Chinese Research Perspectives on the Environment, Special Volume

Book excerpt: This collection features articles that originally appeared in the first three volumes of the Chinese edition of China Environment and Development Review. Written by longtime students of China’s environmental challenges and experts working on the research and policy-making frontlines, these pieces provide an evolutionary perspective on both the intellectual understanding of and efforts to address the country’s growing environmental woes. As the environmental condition has continued to worsen in recent decades, Chinese researchers have made admirable efforts toward grappling with the immensity of the problems, including institutional factors that have either compounded or obstructed efforts to mitigate them. Case studies show what works or does not in what will no doubt be a long and difficult journey toward sustainable development and environmental restoration.