The Chinese have become increasingly concerned about the environment as the country continues on its fast-track path of economic and social development.

Millions of volunteers are joining hands with a growing number of non-profit organizations and playing a bigger role in the environment protection drive that is taking shape throughout the nation.

"Helping nature, our unique home, by doing voluntary work is becoming a natural choice for more and more ordinary Chinese people," says Ding Yuanzhu, director of the Research Center for Volunteering and Welfare under Peking University.

"There is a growing recognition in China of the impact of civil participation and the benefits of volunteering," Ding says.

The news of some 100 volunteers collecting rubbish earlier this month on Mount Qomolangma, the world highest peak, has occupied many newspapers' headlines lately.

The volunteers called on visitors to leave nothing behind but their footprints and good memories.

In recent years, the waste and pollution on the mountain has been growing by 45 tons annually. To prevent further pollution, the group cleared waste left on the area higher than 6,500 meters above sea level.

Environmental volunteers have left their footprints in recent years in the most remote and harsh areas where lie many natural reserves and protection zones.

Every year since 2002, the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province home to the endangered Tibetan antelope has seen dozens of volunteers arriving from other parts of the country to provide a helping hand with conservation.

More than 150 volunteers, aged from 18 to 45, have participated in patrols, checking passing vehicles for evidence of poaching, and distributing antelope protection handbooks to locals during their month-long voluntary work in the past two years, says Cai Ga, director of the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve Administration.

Chen Xiaomin, 44, a volunteer from east China's Jiangxi Province, says: "We hope that our work can increase public awareness of the need to protect the environment and endangered animals."

Along with nine other volunteers from other parts of the country, Chen has just finished a one-month voluntary service stint with the reserve in late June, often working in protection stations more than 4,700 meters above sea level.

Living conditions there are harsh. Vegetables and meat are all sent from Golmud, a city 430 kilometers away, Chen explains.

Although they are faced with a hard life, many Chinese volunteers are determined to continue their invaluable work.

Ding from Peking University says to better serve nature, volunteers need to learn how to protect themselves and acquire more survival skills.

"A great deal remains to be done if volunteering is to achieve its potential including fund raising and program development," Ding adds.

Many non-governmental and non-profit organizations, including some overseas organizations, are responding to this urgent need.

The US-based Pacific Environment and Global Green Grants Fund provide small grants to over 50 grassroots organizations around China annually.

"We aim to bring Chinese environmental activists together to learn from each other's experiences and to develop cooperative campaigns, maximizing the groups' environmental impact," said Wen Bo, China director of Pacific Environment.

"College students are full of passion and always eager to become environmental volunteers, but they need guidance and training from professional environmentalists and green organizations," Wen says.

It is reported that more than 1 million students from more than 100 universities and colleges across the country have become volunteers to protect the environment.

Students at the Beijing Forestry University introduced a garbage recycling system to their dormitories two years ago, the first of its kind on campus in China.

In Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, students have taken sample water from different sections of the polluted Qinhuai River which runs through the city, and have shown them to local residents to promote environmental protection awareness.

Students at Fudan University in Shanghai, Lanzhou University in northwest China's Gansu Province, and elsewhere helped local people fill out cards committing themselves to help protect the environment.

These environmentalists are having an immense impact not only on China's ecological health, but also on Chinese society as a whole. As the country prepares for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which the capital has promised to be a "green" one, China's environmental community is at an important crossroads.

A recent survey conducted by the Peking University Volunteer Center suggests the estimated population of Chinese aged 18 and older, who volunteered their time, skills and energy, hit more than 769 million annually, helping improve their community and the environment.

(China Daily October 4, 2004)