China Trails 2020

A research notebook exploring directions of change in Chinese approaches to creating experiences in nature. ”Nature” is as much a cultural construct as the city, and has been central to Chinese medicine, art, religion, and politics for several thousand years.

The future of Chinese nature is at a critical juncture. Economic development and climate change offer new threats and possibilities to the organization of natural experiences for humans.

My longterm goal with this research is to map the people, places, institutions, and issues that would have to be knit together to create a sort of "Chinese Appalachian Trail." Such a trail system would preserve land for hiking and walking and link (often historic) human trails across multiple provinces. It would integrate a variety of cultural, scientific, and commercial projects at multiple scales, from local to national.

Lyn Jeffery, Director, Technology Horizons Program, Institute for the Future
contact: ljeffery@iftf.org
Almost all of the national parks, ecological preserves, and scenic areas are controlled financially by tourism development companies.
» On the Yak trail in Southwest China… Rectified.name 正名
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» On the Yak trail in Southwest China… Rectified.name 正名 →
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Human Dimensions of Global Change: Specialty Group of Association of American Geographers →

Links to newsletters and annual reports. Tons of good info on current research and projects.

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An Environmental Performance Index includes environmental indicators that are (1) normalized by proximity to policy targets (with 100 representing at or above the target and 0 representing farthest from the target), (2) grouped into relevant policy categories, and (3) aggregated into an overall index with or without weighting. These indicators provide a gauge at any relevant scale – nation, province, or city – of how close different jurisdictions are to established environmental policy goals. The proximity-to-target methodology facilitates comparisons between geographic entities (districts, cities, provinces, or nations) as well as analysis of how provinces and the country as a whole perform on each policy issue.
Impressive proposed policy tool (pdf, super long so watch out) for Chinese government to evaluate environmental status by province, conducted by a team of researchers at Yale University, Columbia University, City University of Hong Kong and Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning. 
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Links to officers, newsletters, and listserv

Links to officers, newsletters, and listserv

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A magisterial study of the territorial competition that ignites this process in core cities like Shanghai, as well as the urban fringes and (most wrenchingly) the rural hinterlands. Reform era decentralization and market restructuring initiated a scramble for authority over profitable redevelopment.
Oxford University Press: The Great Urban Transformation: You-tien Hsing
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My current project concerns the cultural and environmental politics in Northwestern China.
You-Tien Hsing - Geography at Berkeley
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About « NextNature.net →

A project about “nature’s brand image,” says Bruce Sterling, who’s part of the large group of people who are doing this amazing, amazing work. 

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PPT turned into video, showing high-altitude footpath being built in 2011 on the side of a vertical wall on Mount Shifou in Hunan Province. There must be some kind of crazy steep tourism movement in Hunan, judging from the glass-bottomed walkway built on the edge of the province’s Tianmen Mountain. This is one of the things I love about Chinese tourism: it’s sheer fun and awe with less attention paid to dangerous liabilities. Probably this will all change in the next few decades, but for now, you can do things in wild places that you would never be allowed to do in the U.S. (thanks Kim and Sean!)

PPT turned into video, showing high-altitude footpath being built in 2011 on the side of a vertical wall on Mount Shifou in Hunan Province. There must be some kind of crazy steep tourism movement in Hunan, judging from the glass-bottomed walkway built on the edge of the province’s Tianmen Mountain. This is one of the things I love about Chinese tourism: it’s sheer fun and awe with less attention paid to dangerous liabilities. Probably this will all change in the next few decades, but for now, you can do things in wild places that you would never be allowed to do in the U.S. (thanks Kim and Sean!)

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“Re-tracing the many branches of the Road, photographer and writer Michael Freeman spent two years compiling this remarkable visual record, from the tea mountains of southern Ynnan and Sichuan to Tibet and beyond. Collaborating on this fascinating account, ethnobotanist Selena Ahmed’s description of tea and bio-cultural diversity in the region draws on her original doctoral research.”

“Re-tracing the many branches of the Road, photographer and writer Michael Freeman spent two years compiling this remarkable visual record, from the tea mountains of southern Ynnan and Sichuan to Tibet and beyond. Collaborating on this fascinating account, ethnobotanist Selena Ahmed’s description of tea and bio-cultural diversity in the region draws on her original doctoral research.”

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