Chen Wanning of Friends of Nature on the path of environmental public welfare in Beijing

Author / Zhang Qian

Foreword: introduction by Chen Wanning

Chen Wanning comes from Taiwan, China. In 2009 she joined "Friends of Nature," the earliest environmental organization founded in the mainland, and today she is in charge of the low-carbon family project. At university she took part in a lot of NGO volunteer work, joining everything she did not object to, including fighting for workers' rights and the protection of women and children, and through these activities she looked for the fields that interested her.

She majored in the International Relations group of the Political Science department, with a minor in the Rural Society group of the Agricultural Extension department, and after graduating she chose the Graduate Institute of Architecture and Urban-Rural Studies, a field that focuses on the planning of space and environment; yet Chen Wanning's advisor believed that urban planners should not only start from a professional angle, but should also understand the voices and needs of different parts of society, so that the spatial planning they produce is truly humane.

After entering the graduate institute, through school courses and off-campus practical activities, Chen Wanning gradually began to like a more humane mode of planning and became very interested in participatory design; after taking part in some activities organized by the Society of Wilderness in Taiwan, China, she shifted her focus to the field of natural environmental protection. She began to dabble in campaigns against the Suhua Highway and in investigations of wastewater discharge from high-tech industries in the Xiaoli River in Hsinchu, and afterwards she took part-time posts at institutions such as the Environmental Information Association of Taiwan, China and the Organization of Urban Re-s.

Chen Wanning came to Beijing before she had even graduated. She said: "The school emphasizes practical education and encourages everyone to leave campus and do volunteer work before graduating, and the teachers support it too." In the field of architecture and spatial planning, Chen Wanning says she will not put too much energy into it; even if she works in this area in the future, she is more keen on spatial design and planning that is ecological and sustainable."The experience of volunteering gradually influenced my views on architecture and spatial planning. My aspiration is no longer what I imagined when I first enrolled, to be an especially outstanding architect and design some very flashy and beautiful buildings; now, instead, I hope that the combination of organic, natural environment and urban planning will be ecological and participatory."

The following is the transcript of Chen Wanning's interview with the Youjihui reporter:

"We hope to introduce the issues of energy saving and emission reduction and climate change through ways that everyone can experience and perceive, so that they move from awareness of environmental protection to actually taking action."

Zhang Qian: What do you think of Beijing's urban planning?

Chen Wanning: This city does not feel very comfortable; the air is bad, there are a lot of people, there is not enough green space, the city is very crowded, and the people living here are under a lot of pressure. Here, the cost of living for long-term residents, the spiritual feeling, and the interaction between people are all different from Taiwan, China. On the one hand, I find that the scale of Beijing's urban planning is too large, that is, the city is not planned at a human scale, and urban space is mostly given over to private cars and commercial capital. Today, when we speak of having a livable environment, we need to consider citizen participation, cultural diversity, the security of material life and the social atmosphere, and so on. These cannot rely on the government's one-size-fits-all urban planning, but need to be done more with civic groups and research groups, on an open and scientific basis.

Zhang Qian: Please introduce the situation in Taiwan, China in this regard. What are the differences between the two places?

Chen Wanning: The biggest difference is the degree of development of civil society. Many friends who go to Taiwan, China to study or travel may feel that Taiwan, China is not an advanced or wealthy place, but they do feel its human warmth, the liveliness of citizen participation in public issues, the right to express opinions at the grassroots of society, and everyone's initiative in taking part in the process of social affairs; these aspects are different from the mainland. Of course, at present the civil society and liberal democracy of Taiwan, China still have much room for improvement, and if you look carefully there are still many institutional problems that are not yet complete, such as the environmental impact assessment system, the urban renewal system and so on.

Zhang Qian: What project are you mainly responsible for?

Chen Wanning: The project I am mainly responsible for now is low-carbon families, that is, helping urban residents reduce their own household carbon emissions. 2009In 2009, before I came to Friends of Nature, this project already existed.2009to2010, I joined Friends of Nature and was in charge of community work, carrying out low-carbon environmental publicity in communities and surveys of household water and electricity use. In the second stage, I began to take charge of the field I am better at—the work of energy-saving building renovation. Through simple methods and the use of relatively water- and electricity-saving environmental products, we bring down the energy consumption in daily life, thereby improving households' carbon emissions.

