The state of the public access to environmental justice
in the province of Guizhou, China
Presenting the results of the EGP-Guizhou Baseline Study on Environmental Justice

While 91% of the public in Guizhou Province are concerned about environmental problems, only 33% of the public state to have a good or moderate understanding of environmental laws and regulations and 39% of the public do not know how to protect their environmental rights if suffering from environmental pollution or damages.

Among the 6% of the public who have taken measures to protect their environmental rights, many are confronted with such difficulties as insufficient enforcement and limited own knowledge of environmental laws and rights, while even more experienced limited support of public authorities.

On the other hand, judicial and administrative organs in Guizhou regularly encounter difficulties in achieving environmental justice, such as an insufficient number of enforcement staff and a large disparity between the small number of environmental civil cases and massive environmental complaints.

These are some of the results of a baseline study carried out by EGP-Guizhou: Improving Access to Environmental Justice to Protect People’s Environmental Rights in Guizhou Province. The study was carried out between December 2012 - April 2013 and included a questionnaire among the public, a literature study and interviews with governmental officials, judicial officials, lawyers and representatives from NGO’s.

- The key to increasing environmental justice for the people of Guizhou is to raise their awareness and ability of their environmental rights, while simultaneously building know-how within local governmental institutions, law firms, non-governmental institutions and enterprises, says Mikael Olshammar, project leader at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute. The aim of this project is to increase the awareness and capacity of victims of environmental pollution and relevant target groups and to create of a strong base for good environmental governance.

EGP-Guizhou is one of 15 local partnership projects within the EU-China Environmental Governance Programme (EGP), a European Commission funded program in the field of environmental governance implemented in cooperation with the Chinese government. The EGP-Guizhou project brings together the All-China Environment Federation (ACEF), the Guizhou International Cooperation Centre for Environmental Protection (GZICCEP) and the Guiyang Public Environmental Education Centre (GPEEC) with international experts from the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) with the purpose of strengthening the public’s access to environmental justice and will be implemented in Guizhou Province between 2012 – 2014.

For more information, please contact:
Mr. Mikael Olshammar, Project Team Leader, IVL, tel. +46 8-598 563 08, e-mail: mikael.olshammar@ivl.se
Ms. Gao Xiaoyi, ACEF, tel +86 10 512 666 65, e-mail: gaoxiaoyi@www.chipsreunion.com
Mr. Zheng Mingjie GZICCEP, tel + 86 851 557 7314, e-mail: epbfaec@163.com
Mr Huang Chengde Tel + 86 851 5840297, e-mail huangchengde@vip.163.com
Project website: www.egp-guizhou.com