported. Other accounts said a dozen police vehicles were overturned or attacked.

Authorities said they had temporarily suspended the project while they conducted inquiries, but warned they would investigate anyone who spread rumours.

The demonstration is the latest in a series of “not in my backyard” grassroots protests in China, testifying to growing fears about the toll that development is taking of the environment and health. Last summer, tens of thousands of people in the north-eastern city of Dalian marched to demand the relocation of a chemical plant.

The demonstrations in Shifang began on Sunday night, when students and residents gathered to protest. A local police officer told the Global Times there were “several thousand” protesters on Monday, while the South China Morning Post reported that tens of thousands were involved.

Photos posted online showed protesters carrying banners reading: “Safeguard our hometown, oppose the chemical factory’s construction” and “Unite to protect the environment for the next generation”.

Residents told the Global Times that some had filed complaints against the project, but officials had taken no action.

“The local government will definitely carry out supervision during the entire process of constructing the project. If the company fails in the environmental protection assessment, the local government would not allow it to go into production,” Xu Guangyong, mayor of Shifang, told protesters on Monday morning, the state-run China News Service reported.

But by Monday night, authorities had vowed to suspend construction of the 10.4bn yuan (£1bn) molybdenum-copper alloy factory by Shanghai-listed Sichuan Hongda.

Shifang government said on its microblog account that police officers had been injured along with 13 protesters.

Others said the number of injured protesters was far higher, the South China Morning Post reported.

“Many protesters were injured when police sprayed tear gas at the crowds, from teenage students to elderly residents,” one witness told the newspaper.

The newspaper said a petition letter circulated by protesters warned: “It will be too late to protest once the factory is built … How many Shifang people have enough money to move away from the city? We’ll have to unite to keep the chemical factory out of Shifang.”

Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said the case showed the lack of public participation in environmental decision-making.

“Heavy metal projects are always highly polluting. Of course the public has concerns about this,” he said.

“The government only released the short version of the plant’s environmental report, which did not have information about the solid waste and waste water. It should have released the full version.

“At the least, they needed to hold a public hearing. In other countries the public have legal recourse when their right to participation cannot be guaranteed, but that is not possible in China.”

Sichuan Hongda could not be reached for comment.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/03/china-anti-pollution-protest-copper