2011, there were 23 households that completed building energy-saving and emission-reduction renovation projects, and we also launched a related low-carbon family exhibition and book. This year, 31 households will take part in our project. The whole project cycle lasts one year; residents must first attend classes and receive training, then complete the housing renovation, and finally also take part in the planning of the book, the exhibition and outreach activities.

In the future, we will push the concept of low-carbon families into communities and schools, plan and design entire low-carbon communities, let more people participate, and raise students' awareness of public water and electricity use at school and of energy education. When people can experience and feel the benefits of energy saving and emission reduction, only then will they begin to think about how the energy issues around us really exist. We believe that climate change may be too distant an issue; for most ordinary people, they may not understand what carbon emissions are or how to save energy and reduce emissions, so we hope to introduce the issues of energy saving and emission reduction and climate change through ways that everyone can experience and perceive, so that they move from awareness of environmental protection to actually taking action.

Zhang Qian: How are the residents who take part in these renovation projects selected? Is their selection representative?

Chen Wanning: They are ordinary citizens from all walks of life, distributed across different areas of Beijing, and they represent different economic levels and levels of education. The selected residents' homes include single-story houses, apartment buildings, new communities, villas and so on. Once the results are compiled, they will be very useful for reference. Even if you are an ordinary member of the public who has not taken part in our activities, you can find a way that suits you and follow the instructions in the book. The project relies afterwards on the compiled materials; as long as citizens leaf through our results, they can do it themselves at home. Through effective dissemination, the results become more widely known to the public.

Zhang Qian: Their own homes serve as the objects of energy-saving and emission-reduction renovation, and after the renovation succeeds, they will be made public as demonstration units, is that right?

Chen Wanning: Yes. Because it is their own house, the families taking part in the project will live in it for the long term and truly experience the benefits of energy saving and emission reduction; at the same time, they are very enthusiastic and very much welcome media reporters or people from all walks of life to visit. They will share their feelings after the renovation through various publicity channels. The government is currently promoting energy-saving buildings, starting with hospitals, universities, government agencies and newly built towers; homes like the ones you and I live in, such as old communities, old houses and single-story houses, also need renovation, but there is no government connection with us. As a grassroots organization, Friends of Nature hopes even more to achieve the goal of understanding and practicing environmental protection by improving the lifestyle of each household.

"If the environment you live in is too uniform, your way of thinking about things will be limited to a few patterns, and this will affect the way you see the world and the way you grow in this world."

Zhang Qian: What kind of education do you think children in Beijing (under 12 years old) need?

Chen Wanning: I have observed that children here are under quite a lot of pressure; they either have to go to cram schools or train in artistic skills. Many environmental organizations in Taiwan, China are devoted to children's environmental education and nature education, and Friends of Nature has also been doing this kind of work, hoping to convey one idea: children must be close to nature. Today's children are quite pitiful; for example, children living in the city of Beijing think the world is surrounded by tall buildings and subways, and they have no chance to feel and recognize the beauty of nature.

I think it is a great pity; precisely because they have not felt the beauty of nature, they think it does not matter if what they do damages the environment. But once children have some understanding of nature, they will begin to think about environmental issues and pay attention to whether their every word and every action harms the environment, and even when they grow up and choose a career and a way of doing things, they will lean more toward being friendly to the environment.

Taiwan, China has quite a lot of environmental organizations that carry out environmental education work for primary and secondary schools, taking children to live in the mountains for a week or two, or to dive, camp, climb mountains and go rafting; through all kinds of activities you realize that nature is a very important medium that can calm your mind and let you feel the beauty of the world. Parents here think about how their children can excel in academic performance, but ignore the role of nature in cultivating children's thinking patterns and imagination. A while ago I read a report that schools in Germany stipulate that before primary school children cannot be given too much fill-in-the-blank style education, such as arithmetic and reading, because they believe children at this stage should grow up more in a natural environment, and the physical feeling is different.

