"Only those who are authentic, true and real can fully realize their own nature. If they can fully realize their own nature, they can fully realize human nature. If they can fully realize human nature they can fully realize the nature of things. If they can fully realize the nature of things they can take part in the transforming and nou…
"Only those who are authentic, true and real can fully realize their own nature. If they can fully realize their own nature, they can fully realize human nature. If they can fully realize human nature they can fully realize the nature of things. If they can fully realize the nature of things they can take part in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth. If they can take part in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth they can form a trinity with Heaven and Earth". Confucius, Doctrine of the Mean.
Though more numerous today than ever, the Chinese thrive on land they have tilled for five thousand years, land that hosts ten percent of world’s plant species and fourteen percent of its wild animals, thanks to their ancient observation that, since man and Mother Nature are mutually dependent, man must care for his Mother.
The world’s first ecological legislation, banning tree-felling in Spring and fishing in July, was passed in 2000 BC. In 700 BC the noted Taoist Guan Zhong advocated state monopoly of natural resources, “A king who does not protect the environment does not deserve to be called king.” In 400 BC the Law of Fields ruled that river courses must not be blocked and vegetation must not be burned off in winter. In 200 BC Yang Fu advocated protecting an exhaustive list of endangered species and in 200 AD Taoists chose twenty-four mountain sites as the first nature reserves in history, set detailed rules for the protection of their animals, plants, water, and mineral resources, and taught local people survival skills so that they could live without hunting or large scale agriculture. Their practice of boiling water (for sanitation) and steeping leaves in it (for enjoyment) gave birth to tea.
In 1030 AD Confucian Zhang Zhai[1] confessed, “Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore that which extends throughout the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions.” By 1200 AD, China counted one hundred and fifty nature reserves that have served as the settings for legends of animal deities and immortals, and all of which still exist and still harbor rare and endangered animals and plants. Historian Jonathan Schlesinger says the First Qing Emperor practiced environmentalism five hundred years ago:
I think of Changbaishan. It’s a volcano on the border between North Korea and China and the Manchus considered the lake inside the crater to be holy territory because it was the birthplace of the Manchus. The court had special rules on collecting ginseng or trapping sable and other fur-bearing animals on the mountain. When British explorers first climbed the mountain in the late 1800s they referred to it as untouched and unspoiled nature. In fact, it was very much touched. People had poached on the land but the court had been using its resources to protect that territory. The People’s Republic of China has now converted the space into a nature reserve[2].
In 1909, concerned about America’s deteriorating soil health Franklin King[3], chief of the USDA’s Division of Soil Management, found Chinese farmers growing crops in the same soil year after year with no loss of fertility and called their technique ‘permanent agriculture.’ We call it ‘permaculture’.

[1] Zhang, who had studied Daoism, said all things are composed of a primordial substance, qi, that includes matter and the forces that govern interactions between matter, yin and yang. In its dispersed, rarefied state, qi is invisible and insubstantial, but when it condenses it becomes a solid or liquid and takes on new properties. All material things are composed of condensed qi: rocks, trees, even people. There is nothing that is not qi. Thus, in a real sense, everything has the same essence.
[2] The 400,000 acre Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve is located in the northeast of China on the border with the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.
[3] Chinese Peasants Taught the USDA to Farm Organically in 1909. By Lina Zeldovich JSTOR Daily. May 21, 2019
Between 1980-2015, the economy grew sixtyfold while energy consumption grew fivefold[1]–an eighty percent decline in energy intensity. Carbon intensity has fallen by fifty percent since 2005 and renewable power consumption is rising twenty-five percent annually and should reach twenty percent of total consumption by 2025. When London’s Environmental Investigation Agency reported that dozens of Chinese companies were still using toxic CFC-11 to make foam, the government phased out production of 280,000 tonnes of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and set quotas on the manufacture, import and use of polluting chemicals like carbon tetrachloride. In 2015 the Pearl River Delta Industrial Trial Spot became the first region to reach America’s EPA air quality standard and, by 2017, ninety percent of China’s cities had reached their targets. The World Health Organization says that, between 2013-2016, the sixty biggest Chinese cities lowered their particulate emissions by thirty percent

