Targeting polluters

Raised in a village called Fanling, Tian said she has many beautiful memories from her childhood.

"The village is at the foot of Taihang mountain and a tributary of the Yellow River runs through it," she said. "The scenery used to be really good and, some winters, wild geese would stay at a nearby lake."

As more factories moved into the area over the last two decades, the water in the village stream has turned black, while large numbers of villagers now suffer from illnesses caused by pollution, such as cancer, she said.

After meeting with staff from China's leading environmental NGOs in 2001, she decided to set up her own in Henan.

"There were already some environmental NGOs at that time but mostly based in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. I felt the rural areas also needed such organizations," said Tian.

Twelve months later, Xinxiang Environmental Protection Volunteers was ready for action. Its first target: river pollution in Henan.

Starting out with just a dozen volunteers, the group began its pollution survey in Xinxiang in 2003, creating a comprehensive "pollution map". Two years later, the project was expanded along the Yellow River.

The group now boasts more than 3,000 members, including farmers, students, and workers.

Every year, the self-funded volunteers spent several months on inspections of polluting factories. They took pictures of discharges from plants, collected water near sewage inflow points, tested them and sent the results to local environmental protection bureaus.

"We have helped close more than 100 polluting factories," said Tian proudly. "I have become a common enemy of these enterprises."

The name Tian Guirong is now notorious in Xinxiang and neighboring counties. Whenever a factory is reported for illegal discharging of pollutants, many people in the region automatically believe she was the one who turned them in.

However, such enmity dealt her a huge blow in 2008 when she lost an election to keep her job as head of Fanling village.

Tian had served in the post for three years, winning support in 2005 thanks to her concept of "building a green village". It was a hard-won opportunity to experiment with and exemplify her sustainable management beliefs at the grassroots level. She vetoed polluting projects, cleaned up waterways, built a "green corridor" with tree planting and established a special water supply plan to teach villagers to save water.

She thought she was helping to restore the old, beautiful village of her childhood, but was in the end voted out by villagers who wanted those polluting enterprises.

"I had a good cry when I learned the result. Maybe I need to change some of my methods," she said.

The election defeat has allowed her to concentrate more on Xinxiang Environmental Protection Volunteers, which like most grassroots NGOs faces a constant fund-raising headache.

Over the past decade, Tian has invested 380,000 yuan ($55,000) of her own money into the organization. The only other funding it has received has come from several awards, including conservation and environmental grants from Ford, the automaker. Despite the hardships, she has never once contemplated giving up the fight.

"I hope to attract some enterprise members, which would be a way to sustain our funding, but of course they will have to live up to our environmental standards," she said.

Tian plans to launch a project to protect Taihang mountain this year. She claims some illegal cement plants are quarrying on the mountains and causing extensive damage to the ecology.

Tian Guirong, left, and a member from the Xinxiang Environmental Protection Volunteers, the NGO she set up in 2002, attempt to get water sample from a drainage outlet of a small pharmacy factory in Loucun, Henan province. [China Daily]