The Forum on Sustainable Development in Western China and Annual Meeting of the International Fund for China's Environment (IFCE) was held on November 19, in Washington DC. The Forum participates called for paying more attention on protecting ecological environment while developing western China.

Around 70 people from US governmental agencies, Chinese Embassy, international agencies and NGOs attended the event. A dozen of media including CCTV, Phoenix TV, Xinhua News, Chinese News Agencies, etc. covered the event.

Mr. John Turner, the assistant Secretary of State of US for environment, ocean and science, addressed at the Forum. He praised the achievements China made in environmental remediation in the western region and said that US is willing to cooperate in sustainable development in western China. Mr. Jie Xu, the science counselor of the Chinese Embassy welcomed Mr. Turner's comments. He told the audience that Chinese government invited 260 billion yuan in developing western China and of them, 50 billion were used in environmental protection and ecological restoration.

Dr. Ping He gave a report on IFCE's development in the past six years and talked about the future focuses. Since established in 1996, IFCE has effectively implemented a series of solid projects in NGOS support, tech exchanges, public education and policy advising and became one of the most active international NGOs in China's environmental protection and resources conservation. He pointed out that three key factors attributed to IFCE's success, which are minimum langrage and cultural barriers, professional background, and dedicated staff and volunteers. The future focuses of IFCE are to support NGOs development in China and to support sustainable development in western China.

Mr. Lester Brown gave keynote speech and he talked about the impact on foods due to falling water tables and expanding deserts in western China. He called for people's attention on increasing water productivity. Restoring vegetation, using more efficient watering technique and choosing alternative crops in dry regions are proved effective.

The feature speaker, Dr. Wang, Tao, the chief scientist of the Chinese national key project on desertification control, gave a presentation on desertification process, monitoring and control in north China. He said the speed of desertification is increasing due to extensive human activities. In 90's, China lost averagely 3600 km² per year, the size of a medium size county. The direct lose is 54 billion yuan per year. Chinese government has invested much more than before to control the desertification. Around 200 billion yuan will be invested in desertification control over next ten years. The main measures are returning land to forests and grasses, planting more trees and introducing advanced techniques, etc.

At the panel discussion, Dr. Brian Murphy of Virginia Tech talked about fishery restoration in Cao Hai Nature Reserve of Guizhou, John Spears of the International Center for Sustainable Development discussed the development of ecological villages in Sichuan, Jenny Springer of WWF introduced their activities in forest restoration in upper Yangtze and Judy Mills of Conservation International present the plan of the Critical Ecological Partnership Fund in China.

At the event, two awards were given by the board for their significant contribution to IFCE's development: Mr. Lester Brown for Excellence Advisory Award and Dr. Ping He for Excellence Service Award.

The main sponsors for the event are Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. and AEPCO Inc. Other sponsors include Triway Enterprise, US China Business Association, Zhang Xianzheng Law Firm, Wang Jinfan Insurance Firm, Zhang Runnan Law Firm, AEPA, and Wen's Foods Inc. Individual sponsors include Vincent Zhang, Rei Liu, Zhengdong Liu,

Li Yingming, Yang Fan, Yang Weiming, Michael Leung, Wang Shixiang and Joe Ji.