Dave Bromwich joined 2400 others, including international participants from 35 countries, in Guizhou province, July 6-9 for the 10th annual conference in the Eco Forum Global series.
The theme was ‘Embracing a new era of Eco-civilisation’. At the opening ceremony, with an endorsement from Xi Jinping stressing the importance of the conference read out, key note speakers included vice premier Madam Sun Chunlan, and ex-prime ministers of Iceland, Belgium and Japan. There was a common theme of harmony between man and nature, and acclamation of the leadership role China is taking in environmental sustainability and the transition to clean energy technologies.
There were several sub-forums. The one I attended was “green development with high priority of ecology” in which I gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Establishing a sustainable eco-society and alleviating poverty’, promoting the cooperative as an effective development tool (speech attached).
We also travelled to Xinyi county in the south west of Guizhou province, and visited an extensive eco-village development at ‘Wanfengling’ (10 thousand peaks and forest), where a model for sewage treatment was being purified through flow through a series of tiered plantings, with tourism as a key poverty reduction approach. In fact the number of karst peaks in this eco-village park area exceeded 10,000!
Guizhou province will continue to hold the Eco Global Annual Conference as an international meeting.
