Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
700,000
letters
visits
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
1991
1992 1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001 2002
2003
2004
Year
Figure 10.3.
Environmental complaints by letters and visits to Chinese EPBs,
1991-2004 (China Environment Statistical Reports).
(
1996
) estimated that in China local and provincial authorities res-
ponded to more than 130,000 complaints annually in the period 1991-
1993, whereas Chinese data show lower figures for these years, but a
sharp increase from the mid-1990s onwards to six hundred thousand
in 2004 (Figure
10.3
). In most Chinese cities and towns, systems of
complaints and telephone hotlines have been installed, albeit with vary-
ing levels of use and effect.
41
In China, this system of complaints and
the growing attention the (state-owned and -controlled) media pay to
environmental pollution and environmental mismanagement are more
important than NGOs in influencing economic and political decision
makers. This emerging environmental consciousness is, to some extent,
also reflected in the various polls that have been held (Stockholm Envi-
ronment Institute,
2002
; see Lee,
2005
for an overview of these polls).
In Vietnam, similar dynamics exist but - in line with the coun-
try's hesitations to give civil society more space - less frequent,
less facilitated via, for instance, hotlines, and not systematically
41
Dasgupta and Wheeler (
1996
) show that the average number of environmental
complaints of major cities and provinces in one year ranges from 55.0 per
100,000 inhabitants in Shanghai to 1.7 per 100,000 inhabitants for Gansu
province. In most provinces, EPBs responded to more than 80 percent of these
(telephone calls, letters and face-to-face visits) complaints, as also follows from
the Chinese statistics (China Environment Statistical reports, 1991-2004). See
also Brettell (
2004
) for a full and detailed overview of complaints in all
Chinese provinces and major cities.
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