A citizens group lobbies to halt logging in endangered species habitat.
Farmers organize to close a factory whose polluted wastes are damaging crops.
The government co-hosts a conference on sustainable development with a private environmental lobby. The government invites communities near giant panda habitat to co-manage nature reserves. Environmental ruin is endemic in China, but these surprising signs of citizen action are reasons for hope. As economic reform has loosened government control in all sectors, environmental organizations have proliferated. While these groups are fundamentally more constrained than similar organizations in the West, many are quite effective.