Our next big chance to work with China

The vast country wants help to fix its environment fast, says Donald Coventry

FUTURISTS have lined up to talk about the next big thing, some of which have come to fruition, others not.

The “Our Future World, Global megatrends that will change the way we live” developed by the CSIRO looks at six key trends it feels will shape our world.

Three are potentially particularly relevant to Tasmania.

These are on the depletion of natural resources: “More from Less”; environmental damage and extinctions: “Going, going … Gone?”; and the increasing economic power of Asia, particularly China: “The Silk Road.”

We have been developing and depleting natural resources including soils, forests, fisheries, waterways, fossil fuels to name a few.

This has enabled us to increase our population, to pollute nearly every aspect of our environment and to consume our physical resources, including energy, to the point where diminishing marginal returns means we must run faster to achieve much less.

It has built enormous benefits in the development of complex civilisations, giving us (at least in affluent economies) medicine, comfort, entertainment and safety. It has enabled us to build an economic ecosystem within the natural one, a parasitic entity feeding off its host. I am part of it and I contribute to it.

This is nowhere more obvious than in China where to build an economy and feed a population of 1.4 billion China has virtually destroyed whole ecosystems and the services they offer.

In Australia, even in Tasmania, we are doing the same, at a slower rate. It is less obvious, whereas in China the waterways are green and you can almost carve the air. It is then no wonder that China’s President Xi has rallied the people of China to respond, to build what he describes as an “ecological civilisation”. Wikipedia defines it as implying that “the changes required in response to global climate disruption are so extensive as to represent another form of human civilisation, one based on ecological principles”.

“Ecological civilisation” is a synthesis of economic, educational, political, agricultural and other societal reforms toward sustainability.” In President Xi’s three-hour speech at the recent National CPC Con-- gress he mentioned the environment more times than he did the economy.

In November, NRM South hosted a visit by a delegation from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), China’s largest agricultural research organisation influencing all aspects of agriculture and by association the environment in China. The Academy will deliver many of the environmental reforms. NRM South over 18 months has built a very strong relationship with CAAS out of President Xi’s visit to Hobart in 2014. The visit by the head of CAAS, Professor Tang Huajun, in November to sign MOUs with NRM South and University of Tasmania was a significant development in a constructive relationship with China.

This will lead to the First Australia-China Sustainable Agricultural Technology Forum in April next year when CAAS researchers visit Hobart and work with Australian researchers and practitioners to develop partnerships in Tasmania and China on ecological restoration.

China must fix its environment. They have no option. They will do it on a massive scale. They will seek assistance to do so.

They will work with and use those with whom they have established trusted working relationships. NRM South’s initiative will position those involved in a best position to work with China to assist them to build skills, to deliver services and achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for environments in Tasmania, Australia and China.

This will be the next big ‘industrial revolution’ on a scale that is global. Tasmania has the opportunity to gain a front seat in that development.

It could lead the delivery of agricultural and environmental services into China.

The economic, trade and brand benefits would be very significant for Tasmania.

Imagine a Tasmania where ecology and ecological services became the driver of a significant part of our economic activity and what could flow in benefits when that becomes your intellectual and economic power source.

It is a business opportunity of this century. I wonder if we are good for it?