Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Monday, April 6th, 2009
Official, expert explain plans for controversial quake museum
www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-01 20:17:26
Special Report: Reconstruction After Earthquake
CHENGDU, April 1 (Xinhua) — A public controversy over spending on a proposed earthquake museum in southwest China’s Sichuan Province has prompted officials to come forward and defend the plans.
The 2.3-billion-yuan (338 million-U.S.-dollar) plan reported by local media comprised costs of other projects in addition to the Beichuan County Earthquake Museum, near the epicenter of last year’s May 12 quake, said Lin Jizhong, deputy director of the county’s Culture and Tourism Bureau Wednesday.
The museum itself would only cost 135 million yuan (20 million U.S. dollars), said Lin.
The news of the plan provoked a public outcry on the Internet after local newspapers reported in late March.
Many people contended that a museum was necessary, but as the province was in dire need of money for reconstruction, investing such a huge amount in the museum was unwise.
Wu Changfu, head of the Shanghai-based project planning expert group which outlined the budget, said, “The money was not used solely for construction of the museum building. The environmental protection work and road construction will also be included in the plan.”
“The feasibility report of the museum is being drafted,” Wu said.
Lin said the planned museum was not just an exhibition building, but encompassed the remnants of the old county seat, and traces left by secondary disasters such as mud-rock flows and quake lakes.
The natural scenery of the Tangjiashan quake lake area and culture of the Qiang ethnic minority would also feature in the attraction.
The entire project covered 8 square kilometers, with the Beichuan Middle School at the center, Lin said.
More than 80,000 people were confirmed dead or missing after the quake.
Premier Wen Jiabao suggested when he was in Beichuan after the quake that a museum should be erected.
Lin said construction was scheduled to start later this year in fall went smoothly.
“We hope the museum can bring more revenue to local people,” he said. “The dead are dead, but we hope the living can live better lives.”
Tags:Beichuan County Earthquake Museum, Beichuan Culture and Tourism Bureau, Beichuan Middle School, Chengdu, controversy, death, environmental protection, epicentre, mud-rock flow, museum, Qiang, quake lake, revenue, Sichuan, Tangjiashan
Posted in Arts, Environment, Facilities reconstruction, Government, Infrastructure, Investment, Local government, National government, Official news source | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
重建需生产大量水泥 四川环保压力较大
2009-02-24来源: 四川新闻网
As known from the meeting among chiefs of Environmental Protection Bureau province wide on 24th, it is estimated that the need of 370 million tons of concrete and 37 million tons of steel products for reconstruction of infrastructure in Sichuan could created more than 70 tons of sulphur dioxide, which would be a substantial stress on Sichuan’s environment.
记者2月24日从全省环保局长会议上获悉，未来三年灾后重建预计需3.7亿吨水泥和3700万吨钢材，如果水泥和钢材均由省内自行生产将产生七十万吨二氧化硫，从而将会对四川环保造成较大压力。
Tags:concrete, Environmental Protection Bureau, pollution, steel, sulphur dioxide
Posted in Construction and infrastructure, Environment, Official news source | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
Villagers begin relocation for new county seat of quake-levelled county
CHENGDU, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) — Land acquisition has started for the construction of the new seat for Beichuan County, the worst-hit area in last year’s 8.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan Province, according to local authorities.
More than 10,000 people, mostly farmers, are the first to be relocated as an industrial park began construction Thursday in their hometown. These people will become residents of the new county seat, said Chen Xingchun, Party chief of Beichuan.
The Beichuan-Shandong Industrial Park, which covers two square kilometers, belongs to the first phase of construction.
The land acquisition and relocation for the new county seat are expected to complete within two months.
The relocated will temporarily live with relatives or friends before the new county seat is finished. Each person will be paid 40 yuan (6 U.S. dollars) per month during the transition, he said.
“The local government also provides training so that they can work in factories in the new seat. We must ensure that people can live a stable and rich life in the future,” Chen said.
“The construction of the new county seat will change our living environment and living styles. It is good for us, so we support it,” said Li Gang, a villager of Huangtu Township, part of which will be included into the county seat.
All of the relocated will be given the choice of a free, 35 square-meter home or 36,000 yuan to build their own houses, Chen said.
