[Daniela Salaverry ’03]
By Meghan Laslocky ’89
In villages across China, Daniela Salaverry ’03 has seen things that would shock most Westerners.
“The pollution is so egregious,” the environmental educator says. “I was in rural Zhejiang, on the coast, and I saw a leather tanning factory. You could tell that it was unregulated, just dumping waste into the river. And this was just one small town, and there are probably hundreds of thousands of towns like it across China. It almost makes you wonder, How do you begin?”
Good question.
In China, the world’s most populous nation, only 52 percent of sewage is treated before it is returned to rivers and lakes, indexes measuring water and air pollution rose by an alarming 4 percent in the first six months of 2006, and news of “cancer villages” has shocked and horrified all who have learned about them.
Pacific Environment, the San Francisco-based non-governmental organization where Salaverry is the China Program co-director, takes a grassroots approach through grants of $5,000 to $10,000 to young, community-based environmental groups. With just a small fistful of microfinance from Pacific Environment, green-minded Chinese can reach out to the public and the media to not just sound the alarm, but bring about change—a sea change that Salaverry recognizes might not even be realized in her lifetime. “We’re just planting a seed,” she says. “I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if I weren’t optimistic.”
China’s economic boom has created a nation of factories, and largely unregulated ones at that. But Salaverry, who has traveled extensively in China and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, says that her pet peeve is the erroneous perception that economic development and environmental protection are mutually exclusive. More than a billion full stomachs need not come at the price of pandas and clean water. “The change has to come from the grassroots, not top down. And it has to be based on local needs,” she explains. Factories shouldn’t be shut down, but rather overhauled and supported in making changes.
As frightening as the visits to putrid tanneries, bloody backyard shark processing plants, and filthy river banks can be, the most daunting—and terrifying—aspect of her job is not knowing how free people are to talk about the issue. So many of the people that she has encountered in China are cloaked in fear, she says.
“We really don’t know how open people can be in communicating with you.” Though green activism is relatively safe in China—environmental activists often serve as the “eyes and ears” of the central government, reporting on violations in their local communities—retribution from local authorities and factory owners is not unheard of. “I always appreciate my civil liberties when I come home,” she adds.
But already it looks like efforts—such as those enacted by Pacific Environment—are paying off. Recent surveys show that Chinese people are increasingly aware of food safety, drinking water, and air pollution issues, and between 2005 and 2006, the number of complaints about environmental pollution shot up by 30 percent.
Meghan Laslocky is a writer in Oakland, California.