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Rebuilding Government Credibility in Chinese Environmental Resident Activism Xufeng Zhu* Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, 94 Weijin Road, Tianjin, 300071, China provide public services with such municipal environmental infrastructures as trash landfills and incinerators. More importantly, successive relocations will not lead to the reduction of the effect of pollution sources on the surrounding environment. Therefore, simply relocating polluting firms and ongoing projects when faced with environmental resident activities is not a fundamental solution for the government. For a long time, Chinese local governments have faced the dilemma of economic growth and worsening environmental conditions, as well as trying to strike a balance between them. However, residents do not trust the local governments, assuming that the officials prefer economic growth to environmental protection.4 In fact, most neighborhood-based environmental protests can be attributed to residents’ distrust of the local governments. This distrust is the primary reason why environmental protesters only require relocation without agreeing to make any compromise, such as economic compensation based on the reinforcement of local environmental protection measures. As observed in many cases, nvironmental activism gives hope for better environmental community residents usually stage protests at the local governance in the future not only in developed countries government office buildings instead of the buildings of the but also in China.1 Compared with other forms of environcompanies involved because protestors always suspect that the mental activism, such as grassroots campaigns and legal suits on local governments are stakeholders of these companies. the grounds of environmental infringement, neighborhoodThe lack of environmental information disclosure is the based environmental resident protest is the most common form major source of the predicament of government credibility in of environmental activism in China. Chinese environmental Chinese environmental resident activism. China’s “Measures for resident activities occur frequently where there are high levels the Environmental Information Disclosure” has been impleof urbanization and industrialization. Worldwide-known mented since 2008, but the authority still has limited resources activities include protest incidents against paraxylene (PX) for monitoring pollution emissions from industries and for chemical plants in Xiamen and Dalian, trash incinerators in inspecting operations of environmental infrastructures. MoreBeijing and Guangzhou, and maglev rail in Shanghai. For over, in turn, local governments sometimes defend the example, on August 14, 2011, thousands of residents of Dalian, polluting firms. In December 2011, the All-China Environment a northeastern Chinese port city, gathered in front of the Federation (ACEF) brought China’s first environmental municipal government office to demand the relocation of a PX administrative litigation to a county environmental protection chemical plant. The local government then announced the 2 bureau in Guizhou Province because the bureau declined to shutting down and relocation of the plant. Similarly, the disclose relevant pollution information on a firm prosecuted by Xiamen PX incident in 2007 resulted in the relocation of the the ACEF. PX plant to Zhangzhou, another coastal city in Fujian.3 The public does not trust what scientists say either. Scientists Nevertheless, Chinese environmental resident activism is are theoretically assumed the neutral third party between currently at the stage of “Not in My Backyard.” Resident polluting firms and the affected residents. However, the protestors only require the local governments to close and independence of experts has usually been challenged by the relocate polluting firms and ongoing projects with adminpublic, who believe that experts probably serve the interests of istrative commands, and they do not care where the projects industries. Moreover, nonexperts usually appear in mass media would be relocated. However, when the building of relocated masquerading as experts, and the media prefer to exaggerate projects is announced, a new round of environmental protests partially the hazard caused by nearby polluting firms and would happen soon after the earlier ones. Similar to the PX environmental infrastructures. As a result, rigorous scientific incidents in Xiamen and Dalian, recent incidents of environassessments have totally lost the function of conflict arbitration. mental activism against trash incinerator projects in Beijing and Guangzhou have resulted in successive relocations. As a result, municipal governments could hardly find acceptable places to Published: January 19, 2012
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© 2012 American Chemical Society
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/es2046684 | Environ. Sci. Technol. 2012, 46, 1303−1304
Environmental Science & Technology
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(4) Liu, J.; Diamond, J. Revolutionizing China’s Environmental Protection. Science 2008, 319, 37. (5) Thomas, J. C. Public Participation in Public Decisions: New Skills and Strategies for Public Managers. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA, 1995.
Thus, environmental disputes become melees, which may advance to large-scale social conflicts. Rebuilding the government’s credibility is the key solution for a better relationship between the Chinese government and environmental activists. The government should initiate credibility rebuilding movements that incorporate three aspects. The first fundamental step is to build a transparent government. Local governments should present the details of the decision-making process of industrial and pollutant treatment projects. For construction projects that create the risk of contamination to the surrounding residents, local governments should establish transparent mechanisms for economic compensation, including the implementation and allocation processes. The government also needs to trade off between the integrity of science and acceptability by the public when environmental decisions are made. In general, a highly scientific decision requires a low level of citizen participation, whereas a highly acceptable decision requires a low level of expert involvement.5 On the one hand, the government should devise mechanisms for residents to improve their scientific understanding of environmental issues and interest them to participate more proactively in environmental decision making and environmental governance. On the other hand, experts who adhere to scientific independence should be encouraged to participate in the activities of environmental activists, serving both as consultants for public managers by providing professional advice and as advocates fighting for the legitimate interests of residents by providing scientific evidence. Finally, the government should implement the practical actions it has promised for environmental resident activism to rebuild its credibility with the public. I highly recommend that local governments should construct demonstration projects near potential pollution sources. For instance, government offices or government canteens may be built near landfills to show that public managers have the courage to take the lead in bearing environmental risks. Thus, the government can establish the public image that the official data released include a scientific assessment of the environmental risks of construction projects and are therefore believable.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]; tel.: 86-22-2350-0327; fax: 86-22-2349-8933.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the Management Science Program of National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (70973058). I thank Guangyu Yuan, Qingzhi Huan, and Yanling He for their valuable suggestions.
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REFERENCES
(1) Wang, Q. China’s Environmental Civilian Activism. Science 2010, 328, 824. (2) Dalian Municipal Government. PX project of Fujia chemical plant to be stopped production and moved. People’s Daily, http:// leaders.people.com.cn/GB/15414720.html (In Chinese), August 15, 2011. (3) The government’s decision follows the will of the people, Xiamen PX project to move to Zhangzhou. Nanfang Daily, http://news. xinhuanet.com/local/2007-12/20/content_7284731.htm (In Chinese), December 20, 2007. 1304
dx.doi.org/10.1021/es2046684 | Environ. Sci. Technol. 2012, 46, 1303−1304
