Finally, Xiaoyi County also illustrates the importance of providing local EPBs with sufficient administrative rank. Xiaoyi city had grown so fast in the last decade that its local GDP is on par with other municipalities in Shanxi, but its administrative status has remained that of a county-level city. In the wake of worsening local pollution and a “yellow card” from the provincial EPB, local leaders worked to strengthen local environmental agencies. Most importantly, the administrative rank of EPB’s Environment Monitoring Team was upgraded to division ( _ke_ ) level to increase their power vis-à-vis industry and thereby ease rule enforcement. Xiaoyi’s Monitoring Team is the only one to have such a high rank in Shanxi province and during interviews the importance of this was repeatedly stressed.

# _5.2 International Best-Practice Examples_

In the search to overcome institutional barriers, China can also look to other countries for inspiration. In the following, transboundary inter-state agencies and horizontal fair exchange mechanisms are discussed to show how regional and administrative differences in local environmental and economic priorities can be overcome in China.

# _Transboundary environmental organizations_

The example of cross-provincial PM 2.5 pollution in the Beijing area (see _Box 1_ ) illustrated how air pollution cannot be solved by one administrative unit alone but instead requires the cooperation of multiple units (e.g., provinces, municipalities, or counties). In fact, most ecosystems span multiple administrative units and often Transboundary Management Organizations (TMOs) are used to govern such Transboundary Protected Areas (TBPA). International well-known TMOs across sub-national entities or countries include the Great Lakes Commission (see _Box 14_ ), the International Commission for the Protection of Lake Geneva (France, Switzerland), the Mekong River Commission (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam), Zambezi River Authority (Zambia, Zimbabwe), and the Autonomous Bi-national

## **Box 14:  The Great Lakes Commission – An example of an inter-state agency**

_Founding history:_ The Great Lake Commissions (GLC) was established as an inter-state public agency by the Great Lakes Basin Compact in 1955. At the time of its formation in the mid 1950s, there was a perceived need to address the serious threats to the Great Lakes ecosystem and for leadership regarding opportunities to expand the local economies through tourism and Great Lakes shipping (Crane in Grover and Krantzberg, 2012: 17).

_Members:_ Members include eight US states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). Although the GLC is legally a U.S. institution, since 1999 the two Canadian provinces Ontario and Québec hold associate member status. Each jurisdiction appoints a delegation of three to five members comprised of senior state agency officials, legislators and governor’s appointees.

_Legal status and work focus:_ the GLC holds the legal status of a compact, where states have quasisovereign status (Crane in Grover and Krantzberg, 2012: 22). The commission’s main goal is to help member states to protect “the orderly, integrated, and comprehensive development, use, and conservation of the water resources of the Great Lakes Basin” (Great Lake Commission, 2013). GLC’s work includes policy development, coordination of state and provincial positions on regional issues, advocacy, as well as communication and research services. In 1994, for instance, the GLC coordinated the signing of an agreement called the “Ecosystem Charter for the Great Lakes” that brought together important stakeholders from both the U.S. and Canada to develop a sustainability agenda for the region. The GLC illustrates how inter-state commissions can protect an ecosystem and shift attention from political boundaries to natural resource boundaries. However _,_ despite its successes, the GLC continues to be dependent on the political will of the jurisdictions of its members (i.e., states and provinces).

_Source: Great Lake Commission 2013 (http://www.glc.org); Grover and Krantzberg (2012)_ 40