Establishment of

Chongqing Training Center

On behalf of IFCE president and IFCE BOD, Dr. Rei Liu, the Director of Project Dept. of IFCE, attended the opening ceremony of the "Training Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Management" and gave a lecture series on GIS applications in natural resources and environmental management in Chongqing, China from June 29 to July 4.

After almost two year's preparation, approved by China Ministry of Agriculture (CMA) and supported by the Chongqing Municipal Government and China Southwest Agricultural University (SWAU) , the opening ceremony of the Center was held on June 30. The Center was jointly established by IFCE, SWAU and Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) on the SWAU main campus Beibei, Chongqing. More than 50 people attended the ceremony. They were: Professor Xiang Zhonghuai, president of SWAU, Academian of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Dr. Zitan Chen, China Regional Manager of ESRI, Dr. Dennis Ojima, Senior Scientist of Colorado State University, the member of International Social Science/Earth Biosphere Committee. Other officials and scholars were from National Bureau of Foreign Experts, CMA, Chongqing Municipal Government, Chongqing People's Congress, Chongqing Bureau of Agriculture, Department of Forestry, Department of Environmental Protection, and etc. After the opening ceremony, the guests visited the training center and other research facilities in SWAU. The opening ceremony has been reported by the Chongqing Daily and local TV programs.

Following the opening ceremony, the first term of training was started. There were about 30 students in the first training class. They are local natural resource and environmental specialists and managers from Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. A quite few graduate students (MS and PhD) from SWAU were also crowed in the training classroom. Dr. Zitan Chen gave a lecture of the Development of GIS Software. Dr. Ojima gave a lecture of Natural Ecosystem and Modeling and Dr. Rei Liu gave a lecture of GIS and its Applications in the Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Followed these lectures other professors from SWAU gave lectures of different topics. The first training class was planned to last two weeks.

The Southwestern China locates in one of the most important areas in terms of natural resources and biodiversity in the world. This area will become more important since the Three Gorges Project (TGP), the largest water power plant project in the world is under construction, and the Chongqing City has become the forth largest Central Government managed municipality in China. The International Fund for China’s Environment (IFCE) and the Southwest Agricultural University (SWAU) recognized their mutual interests in improving environmental protection and natural resource management in this area, and agree to cooperate in establishing the Training Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Management in the Southwest Agricultural University in Chongqing, China. The training center will provide professional training on the latest natural resource management and University in Chongqing, China. The training center will provide professional training on the latest natural resource management and environmental analysis technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), etc., to the natural resource and environmental managers, specialists and scientists in this area. The training center will bring the scientists, resources and environmental managers in U.S. and China together to conduct research projects of their mutual interests through this center.