China: Expert Warns of Ecological Doom
10/14/99
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Title: Expert warns of ecological doom
Source: South China Morning Post
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 14, 1999
Byline: CHOW CHUNG-YAN
The mainland faces an ecological catastrophe if the authorities
continue to ignore environmental protection, an expert warned
yesterday.
Professor Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba in Canada, said
blind economic development at the environment's expense would cause
China's ecology to collapse.
China would face the problems of insufficient food supply, energy
shortages and frequent natural disasters if the Government did not
act soon, he said in Hong Kong.
"China is losing some of its best farmland to industrial development
and that can be a very serious problem," said Professor Smil, 56,
author of several books on the mainland environment and an editorial
board member of the ecology magazine China Quarterly.
Unlike South Korea or Taiwan, the mainland could not rely on
importing food from other countries, given the size of its
population, he said. In pursuing high economic growth, the Government
had drastically raised its energy consumption, which could trigger
further problems.
"In the past, China promoted energy conservation because of
shortages," he said.
"Now this policy has been abandoned and some officials think that by
raising the power supply they can do without conservation."