Today, August 15, is the first national Ecology Day in China. From now on, on every August 15, China will hold different activities to enhance public awareness and actions to protect the ecological environment, including publicity and education on ecological civilizations in various forms.
Sixteen years ago, building an ecological civilization firstly appeared in the report of National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Eleven years ago, it was written into the Constitution of CPC. Five years ago, it was written into the Constitution of People’s Republic of China. From a goal of the ruling party, it becomes the goal of the whole nation, and was constitutionalized to ensure it will be carried on. It shows the determination of the communist party and the whole nation to go toward ecological civilization.
In the past 16 years, we saw not only the determination in the past years, but actions and results.
Except for air and water much cleaner now than a decade ago, more green parks and wetlands appear in or around cities. There are less desertified and polluted lands in China. The renewable energy capacity now exceeded that of coal. China became the largest EV production country, with most solar, wind power generated... And the most important is that there is consensus in the society that ecological environment is as important as our eyes which we have to do our best to protect.
Besides Earth Day, World Environment Day, World Day for Water, World Wetlands Day, International Day of Forests and many other ecological environment related days to mark, Anji, a province in China’s Eastern Zhejiang province has celebrated March 25 as Ecology Day since 2003. Anji is where Chinese President Xi Jinping stated the “Two Mountains Theory” (绿水青山就是金山银山,translated as “Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”. It was put as Two Mountains Theory in Chinese because Xi described 绿水青山,which means lucid waters and lush mountains, as 金山银山, which means gold and silver mountains. )
After 2003, several places in different Chinese provinces designated their own Ecology Days. Now we have a national Ecology Day.
All these efforts show that the policy of Chinese government is not only people-oriented, but living-oriented -- all lives in the world are respected.
It is not easy to do this, as it is in conflicts with some industrial interests. But in a socialist country, the communist party puts life and environment first. That is why building an ecological civilization is practical and pragmatical, reasonable and realistic in China.
Building an ecological civilization is a course with no end. It will accompany the whole development of Chinese society. It will benefit the world by contributing to global environment protection. Hope all countries join the course and our human society can build ecological civilization together. ###
Great update! Thanks.