Parents have not realized the importance of nature to people; they think scores and exams are more important than children being close to nature, and they may not realize what children can learn from nature. But many foreign studies and surveys have shown that nature helps raise human spirituality, and it helps you calm your mind, enlighten your wisdom and also helps your creativity. Nature is like a treasure house; you can always see new things, and these elements cannot be copied. If the environment you live in is too uniform, your way of thinking about things will be limited to a few patterns, and this will affect the way you see the world and the way you grow in this world.

Zhang Qian: Actually we also have nature classes, but not like in Taiwan, China where you can go into the natural environment at any time; more often the teacher plays videos and the like in class.

Chen Wanning: Environmental education in Taiwan, China tends to take children to live in the wild for one to two weeks, pitch tents and camp; they must learn the basic methods of surviving in the wild, so that they understand: the earth's energy is not inexhaustible. If today you are in a place with no shops, no water and no electricity, then how to obtain the energy and support for life is also part of environmental education. Our environmental education colleagues have always been devoted to this kind of work; families in the city have a harder time getting access to green space, so we choose the city's limited green parks to design related activities, hoping to give children and parents some feeling for it.

"If we want a city and a social environment to get better, the public needs to have the awareness to cherish and use public places as if they were their own homes."

Zhang Qian: Can you talk about how you feel about living and working in Beijing?

Chen Wanning: The feeling the whole society gives me is that there is not much enthusiasm for taking part in public issues, or the attitude is that it has nothing to do with me, for example cutting in line; and the first time I got off the plane, I saw everyone spitting, or littering. Although they are all small things, they show that citizens do not care about public space outside the "home." But at the same time I also feel that precisely because China's urbanization is accelerating, Beijing is undoubtedly already a huge artificial city. And with the progress of urbanization, China's civil society needs to try to keep up. I think this is a very good opportunity for construction and learning for the government, civic groups and the general public alike.

Zhang Qian: People may think that as long as I am comfortable, as long as my home is clean, the space outside has nothing to do with me.

Chen Wanning: If we want a city and a social environment to get better, the public needs to have the awareness to cherish and use public places as if they were their own homes. Our various teams, such as the low-carbon family group, will in the future move toward larger public domains such as low-carbon communities and low-carbon campuses; the solid waste management group, although it works on household kitchen waste composting and garbage reduction, ultimately wants to solve the urban garbage issue of the larger environment; the environmental education group also hopes to expand the public domain; besides letting more children enjoy the natural environment in the city, it also needs the support of the relevant government departments. If our kind of grassroots institution were connected with the public sector authorities—the green space planning departments and the national parks, the impact would be broader.

Citizens and social development have a strong relationship, and this relationship in turn affects the environment and how we feel. For example, when we go to Europe, we envy the clean rivers, good order and good public hygiene there, but we need to understand how the behavior of their civil society was constructed. Beijing is still in a process of growth, but this is a stage it must go through.

"Organic is not simply a transaction, not selling at a very expensive price, or becoming another kind of supermarket; more than that, it conveys an idea, and when consumers and producers identify with this idea, everyone will care about the things happening around them related to the environment and fair trade."

Zhang Qian: How do you understand the concept of organic agriculture?

Chen Wanning: When I was in Taiwan, China, quite a lot of NGOs were engaged in promoting this area, the most famous being the Homemakers United Foundation in Taiwan, China. A group of mothers and grandmothers, very concerned about food safety and about whether the food their families ate was healthy, thus became the earliest group of people to pay attention to organic vegetables. They pooled their resources together, launched a subscription service for organic vegetables, and everyone picked up the vegetables at designated locations; in this process they promoted organic vegetables, pesticide residues, genetically modified foods, and the stories of the farmers who grow the vegetables and the land. My initial understanding of organic started from this aspect.

At first, I only thought that organic vegetables were healthier, non-toxic and more environmentally friendly than other products, but later I realized that organic is not built on the mechanism of whether the food we eat is healthy and safe; that would be too narrow. Organic should be built on the basis of whether we are sufficiently friendly to the earth and the land, and whether we hope it will continuously produce beautiful food. The land and farmers behind organic are a very important link; it does not separate the value of the land from the price of organic vegetables, but integrates them into consideration; it is a large environmental issue.