The former seat of Beichuan, on the juncture of two fault lines, was leveled in the devastating May 12 quake. The quake left more than 69,000 people dead and 374,000 injured. Another 18,000 are missing and millions were left homeless.
The new seat is located to the east of Anchang Township, about 35 km from where it once stood. Officials and planning experts said the new site has good geologic conditions and sufficient usable land. It is far from fault lines.
The new town is expected to have 50,000 residents in three years and expand to more than 9 sq km by 2020 with 85,000 residents.
The first phase of the three-stage construction will cost 19.32 billion yuan. It includes public welfare facilities, government headquarters and housing.
Beichuan, a mountainous area, is the ancestral home of an ethnic group known as the Qiang, who number 300,000. They have their own language, food and performing arts, all of which face extinction as their homes were in the worst-hit parts of the quake zone.
Tags:Anchang, Beichuan, Chen Xingchun, county seat, farmer, Huangtu, land acquisition, party chief, Qiang, relocation, Xinhua news agency
Posted in Agriculture, Construction and infrastructure, Employment, Environment, Ethnic minorities, Facilities reconstruction, Home rebuilding, Infrastructure, Investment, Labour and migration, Living conditions, Local government, Official news source | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
Alpha Communities, who focus on long-term development through education, restoration of degraded environment, renewable energy and micro loans, have sponsored children’s education in Sichuan for over a decade. Since the earthquake, aside from immediate relief projects, they have focused in Sichuan on providing free vocational training to more than 60 laid-off workers in the area around Jiangyou. There is a wide range of training on offer, with most opting for courses in the construction and textile industries. “So far 60 people have finished their vocational training, and all of them have found a job,” Chris Turner, the organisation’s Executive Officer, told SQR.
They have now raised enough funding to put another 100 people through this vocational training after the Spring Festival, he said. On average, a three-month training programme costs 3,000rmb, and the participants are offered the option of a 3,000rmb micro-loan after they graduate.
For more information, contact Chris on cturner@alphacommunities.org or see their website.
Tags:Alpha Communities, construction, long-term development, textile, training, unemployment, vocational training
Posted in Civil society, Donation, Education, Employment, Enterprise, Environment, Labour and migration, NGO news, Relief | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
Kieran Fitzgerald was in the Wenchuan area on 31st December 2008. He took these photos. The damage which show the power of the earthquake, with massive landslides and broken bridges.
This is one reason why the last SQR delivery trip took 5 days.
Landslide
Broken bridge
Landslide
Huge chunk of rocky mountain that fell off during the quake.
For more photos, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sichuanquakerelief/
Tags:bridge, landslide, photo, Wenchuan
Posted in Environment, Infrastructure, Transport, Winter | No Comments »
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
From the China Daily via the China National Committe on Ageing:
Canada and British Columbia (BC) province are working with the Chinese government and partners in the Wenchuan Earthquake Reconstruction Project constructing quake-proof wood frame buildings.
Tags:British Columbia, building, Canada, Dujiangyan, Forestry Innovation Investment, Government, home, Japan, Leigu, load bearing, school, seismic forces, Shanghai Tongji University, technology, wood-frame, Xiang'e
Posted in Construction and infrastructure, Enterprise, Environment, Home rebuilding, Investment, Local government, National government | No Comments »
Friday, December 19th, 2008
SQR recently attended a meeting to launch a project to encourage the installation and use of ecological toilets.
The meeting was quite a grand one. It was reported to the UN, and featured on local and national media, including CCTV.
The meeting consisted of four parts: opening ceremony, expert lectures, organisation experience-sharing and action-starting ceremony.
Opening ceremony:
The host welcomed everyone, and the sponsor gave a short speech.
Expert lecture:
Some doctors and scholars majoring in related fields spoke about the importance of the ecological toilet and the necessity of building ecological toilets for people in disaster area.
Organization experience sharing:
Several leaders of some NGOs and volunteers shared their experience of ecological toilet building. A village head talked about when he used the toilet built by an NGO.
Du Yan, the Chinese project manager in Ecologia shared experience that they cooperated with Rabbit King, another NGO, to do such a project.