[1] Energy intensity level of primary energy (MJ/$2011 PPP GDP) fell from 21.2 in 1990 to 6.7 in 2015 (World Bank)
"Only those who are authentic, true and real can fully realize their own nature. If they can fully realize their own nature, they can fully realize human nature. If they can fully realize human nature they can fully realize the nature of things. If they can fully realize the nature of things they can take part in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth. If they can take part in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth they can form a trinity with Heaven and Earth". Confucius, Doctrine of the Mean.
Though more numerous today than ever, the Chinese thrive on land they have tilled for five thousand years, land that hosts ten percent of world’s plant species and fourteen percent of its wild animals, thanks to their ancient observation that, since man and Mother Nature are mutually dependent, man must care for his Mother.
The world’s first ecological legislation, banning tree-felling in Spring and fishing in July, was passed in 2000 BC. In 700 BC the noted Taoist Guan Zhong advocated state monopoly of natural resources, “A king who does not protect the environment does not deserve to be called king.” In 400 BC the Law of Fields ruled that river courses must not be blocked and vegetation must not be burned off in winter. In 200 BC Yang Fu advocated protecting an exhaustive list of endangered species and in 200 AD Taoists chose twenty-four mountain sites as the first nature reserves in history, set detailed rules for the protection of their animals, plants, water, and mineral resources, and taught local people survival skills so that they could live without hunting or large scale agriculture. Their practice of boiling water (for sanitation) and steeping leaves in it (for enjoyment) gave birth to tea.
In 1030 AD Confucian Zhang Zhai[1] confessed, “Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore that which extends throughout the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions.” By 1200 AD, China counted one hundred and fifty nature reserves that have served as the settings for legends of animal deities and immortals, and all of which still exist and still harbor rare and endangered animals and plants. Historian Jonathan Schlesinger says the First Qing Emperor practiced environmentalism five hundred years ago:
I think of Changbaishan. It’s a volcano on the border between North Korea and China and the Manchus considered the lake inside the crater to be holy territory because it was the birthplace of the Manchus. The court had special rules on collecting ginseng or trapping sable and other fur-bearing animals on the mountain. When British explorers first climbed the mountain in the late 1800s they referred to it as untouched and unspoiled nature. In fact, it was very much touched. People had poached on the land but the court had been using its resources to protect that territory. The People’s Republic of China has now converted the space into a nature reserve[2].
In 1909, concerned about America’s deteriorating soil health Franklin King[3], chief of the USDA’s Division of Soil Management, found Chinese farmers growing crops in the same soil year after year with no loss of fertility and called their technique ‘permanent agriculture.’ We call it ‘permaculture’.

[1] Zhang, who had studied Daoism, said all things are composed of a primordial substance, qi, that includes matter and the forces that govern interactions between matter, yin and yang. In its dispersed, rarefied state, qi is invisible and insubstantial, but when it condenses it becomes a solid or liquid and takes on new properties. All material things are composed of condensed qi: rocks, trees, even people. There is nothing that is not qi. Thus, in a real sense, everything has the same essence.
[2] The 400,000 acre Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve is located in the northeast of China on the border with the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.
[3] Chinese Peasants Taught the USDA to Farm Organically in 1909. By Lina Zeldovich JSTOR Daily. May 21, 2019
Between 1980-2015, the economy grew sixtyfold while energy consumption grew fivefold[1]–an eighty percent decline in energy intensity. Carbon intensity has fallen by fifty percent since 2005 and renewable power consumption is rising twenty-five percent annually and should reach twenty percent of total consumption by 2025. When London’s Environmental Investigation Agency reported that dozens of Chinese companies were still using toxic CFC-11 to make foam, the government phased out production of 280,000 tonnes of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and set quotas on the manufacture, import and use of polluting chemicals like carbon tetrachloride. In 2015 the Pearl River Delta Industrial Trial Spot became the first region to reach America’s EPA air quality standard and, by 2017, ninety percent of China’s cities had reached their targets. The World Health Organization says that, between 2013-2016, the sixty biggest Chinese cities lowered their particulate emissions by thirty percent

[1] Energy intensity level of primary energy (MJ/$2011 PPP GDP) fell from 21.2 in 1990 to 6.7 in 2015 (World Bank)