Fresh focus

The CPPCC National Committee is reshuffled every five years. Its membership includes representatives of the CPC, noncommunist parties, mass organizations, ethnic groups and various parts of society.

As an important organ for multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the Party's leadership, the CPPCC members serve as advisers for government, legislative and judicial organs, and put forward proposals on major political and social issues.

Yang, a 70-year-old veteran forestry expert, has already served as a national political adviser for 10 years: a five-year term in the science and technology group during the 12th CPPCC National Committee and a further five years in the agriculture group during its successor.

Political advisers like Yang, engaged in the field of the environment and resources, used to be scattered across various groups, but they often took part in activities organized by work commissions on population, resources and the environment during recent CPPCC National Committees, he said.

Recent committees have had 10 work commissions focusing on different fields. The participants kept in touch with the different groups and organized members to help them perform their duties.

"Despite there being no such special group, the CPPCC and many political advisers paid great attention to environmental topics, and I can see that the number of environment-related proposals made by advisers has risen in recent years," Yang said.

During his 10 years' experience, he undertook many CPPCC-led surveys on environmental topics, and 60 percent of the 50 proposals he submitted were related to environmental protection, he said.

He remembers one proposal he made in 2014, when the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project was about to start operations to provide 70 percent of the water in Beijing, all the water in Tianjin and a percentage in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province.

To ensure the correct quantity and good quality of the water sent to the northern cities, the protection of forests with water conservation capabilities along the Yangtze River became an urgent task. However, local people also had concerns that the efforts might also affect them as they couldn't build factories upstream that might pollute the water.

During a 10-day-plus survey, Yang spoke with officials, businesspeople and local people living around many upstream reservoirs to learn about their difficulties. Then, he made suggestions related to protection of the forests and compensation for the people involved.

"During the survey, we could reflect the various voices from the grassroots to the central government for their reference," he said, adding that the 2014 proposal contributed to later policies.

In addition to those achievements, Yang said that launching a participating group of advisers on the environment and natural resources will make the work go even more smoothly.

He added that preparatory work for the group's launch began during the 13th CPPCC National Committee, whose term will end at this year's gathering.

In 2019, the CPC leadership issued a document on improving the work of the CPPCC, requiring it to optimize its groups to become more representative, so they could better hear and reflect different voices and appeals to the Party and the government.

In August 2020, the 13th CPPCC National Committee's work commission on population, resources and the environment added 40 new members from the environment and resources fields, paving the way for the launch of the new group.

"Actively promoting the follow-up work on the creation of a group on resources and the environment" was written in the commission's work report on population, resources and the environment in 2020, according to Yang.