Is China becoming a ‘Fast Food Nation’?

Just two decades ago, most people in China ate relatively low-fat meals and regularly rode their bicycles to get around. Obesity was extremely rare.

Fast forward to today: more and more people eat greasy street food or fast food such as KFC and McDonald’s and fewer have the time or energy to get some exercise. The result: China now has 19 million clinically obese citizens, with that number growing by 30 to 50 percent each year, according to a recent PBS report (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/06/reporters-notebook-obesity-rising-in-china.html).

Photo: Xinhua / Sadat

A group of food-conscious individuals is hoping to promote the idea of healthier eating habits this weekend in Beijing, with Slow Food Saturday at The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu.

The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu, one of our preferred hotels in Beijing and a winner of our Best of China Awards 2010, has been a local pioneer in championing Slow Food for its clients and local community residents. As a sustainable tourism enterprise that offers dining, lodging, and meeting solutions in unique settings just an hour from downtown Beijing, the boutique hotel has redeployed existing buildings to new uses, created local jobs, supported other local businesses, grown their own vegetables and fruits while procuring other foods locally and made almost everything fresh and homemade on their premises.

This Saturday, September 4, in conjunction with the Slow Food Beijing Convivium, The Schoolhouse will put on a day of food, cooking, biking and more in the neighboring Great Wall International Cultural Villages of Mutianyu, Beigou, Xinying, and Tianxianyu to celebrate cooking, sustainable practices, and local communities. For a full schedule and activities, visit their website (http://www.slowfoodsaturday.org).

At its recent biannual Board meeting, The Board of Directors of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) unanimously agreed to implement a new structure of TIES Board, with the new Advisory Board consisting of ecotourism experts and industry leaders, and the Governance Board, which focuses on administrative and managerial tasks related to the governance of the organization.

Within this new structure, the former Board of Directors voted in eleven new members to the Advisory Board: Deirdre Campbell (Owner, The Tartan Group), Richard Edwards (Director, Planeterra Foundation and Co-Chair, Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference), Shadia Garrison (Consultant, Writer, Project Manager), Palitha Gurusinghe (President, Sri Lanka Ecotourism Foundation), Ariane Janér (Co-Founder, EcoBrasil), Kimberly Lisagor (Journalist, Author), Rick MacLeod Farley (Principal Consultant, MacLeod Farley & Associates), Paul Radchenko (Tourism Development Planner, Government of Alberta, Canada), Albert Teo Chin Kion (Managing Director, Borneo Eco Tours), Annie Vanderwyk (Indigenous Business, Education & Research Partner, Youth Connections, and Principal Cultural Consultant, Wild Earth Expeditions), Mei Zhang (Founder, WildChina). Full list of current Advisory Board members and their bios can be found on the TIES Advisory Board page.

WildChina recently interviewed Ayako Ezaki, TIES’ Director of Communications, on Mei’s new board position, Advisory Board projects, and what the board hopes to accomplish in the future.

WildChina Travel: Why did TIES feel that Mei was a good choice for the Advisory Board?
Ayako Ezaki: One of the areas where TIES would like to become more actively engaged is ecotourism and sustainable tourism in the Asia Pacific region. We have a number of Association, Business, NGO as well as individual members based in the region, and over the years various initiatives have been taking place (for example, the Asia Pacific Ecotourism Network [APES]). With new Advisory Board members who are actively involved in ecotourism networks in the region, we feel that we will have increased opportunities in the coming years for membership, education and communication outreach, events and partnership building.

In addition, we are particularly pleased to work with Mei due to her strong business background and industry expertise. As Mei has been actively engaged in ecotourism, adventure travel and sustainable tourism arenas for a number of years. Many on TIES team, including Dr. Kelly Bricker, TIES chair, have had the opportunity to learn about her various achievements directly and indirectly.

WCT: What kind of work do you plan to do with the board?
AE: We are seeking to set up sub-committees within the Advisory Board that may address general and ongoing needs (e.g. public awareness, partnership) or work on specific tasks related to certain projects or assignments. One of the first tasks, therefore, is to identify key areas that will become sub-committee focus areas, such as Asia Pacific (regional activities and partnership initiatives to reach out to existing organizations in the Asia Pacific region, such as the Asia Pacific Ecotourism Society, and to collaborate with potential new members) and Voluntourism (exploring opportunities to disseminate information and resources about voluntourism and to encourage greater traveler and industry engagement).

We also hope to work with Advisory Board members to implement several new projects, focusing on key topics and issues such as: ecotourism and indigenous communities, sustainable community development, and ecotourism and wildlife conservation.

Many of TIES Advisory Board members have played roles on the program/speaker committee for the annual Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference (ESTC), and we hope to work with new Advisory Board members who are able to volunteer their time for the upcoming ESTC.

WCT: What does the board hope to accomplish in the next few years?
AE: The main goals of TIES Advisory Board are to support TIES mission and strengthen TIES initiatives by better representing our members’ needs and more effectively addressing current and emerging issues within the tourism industry. With a diverse group of global experts, we believe that TIES Advisory Board will be able to assist in positive development of the organization in terms of educational resources, community projects, and grassroots networking.

With new initiatives such as carbon offset options for clients, WildChina proud to join TIES in creating the future of sustainable tourism in China and beyond. See what Mei has to say about tourism in China, her role on the TIES Advisory Board, and questions she wants to answer about sustainable travel.

Read the entire TIES press release on new TIES Advisory Board members.

This Friday, February 5, will not be a regular work day for those of us at WildChina.

At the end of this week, we will be involved in our company annual off-site day. However, while in past years we have had company-wide meetings and events, we have changed our plan for this year.

Our new associates Derek, Cameron, Echo and Haiying have organized a day of service for WildChina at Bethel, “a not-for-profit organization that provides foster care, education and professional training for Chinese orphans who are blind or visually impaired.”

On Friday, we will be working at the foundation, located just outside of Beijing, to aid the orphans in constructing a greenhouse.

We are really looking forward to helping such a great organization that combines care and education for orphans with the ideas of sustainable community and environmental protection.

Stay tuned for a blog post on how our day of service went!

WildChina recently embarked on a series of initiatives to improve local practices in areas that we visit. This is the first of a three-part series examining efforts to improve life for those in rural Southwest China, and the technologies that enable a better standard of living.

Imagine a beautiful, rural, riverside village that serves as a living relic of China’s traditional agricultural history. Then imagine the trash and pollution that clouts this image – unmanaged sewage, outdated farming practices, and unsanitary living conditions, to name a few.

In China’s poor rural communities, scenes like this are all too common. However, organizations such as the Chengdu Urban Rivers Association (CURA), a Sichuan-based NGO, are working to change this by building sustainable development practices in these communities from the ground up. In one such community, CURA hopes to make a model of sustainable development that can be applied to similar rural areas of China. WildChina recently had the exciting opportunity to bring a group of school children from Beijing to engage in this endeavor, specifically to conduct water testing as well as improve water and sanitation technologies.

A new eco-toilet facility, built by students on WildChina's service learning trip to Anlong, Sichuan province.

Located along the banks of the Zou Ma River (one of the Fu-Nan Rivers) near Chengdu, Anlong was once a community plagued by severe water pollution as a result of livestock, chemical fertilizer, and more. Although efforts in the mid-1990s cleaned up the rivers to some degree, the Fu-Nan Rivers Comprehensive Revitalization Project was not entirely effective. As such, communities like Anlong still needed help to rid themselves of pollution and contamination.

CURA has been working with the Anlong community to develop sustainable practices for farming, sanitation, and development. 

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