Arrayed against this natural beauty and biological importance are equally dramatic problems . To begin with, China's 1.2 billion souls account for a fifth of the world's population , but the nation encompasses less than one tenth of the world's arable land. Furthermore, almost the entire population lives in the well-watered eastern half of the country, where virtually every centimetre of farmland has been developed. Indeed, China has very little land that has not been altered in some way by man. Any attempts at sustainable development are complicated by the sheer size of the population relative to available resources; forests and wetlands, grasslands and agricultural fields are stretched beyond the limits of sustainable production. Dramatic growth in the economy and the continuing need to raise living standards for some of Asia's poorest people means that urban areas face a similar crisis: coal dust, untreated factory emissions, vehicle exhaust and wind-blown desert sand make Chinese cities some of the most polluted on Earth; more than thirty percent of the nation's rivers are polluted and virtually all water in urban areas is heavily contaminated.

China's development has a direct impact both on Asia and the rest of the world. Plentiful coal resources make it a cheap fuel for meeting ever-growing power requirements, but is set to create one of the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions for any nation, and has already caused substantial acid rain fallout downwind on South Korea. The wildlife of neighbouring countries has also been affected by China's development, with populations often heavily exploited to supply the Chinese market. For example, tiger bones from India, Russia and Southeast Asia were sold legally as Chinese medicine until world pressure encouraged the government to outlaw the practice in December 1994. Fish, turtles, and sharks' fins however, are still legally imported in huge quantities from Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Daniel A. Viederman