They have presented information about the ecological toilet to local people, and they have built some public toilets for several villages. They encouraged villagers to build ecological toilets for family use by offering microfinance loan and some favourable conditions. She emphasized that when you begin to implement a project, you must make a demonstration as an example for villagers at first. Because it can be hard to persuade people to change their behaviour and use this new technology, you have to demonstrate tangible and real advantages to attract them. They once chose one family to help build ecological toilet. The child of this family was so excited that she told all her classmates and friends. All the children poured into her house to have a look at the new-style toilet and asked their parents also to build such a toilet when they went back home.
“This at last proved to be a successful propaganda tool,” she concluded.
Action starting ceremony:
Host read the proposal. Representatives from all the organizations and government went to fill the organisation name and project site in a huge map.
Tags:excrement, faeces, hygiene, new way of thinking, toilet, urine, village, WC
Posted in Environment, Facilities reconstruction, Health care, Home rebuilding, Media, Micro-funding, NGO news, SQR Activities | No Comments »
Friday, December 19th, 2008
In Guanghan Dishui village, which has a population of 108 people, 20 environmentally friendly toilets (UDT, the toilet in which urine and faeces are collected separately) were installed. Over thirty more are now under construction and estimated to be finished by the end of the year.
Villagers here are comparatively well-off and willing to try new ideas in contrast with those in other disaster areas (for there were frequent tourists before the quake and fruit-selling once flourished during that time). Therefore it was quite easy to persuade people to try using this kind of toilet.
According to the village head, it takes only 2 or 3 days and no more than 4 people to built a UDT. And the price ranges from 600-1600 RMB depending on the specific requirement of every family, such as decoration and material.
Though the toilet is widely praised, a few people still have some reservations. “It will take a year or 2 to see if this project is successful,” said Yang Xiulei, a journalist of Sichuan Rural Area. “Obviously these are quite newly built and barely used. And in my opinion, the process of disposal of excrement seems a little bit inconvenient, so it could happen that villagers stop using it months afterwards.”
Also, during the visit and observation, Huang Zhenping, a staff of China Environmental Protection Foundation, expressed his concern about the fact that “there could be many NGOs rushed in to this without thorough consideration. And if they failed in such project, the worst we may be facing is that no one would do it anymore.”
Tags:China Environmental Protection Foundation, ecological, Guanghan Dishui, toilet, victim
Posted in Environment, Facilities reconstruction, Infrastructure, NGO news | No Comments »
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
As one of the most influential local NGOs, Ye Cao focuses on environmental protection. After the May 12th earthquake, they began to do some projects combining environmental protection and quake relief.
SQR visited them last Thursday to get more information about what Chinese NGOs or Chengdu local NGOs are doing and to search for some opportunities to cooperate with them.
What have they done in the past few months?
In the past few months, they were doing a project called ecological W.C. for public use in villages in Mianzhu, Jiu Zhai Gou and Pengzhou.
What are they doing now?
Project one: Ecological washroom for family use
Recently they have begun another related project, still about toilets but for family use. They are doing this project for 108 families in Guang Han.
They will hold a forum about ecological washrooms on 18th September 2008. Some specialists, organizations, NGOs and the media will attend this forum. They hope a representative of SQR can attend the forum.
Project two: Organic crop
The other project they are working on is organic crops project. They plan to use a piece of land for a demonstration to local people. When the idea attracts any local farmer, they will teach the methods to plant organic crops.
Now they have finished project design and location collection.
Because full preparation work for a project usually take an NGO three months. So now they are prioritising the ecological washroom. When they finish this, they will get down to work on the second project.
Ye Cao culture is a Chengdu native NGO. It has good network with Chinese NGOs or some Chinese branches of foreign NGO. They go to affected areas regularly, and develop good relationships with local government. They are also familiar with some other NGOs’ regular project sites. Their members are all Sichuanese natives, so they perhaps have a better understanding with people and situations in the affected area. They have almost no contact with foreign NGOs. They are lacking in resources in this field.
Tags:Chengdu, demonstration, Jiu Zhai Gou, Mianzhu, organic crops, Pengzhou, toilet, Ye Cao
Posted in Environment, Infrastructure, Local government, Media, NGO news, SQR Activities | No Comments »
