Chinese environmental officials hope blogs will help fight pollution

2006/5/18

BEIJING (AP) via China Post

Five environmental officials in northeastern China's biggest city plan to start blogging to rally the public behind their efforts, a newspaper said Thursday.

"We hope the blogs will help the public learn more about our efforts in environmental protection and encourage them to join us," Shui Hua, a spokesman for Shenyang's Environmental Protection Bureau, told the state-run China Daily newspaper.

China's cities are among the world's smoggiest, most of China's waterways are severely tainted, and farmers have erupted in protest across the country over industrial pollution, as two decades of breakneck economic growth have overridden environmental concerns.

Li Chao, head of the bureau, and four deputies will publish details of their daily work and policy-making decisions and answer questions from the public, Shui told the paper.

Earlier this year, Shenyang, a gritty industrial city, introduced China's first regulations allowing the public to participate in drafting environmental laws and file pollution lawsuits against companies, the report said.

Other Chinese officials who set up blogs this year include Ren Chengyi, deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal People's Congress; Su Yongxin, deputy mayor of Suzhou, Jiangsu province; and Zhou Hongyu, an education official in Hubei province, it reported.

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