09-01 / 2021
1342
To Be Who You Are: Stories from over 10 years at
Friends of Nature
After more than ten years of "symbiosis" with Friends of Nature, Zhang Boju described their relationship as "portraying each other and shaping each other."
Friends of Nature’s mission
is to "build a platform for the public to participate in environmental
protection, so that the awareness of environmental protection can be deeply
rooted in the hearts of the people and transformed into conscious
actions". As soon as Zhang Boju took office, he made a more focused strategic
plan, and prioritized his efforts on the growth and action of green citizens,
environmental education, and environmental rule of law. Cultivating green
citizens and transforming the slogan of environmental protection into conscious
actions in life requires “the scene that affects the most repetitive actions of
residents”. Taking out the garbage, cooking, turning on the air conditioner,
using water... these repetitive family life situations have become an important
path for Friends of Nature to promote energy conservation, emission reduction,
and green life.
Friends of Nature has spent
five or six years supporting dozens of households in Beijing and Shanghai to
carry out low-carbon renovations, and has accumulated "almost 100
renovation technologies" in reducing energy consumption, water recycling,
organic composting, and thermal insulation." In this process, many
low-carbon families have become "star households" that have received
media attention." “This project is easy to be continued. As a philanthropic
project, it has a sense of scene, a story, and its energy-saving effect can be
quantified." Zhang Boju said, "The budget and use of funds can be
done very well, and social influence can also be interpreted a lot." But even
if we have made the project look good, does it mean that the effect must be
good? Zhang Boju made an "uncomfortable" thinking, and felt a trend
that he did not like—people gradually learned a set of particularly strong
self-interpretation skills, which can interpret everything with special social
value and public meaning.
Chinese low-carbon families going
to the Paris Climate Conference for sharing, can be interpreted as
"bringing the green actions of Chinese families to the stage of the United
Nations". "This matter can be described flamboyantly, slick reports
can be written, and the sponsors will also be satisfied", but Zhang Boju
always feels unsure. Can this really encourage more public actions? How much
curable influence is there? There is a question mark in his heart. Since then,
from the perspective of expanding influence and developing action, Friends of
Nature has converted the project to help residents transform low-carbon homes
into a pavilion that integrates many low-carbon transformation technologies.
Zhang Boju described it as a model house of low-carbon life.
It is important to promote
more and more actions, and it is a "hard battle" to open up a broader
space for action. "Environmental protection is not only about picking up
garbage and conducting nature education, but also improving water pollution,
soil pollution and ecological damage." Zhang Boju believes that
environmental organizations need to participate in environmental litigation and
policy advocacy to increase confidence and hope, "because the sense of
hope is a very precious thing in this era.” In response to the natural forest
destruction case in Nanping, Fujian, Friends of Nature initiated an
environmental lawsuit and eventually won the lawsuit. This changed the illegal
cost of the mining company from an administrative penalty of 50,000 yuan to “more
than 2 million yuan of compensation and repair". Afterwards, a mine owner
said to Zhang Boju, "After this case, if we talk about illegally developing
forests, the cost in our minds is not only 50,000 yuan."
