Green Camel Bell Annual Report 2020

发布日期：2021-10-31 19:10:42 点击量：3399 信息来源：绿驼铃

2020 was an extraordinary year. The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 disrupted many lives, but we have seen many more ordinary volunteers write an epic of unity in purpose and resilience against the pandemic. In this extraordinary year, many of Green Camel Bell's public welfare activities were moved to online platforms following the outbreak. However, the enthusiasm of volunteers to participate in environmental projects did not fade. We could not be more thankful to the volunteers who rallied to meet the new demands of the pandemic; we are proud of our great country and people for overcoming this battle, and we cheer for the volunteers who dedicated their love!

This year, we strived to overcome the impact of the pandemic and worked hard to put many of our community's environmental efforts into practice. Whether delivering healthier and environmentally friendly energy-saving stoves to high-altitude villages on the Loess Plateau, continuing to deliver nutritious lunches to poor children, or renovating eco-toilets for villages upstream of water sources, Green Camel Bell and our community partners fought to continue our progression towards a clean and equitable future. Additionally, we also organized a general election for the board of directors and adapted our legal representative and business units to meet the needs of tomorrow. Moving forward, we will further standardize our organization's management to continually pursue the realization of ecological civilization and rural revitalization in partnership with theDepartment of Ecology and Environment of Gansu Province, Department of Gansu Provincial Civil Affairs, and other governmental bodies.

In 2020, GCB pursued projects in water conservation, sustainable management of the environment and health of the Loess Plateau, experiential ecotourism, rural hazardous waste collection and management, and environmental advocacy and education. Please read the complete summary of our 2020 efforts below:

1. OrganizationalDevelopment

1.1 Development and Capacity Building

In August 2020, GCB organized a general election of the Board and selected Fan Xin as the new Chairman and legal representative of GCB Board of Directors. GCB also considered the revision of our Charter to discuss replacing the business unit in charge of the Department of Ecology andEnvironment of Gansu Province. The resolution was recognized and approved by the Department of Gansu Provincial Civil Affairs, and GCB was issued a new registration certificate.

With regard to building organizational capacity, the pandemic required a refocusing of staff and volunteer training to online self-study and virtual workshops for the first half of 2020. However, in the second half of 2020, GCB sent staff and volunteers to Xiahe and Chongqing to attend in-person training and conferences. These events further educated our organization on topics such as plastic pollution, leadership improvement, ecology, and environmental law.

GCB also actively helped our partner villages hosting our eco-projects to learn new technologies and ideas. For example, in June 2020, GCB organized 14 villagers' representatives from Nuanshui Village in Wushan County to go to Lintao to learn about energy-saving stoves. As a result, these representatives brought back new technologies, greater public health awareness, and energy-saving stoves to Nuanshui Village. Additionally, GCBcarried out multiple other training initiatives to serve additional community members.

1.2 Foreign Exchange and Cooperation

In September 2020, the 8th ChinaCharity Fair was held in Shenzhen. In response to President Xi Jinping's call to build a "Green Belt and Road," GCB co-hosted community round-table activities with Chongqing Renewable Energy Society - social organizations"go global" and "Green Belt and Road" construction. In discussing policy, opportunity, recent success, and challenges within the"go global" movement, both experts and social organizations optimistically worked to realize environmental protection and make positive contributions to constructing a "Green Belt and Road."

As a director unit of the ChinaAgricultural Ecological Environmental Protection Association, in December 2020, Zhao Zhong and Wang Junwu from GCB also participated in the 4th Session ofChina Agricultural Ecological Environmental Protection Association and Seminar on Ecological Circular Agriculture Development Experience. Zhao and Wang each shared GCB's ecological and environmental protection projects carried out in Lanzhou, Huining, Wushan, Wenxian, and Maqu.

