The State of the Environment in Asia

2002/2003

In December 1977 we published the first in this series of NGO-oriented reports on Asia's environment, Ajia Kankyo Hakusho 1997/98. This was published in English by Springer-Verlag as The State o/the Environment in Asia 1999/2000. Although only a few years have passed since then, Asia has seen tumultuous changes in the political, economic, social, environmental, and other domains, as well as a number of prominerit trends that could be regarded as harbingers of the new century. China, for instance, could henceforth decisively affect the evolution of environmental problems not only in Asia, but across the entire globe. Yet Chinese concern for and initiatives on pollution and environmental damage have increased more quickly than could have been anticipated just a few years ago. And on Taiwan, where a Democratic Progressive Party president was elected over the long-ruling Nationalist Party, an attorney who has cooperated with our pollution surveys for a decade, Hsieh Chang-ting, became mayor of Taiwan's largest heavy and chemical industry city of Kaohsiung, where he has begun a "Green Revolution. " On the Ko­ rean Peninsula, which has for many years endured the division of its people, as well as political and military tensions, there are the beginnings of a new North-South dialog. These changes are all welcome to those of us who wish to see new advances in environmental cooperation throughout Asia.