Zhang Qian: Organic advocates "ecology, health, fairness, care," which is actually very similar to the ideas promoted by Friends of Nature and other environmental organizations.

Chen Wanning: 2009When I came to Beijing in 2009, there were no organic markets yet, but now there are many. Because I have to hold activities on weekends, I have not yet had the chance to visit Beijing's organic markets, but colleagues who have been there came back and shared that some things at the markets are very expensive, and some products are even shipped over from Taiwan, China and sold at a much higher price than in Taiwan, China; they think organic has been exaggerated and distorted here. In the organic markets of Taiwan, China, the vegetables sold may be a little more expensive than ordinary ones, but more emphasis is placed on the interaction between producers and consumers. Organic is not simply a transaction, not selling at a very expensive price, or becoming another kind of supermarket; more than that, it conveys an idea, and when consumers and producers identify with this idea, everyone will care about the things happening around them related to the environment and fair trade.

2012In 2012 I was in Israel and Palestine, and at that time I lived on a collective farm, a farm in the desert. Our daily life was self-sufficient; apart from the necessities we could not produce ourselves and had to buy from outside, agricultural products and the like were all produced by ourselves. Every day we sorted the kitchen waste from the dining hall, then composted it, and then went to harvest the vegetables we needed to cook for our three meals. This was an organic circular farm, because I could see how these vegetables grew, and all of them were fertilized with our own compost.

In this process, the organic idea is simply a natural process. Going back to a very early time, producers all over the world treated our land in the way of natural cycles, and only later did commercial mechanisms and factors, mass production and the needs of international trade cause this model to be distorted or destroyed. I see many people in Beijing doing it, such as the Little Donkey Citizen Farm, and many people in Taiwan, China are also doing this kind of thing; on the whole it is a relatively good trend.

"If you hope that employees will stay for the long term and continue to contribute to the organization, you need to provide employees with a good welfare system and room for growth."

Zhang Qian: Many full-time workers at NGOs are paid very little, and the pressure of life in Beijing is so great; they may hold ideals, but reality does not allow them to persist, and they are forced to give up their NGO work. How do you view this problem, and how do you find a balance?

Chen Wanning: The salaries of nonprofit organizations are on the low side in every country, and it is the same in Taiwan, China. I have asked friends in other countries, and they are in the same situation. But in Beijing, NGOs of different sizes also have different salary levels and structures; there is the scale of international organizations, the scale of Friends of Nature, or a more grassroots scale. Friends who come to work at NGOs, besides having the corresponding expertise and passion themselves, Friends of Nature is also doing its best to raise salary guarantees, so that at least everyone will not be under too much pressure in life in Beijing.

But for new employees, such as young people who have just graduated, or friends who have reached a certain age and must start a family or have children, the salary at an NGO makes it very hard to support them in continuing this job, and they turn to part-time work or find another job to support their ideals, but in fact this is not a normal state.

In other words, where is the value of NGO workers? Do they not play an important role in how the world operates? NGOs are devoted to building and pursuing fairness and justice, bridging the gap between the government and civil society, and promoting the enlightenment thinking of civil society and the vitality of the third sector. These are all part of making the world and society more evolved, and they have their necessary meaning.

The ideal state is that the whole organization needs to think about and plan for its own needs regarding employees and the quality of employees, and within its own capacity help employees strive for more decent pay. After employees have worked at an organization for many years, they have a certain influence on the organization's operations, their professional expertise in this field and their connections in all respects. If you hope that employees will stay for the long term and continue to contribute to the organization, you need to provide employees with a good welfare system and room for growth. Otherwise everyone is like a disposable chopstick; after working for a few months or a year or two they leave, and the vacancy they leave is filled by a new disposable chopstick, the pay offered does not change, and it falls into a vicious cycle; in this way the individual does not grow, the organization does not grow, and there is even less way to push the organization to make more changes. So, in terms of pay and benefits or long-term planning, both employees and the organization itself should discuss and strive for it at all times.

Zhang Qian: Thank you for receiving our interview.

Author of this article: Zhang Qian

For more information, please see Friends of Nature: http://www.fon.org.cn