GCB also actively facilitates cutting-edge discussions of international environmental protection. For example, on March 29, 2020, the online live broadcast shared the topic of "Application of Green Products in International Projects and Corporate Social Responsibility of Local ChineseEnterprises"; in August 2020, GCB hosted the "Peru Environment and Investment Sub-Forum (one of the activities of the 2020 China-Latin AmericaCooperation Regional Cooperation Forum)"; in October 2020 at the 4th GoodFood Summit, Zhao Zhong from GCB shared information on animal welfare improvement, food safety, and environmental protection; in December 2020, GCBco-organized the online forum "China-Colombia Cooperation Forum: Challenges and Opportunities" with Chongqing Renewable Energy Society, Colombian Environmental and Social Association to promote international exchange and cooperation in realizing sustainable development.

With the support of the Japanese Cultural Center in Beijing, GCB reviewed case studies and researched Japanese plastic reduction initiatives to ultimately distribute a publication titled "Leveraging the East Wind: How to Reduce Plastic in Japan." As a result, we hope to inspire the public to reduce and restrict plastic use and waste with support from other leaders at the forefront of environmental protection.

2. GCB Projects

2.1 Women-oriented clean energy and sanitation governance projects in rural communities on the Loess Plateau

The Loess Plateau Rehabilitation Project has been running successfully since 2015, operating in Mali Nuanshui and BangsheVillages in Tianshui City. This issue of the women-oriented clean energy and sanitation governance projects in rural communities on the Loess Plateau is a continuation of the previous Environment and Health project supported by the China Merchants Foundation. It centers on energy-saving stove promotion and stove renovation, women's groups and community cultural activities, and community environmental protection and health activities.

According to a preliminary survey by GCB, a family of two to three people in Nuanshui Village buys an average of one ton of coal for roughly 1,100 yuan every year while also cutting more than 500 pounds of firewood as a supplementary energy source. In the principle of health, economy, and environmental protection, GCB investigated and researched multiple energy-saving furnace products by consulting technical experts. We chose three companies to produce energy-saving furnaces for thermal efficiency analysis, third-party inspection, and field investigation before finally choosingGansu Xinong Energy Company's cutting-edge energy-saving furnace. To further promote energy-saving stoves in Nuanshui Village, GCB adopted a participatory working method by organizing three community awareness discussions alongside a community women's group covering the management and distribution plan of the community public fund. In June 2020, GCB invited women representatives and village cadres of Nuanshui Village to visit the Gansu Xinnong Energy Company inLintao for a field study. The village representatives actively promoted the new stove technology to other farmers after returning to the village. As a result,124 farmers in Nuanshui Village signed up for the energy-saving furnace renovation. On October 13, all 124 sets of energy-saving stoves were delivered to Nuanshui Village. The technical staff of Gansu Xinnong Energy Company, with help from Professor Zhou Yuguang from the College of Engineering of ChinaAgricultural University, provided on-site training for villagers, sending warmth to Nuanshui Village before the first snowfall in winter. The project was well received by our communities. We will continue to follow up on the use of energy-saving furnaces and evaluate the warming and energy-saving effect in the later period.

To further enhance community cohesion and enrich community cultural life, GCB organized various public welfare activities for women and children in the community. Following the implementation of the energy-efficient stoves, the community women's group convened to discuss the rest of the community public fund. The community group decided to purchase cotton slippers, notebooks, and scarves as New Year gifts for the elderly, children, and women, respectively. In addition, GCB organized visits to villages in Lintao and Longxi for women representatives to carry out exchange activities in livelihood development. Through the public welfare crowdfunding platform, GCB raised money to fund nutritious lunches for 43 students and 8teachers at Nuanshui Primary School. Additionally, GCB will continue to visit and accompany the community children to carry out various recreational activities, including community movie nights, reading picture books, sports games, etc.

In May and August 2020, GCB advanced the pesticide bottle and recyclable waste collection activities in Nuanshui Village. We mobilized senior children and women's group members to collect a total of 4,942 beer bottles,1,393 plastic beverage bottles, 1,525 cans, 331 pounds of cardboard boxes, 428pesticide bottles, and 143 pesticide bags. Thanks to these events, villagers are gradually understanding the benefits of recycling while reducing the litter of hazardous waste. Through the leadership of GCB, students from NuanshuiVillage also conducted regular community litter cleanups and "spring protection" activities. These student volunteers later promoted the idea of "Love Nuanshui Spring, Don't Litter" to their neighbor villagers. In addition, we carried out waste sorting activities and eco-toilet training inNuanshui Village to guide farmers to classify and put away their daily household waste.

