Back to basics
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![Liao Xiaoyi with the residents of Daping. Photos [Lin Shujuan/China Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20091125/00114320f5750c76d03501.jpg "Liao Xiaoyi with the residents of Daping. Photos [Lin Shujuan/China Daily]") |
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Liao Xiaoyi with the residents of Daping. Photos [Lin Shujuan/China Daily] |
It sounds like retirement after 13 years of championing green issues, but actually the 55 year old is busier than ever.
Instead of attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, for which she holds little hope, she believes her actions will speak louder than words as she builds from scratch an environmentally friendly village, an effort that can be emulated easily across the country, and even the world.
The key to saving the Earth from climate change, according to Liao, is to restore Chinese culture in a society that has forgotten its history and moved toward a consumer-driven lifestyle.
"With the values of reduction, reusing and recycling, Chinese civilization has survived for 5,000 years. It is a culture that respects both nature and family," says Liao.
"Unfortunately, this culture is being swept away by Western consumerism, which is destroying both our natural and spiritual homes, turning us into machines of consumption and production, even though this consumption and production cannot be sustained."
"The Earth is sick because we are losing respect for Mother Nature and taking too much from her," Liao continues, gripped by such strong emotions that her voice trembles. "Science and democracy alone cannot save us. We also need harmony - between individuals, society and nature, between the body and mind, inside and out."
She says that individuals who lose their inner balance will easily follow the consumer rush.
A farmer in front of her new house which is being built with technical and financial support from the Global Village of Bejing, at the Daping village in Pengzhou, Sichuan province.
Liao has long aimed to reverse the invasion of consumerism by setting an example of a fundamental shift to a green lifestyle, believing this is the only way to save the planet while bringing longlasting happiness. But the chance did not arrive until she went to Daping.
Liao says she initially wanted to help with earthquake rescue efforts. Though last year's Sichuan earthquake destroyed almost all the houses in the village, one century-old wooden building was intact. Liao recalls how touched she had been when she saw its owner, 84-year-old Qin Lixiu, sit in the front porch doing needlework against the distant backdrop of green mountains.
"That is a dream picture of harmony and happiness," Liao says, lost in the memory.
She realized Daping was the right place to launch her long-awaited project. The timing was right, too.
Liao says the earthquake last year represented a turning point for Chinese non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The death toll of nearly 90,000 people and widespread destruction prompted an outpouring of support. Since then, citizens and semi-official organizations like the Chinese Red Cross have been more willing to back NGO efforts, she says.
Within two months, Liao was able to secure a number of supporters for the project. These included the Chinese Red Cross Association which contributed over 2 million yuan ($292,000); the One Foundation, initiated by Jet Li, donated 1 million yuan; and the Narada Foundation offered help to establish a new economic model for the village.
Since then Liao has been running a pilot program called "LoHo Home" or "Home for Life of Harmony" in Daping. She aims to make it a low-carbon village by constructing environmentally friendly houses and developing a sustainable local economy to enable the villagers to live in harmony with each other and the environment.
Over the past year, Liao has teamed up with local villagers, 94 families and over 200 villagers, along with a few expert consultants in the fields of housing design, ecological farming and methane generation, to rebuild the village.
Now organic farms churn out high-end produce for affluent consumers, and many residents live in houses that have been rebuilt using materials like locally harvested bamboo and generate energy from methane. It also practices a waste classification system, a phenomenon rare in many Chinese cities. By becoming environmentally friendly, the villagers are forming a strong community of thriving individuals. There's even an artist who plays his panpipe while working on a small organic farm.
"This is the kind of lifestyle GVB aspires to," says Liao, who is founder and president of the Global Village of Bejing (GVB), one of China's earliest environmental advocacy groups. "Now I feel more at home in this place than in any other part of the world."
It has been a long road for Liao.
In 1990 when she was assigned to work at the China Academy of Social Sciences as a Marxism researcher, she had no inkling that her life would later be committed to environmental issues. This came about when a friend told her "the Earth is being destroyed by human beings, and we won't have the next millennium". At that moment, Liao, who had just given birth to her only daughter, realized she could not ignore the subject, and so it has transpired.
Liao began to read environmentalist works like Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring. She shot documentaries on China's ecological plight that appeared on national television. Later, while a visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina, she was struck by the role played by civil society in the United States. She decided to return home to launch similar initiatives in China.
She founded GVB in 1996 and since then has won many awards for her advocacy of a green way of life, including the 2000 Sophie Prize in Norway, widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of environmental protection.
GVB became active in Beijing neighborhoods soon after its establishment, raising environmental awareness locally. But in recent years it has expanded its work across the country, and it is now involved in everything from promoting plastic recycling to encouraging construction managers to reduce electricity consumption.
"I love philosophy, especially traditional Chinese philosophy that emphasizes the harmony between humans and nature, yin and yang. It might be one of the reasons why I became an environmentalist."
But Liao attributes her "hardcore" environmentalism to her home city of Chongqing, whose citizens she characterizes as a determined bunch.
Running an NGO and promoting environmental protection has never been easy, but in China, where both concepts were not well recognized until recent years, it is even more fraught with difficulties. It appears she hit a low point in about 2006 and in an interview with China Central Television, she admitted that her work has had a limited effect "even though we have tried very hard to promote environmental protection". The waste classification system, which GVB has been promoting since its establishment, is absent in most of China's cities.
These setbacks forced her to think about what she was doing. "I think we emphasized the importance of environmental protection rather than showing people the benefits of doing so," Liao says.
She views the LoHo project in Daping as the ideal demonstration of her ideas. She aims to devote the rest of her life to ensuring the project's success. "I believe the LoHo project is replicable in most areas. I am set to promote the wisdom cherished by our ancestors till my last day."
Liao says life in Daping has been fulfilling, though she misses her daughter who is studying in the US. She particularly enjoys strolling down to a plot of land in the center of the village that will be a library. "What a wonderful place to stay upon its completion," says Liao with a big smile. "You know what? I'm looking forward to being a teacher again."
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