| Abstract |
It is generally acknowledged that perceptions
and attitudes regarding the environment are key determinants
of the trajectory of environmental management. Nowhere, perhaps,
is the evolution of such perceptions and attitudes so important
as in China, where rapid industrialization, poor environmental
conditions, and decades of isolation from the global environmental
movement have created a great need for environmental education
and more aggressive environmental management. To gauge the current
status of public perceptions and attitudes regarding environment
in China, we collected and reviewed over a dozen public surveys
of environmental awareness conducted in China in the 1990s.
We analyzed how knowledge and value variables vary with demographic,
economic, and geographic variables. We also gained a sense of
the state of Chinese survey methods, which is quite mixed. Our
project included a workshop held in Beijing in October 1997 for
practitioners and users of environmental surveys. To date, this
project has produced a book (in Chinese, co-funded by the Chinese
Environmental Education Foundation) containing edited versions
of the October '97 workshop papers, as well as a synthesis chapter
analyzing important themes and detailing the challenges of measuring
and interpreting perceptions and attitudes in China. A companion
paper in English is in preparation. |