Through a series of regular environmental protection actions and publicity and training work, the view of Nuanshui Village has been greatly changed, and the villagers' environmental awareness has been greatly enhanced. We hope that in the future, under the strategy of rural revitalization, Nuanshui Village will become a beautiful and livable new countryside.

2.2 Weigou River sub-basin tea production and toilet sewage surface source pollution investigation and reduction project

The project was implemented in Chayuan Village, Zhongmiao Town, Longnan Wen County, Gansu province. The Chayuan Village is located along the Weigou River, a tributary of the Bailong River (Bailong River is a first-class tributary of the Jialing River and a second-class tributary of the Yangtze River). Additionally, Chayuan Village is in the experimental area of the Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve, backed by the core area. Therefore, the waters and local ecology of Chayuan Village carry great significance and value. We hope to establish a zero-waste community in the WenCounty Water Source Protection Zone in this project. Through an innovative model of cooperation between villagers, the public, and social organizations, we can reduce garbage and sewage at the source of the Yangtze River and achieve comprehensive environmental management alongside sustainable community development.

Chayuan Village grows tea as its main source of income, and villagers inform us that it is a regular practice to use pesticides and fertilizers. Therefore, in July 2020, with the help of staff and volunteers, GCB carried out a survey on the use of pesticides and fertilizers in tea production. We randomly visited 20 farmers among 50 households in the three existing communities in Cha Yuan village. The survey captured the planting area, the type of crops planted, the varieties, the quantity and time of fertilizers and pesticides used, the pests targeted, and more. From this survey we found that the average use of chemical fertilizer (urea, compound fertilizer, etc.) per Chinese acre of tea garden in our surveyed villages was29 kg. The use of pesticides per acre of tea garden (undiluted, including herbicides, insecticides, etc.) was 204 ml. As a result, across a total of 1092Chinese acres of tea plantations, farmers use roughly 32 tons of fertilizer and222 liters of pesticides per year. These findings serve as baseline data for community pesticide and fertilizer reduction initiatives and evaluations of pesticide and fertilizer reduction effectiveness.

For the abandoned pesticide bottles, GCB specially ordered two 120-liter iron garbage cans (marked "hazardous waste") from Lanzhou and placed them in the Masangba community and tea garden community of the Chayuan Village, where a select community member oversaw their use. We then publicized and encouraged villagers to send pesticide bottles to the recycling point and saw immediate results: some villagers sent in their own pesticide waste and took the initiative to pick up the previously discarded pesticide bottles from fields near the water. By the end of December, GCB collected a total of nearly 3,628pesticide bottles and many pesticide bags in Chayuan Village. Thanks to this project, GCB and village partners achieved the full recycling of pesticide waste packaging while clearing pesticide bottles and other hazardous waste from years left in the past. These efforts greatly preserve our natural environment while bringing pesticide-specific waste to almost net zero.

Our observations found that Chayuan Villageoriginally discharged waste directly into local bodies of water, a practice that can pollute the water source of the Weigou River. To further investigate this issue, GCB sampled and tested both natural bodies of water bodies and the tap water of Chayuan Village. The monitoring results showed that the water samples from the natural water bodies COD and NH4-N could reach the tier I standard limit of surface water. Additionally, TP reached the tier II standard limit of surface water, and TN met the limit of tier III surface water. To further improve the surface source pollution of the sewage in Chayuan Village, we contacted technical experts to design two different toilet renovations, each with an accompanying artificial wetland program. We then set up example households in the Chayuan Village to model these new systems. In October 2020, project staff and community demonstration households started toilet renovation together by providing project training, technical support, and financial assistance. In December, the construction of both septic tanks and artificial wetland ponds was completed.

In November 2020, to further reduce the pesticides and fertilizers used by farmers to grow tea, GCB held eco-tea training and pesticide usage reduction meetings with 51 community representatives. Through training and participant discussion, the villagers expressed their willingness to gradually reduce their use of pesticides and fertilizers to cultivate tea more sustainably. Out meeting reached a consensus to reduce the use of pesticides by 30% in 2021. In terms of developing ecological tea technology, participants contributed their own invaluable practical experiences, such as using oil withers after oil extraction as organic fertilizer, traditional methods of biological pest control, and more. In terms of the ecological tea market, our participants agreed to process and sell the tea with pesticides and fertilizers separately from tea without pesticides and fertilizers. Additionally, they agreed to prioritize selling ecological tea to tourists who visit the Chayuan Village as part of various eco-tourism programs.

GCB also conducted activities related to ecological conservation in the community, such as exchange sessions and handmade soap-making activities. On the one hand, community cultural activities enriched the spare time activities of women in the community and increased individual exchange. On the other hand, it also helped community members pay more attention to the environment and long-term community development. These handmade products represent a possible future income-supplementing activity for women.

This series of research activities also fully mobilized social resources, including high school students returning from overseas and Beijing and college students majoring in social working. These students made full use of what they had learned in school to complete their research tasks while also improving their learning ability and professional standards. They brought what they saw and heard in the project community to their own wider communities while calling on fellow students and their families to participate in environmental protection. Both our participant high school students are taking Gaokao in 2021 and have coincidentally enrolled in majors related to environmental protection.

2.3 Maqu Grassland Conservation and Eco-tourism Experience Project

2020 marks the 15th year of GCB's concern for the ecology and environment of the Maqu grasslands, the 10th year of community-based sustainable development projects targeting ecological and environmental protection in the Kaersi community of the Awangcang Township, and the 5th year of organizing grassland ecotourism. Over the past ten years, GCB has gone from organizing ecological study-tours for university students, community environmental education, and developing local teaching materials to promoting community participation in the co-management of natural resources, establishing community pastoral cooperatives, and enhancing the participation of local herders–especially women and children–in public affairs. By supporting herding communities to provide experiential ecotourism activities, we hope to explore a sustainable development model for economic community development alongside pursuing the ecological goals of restoring grassland vegetation while protecting the environment.

The current trajectory of 2020 has changed due to the pandemic as many public welfare projects have been stalled. However, GCB is still persistently focusing on environmental protection in the Maqu grassland and carrying out ecotourism in earnest. Before the official recruitment, GCB staff discussed the preparatory reception camp services for the eco-tour with our herder communities. We procured new quilts, lined the tents with rain-proof cloth, and supplied hot water in kettles while confirming all necessary details before preparing our eco-tour reception. Following these talks, we finally started recruiting campers for the eco-tour from the public. For this year's ecotourism project, GCB conducted five sessions in Maqu, including 4 experience camps of 4 days and 3 nights and one in-depth social practice camp of 8 days and 7 nights. In addition to the publicity and recruitment process on GCB's communication platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and our website, we also joined hands with other public welfare organizations and volunteers to help promote the camp on their social media platforms. As a result, we received 78 application questionnaires, and 95people finally participated in the camp, coming from Guangdong, Hunan, Anhui, Shanghai, Beijing, Gansu, Chongqing, and other provinces and cities. Our camp drew interest from all age groups, with our applicants ranging from 3 to 72years in age. Most of them enrolled as teams of 6-12 years old children accompanied by a parent. The practice campers are all 10 years old or older and attend independently, with parents leaving the camp after drop-off or acting only as camp observers.

The immersive experience during the ecotourism camp put the campers in the grasslands and further enhanced the mutual understanding between people and the environment. By understanding the sandification situation along the Yellow River, getting to know flora and fauna on the grassland, examining the river, cleaning the wetlands, investigating the degradation of the grassland, and collecting cow dung to produce clean energy, we learned about the environmental problems of Maqu and the current state of environmental protection. Our campers experienced the Tibetan customs and nomadic culture by visiting herders' homes, eating Tibetan meals such as tsampa and Tibetan buns, wearing Tibetan robes, riding horses, praying for blessings by simm