China Ocean Philanthropy Forum Haikou, China

December 2-5, 2015

China Blue Sustainability Institute

Mar 16, 2016

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Executive Summary

The First China Ocean Philanthropy Forum was convened smoothly on December 2 to 5,

2015, in Haikou, China. Initiated and hosted by non-government organizations, it was the

first nationwide forum focusing on ocean conservation and sustainability in China. The

forum attracted 95 institutions and organizations across Great China (including Taiwan and

Hong Kong), with over 150 participants.

After three months of preparation, with generous financial supports from the David and

Lucile Packard Foundation and the China Environmental Protection Foundation, the forum

made a great success in all aspects. The State Oceanic Administration, Hainan Provincial

Department of Environmental and Ecological Protection, Department of Ocean and Fisheries

and other authorities had kindly advised the organization committee. The forum was

accomplished by a joint effort of research institutes, enterprises and organizations, with

essential assistance from a number of Hainan-based local NGOs.

The forum agenda, with a diverse range of subjects and multi-sector interactions, was

applauded by most of participants. Twenty-one presentations across four panels, along with

five side-events (i.e. salon, beach cleanup, reception party, training workshop, and field trip)

and nine roundtable discussions were well attended by over 150 people. To encourage

grassroot NGOs’ participation, the Forum sponsored 25 representatives from 25 Chinese

NGOs, which significantly increased grassroot NGOs’ exposure to professional network and

colleagues.

The report aims to summarize the outputs and outcomes of the Forum, sharing lessons

learned and next steps that hopefully will encourage more participations and contribution

from all stakeholders relevant to ocean issues. This could also serve a guidance for

international foundations and NGOs who are actively seeking for partners in China to work

on ocean issues.

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1 Facts of the Forum

1.1 Background

Along with a fast growth of economy in China, the Chinese philanthropies have been

significantly developed over the past years. However, within over 30 billion CNY per year of

philanthropic investment, very little was spent on ocean. On the other hand, it is sad to

watch the coastal pollution and habitat loss being aggravated rapidly. This not only threatens

the marine ecosystem, but also severely impedes the development of a harmony China and

the world.

Chinese young NGOs have gradually turned their eyes to ocean. But most of them are

struggling with the shortness in marine knowledge and organization capacity. Most of

staff currently working in ocean-related NGOs in China do not have any trainings or

educational background in marine sciences. In addition, very little funding is available

for ocean conservation in China.

To enhance the communication among ocean related NGOs in China, and to raise public

attention on ocean sustainability issues, the first China Ocean Philanthropy Forum

(thereafter ‘the Forum’) was initiated by the China Blue Sustainability Institute

(thereafter ‘China Blue’) and the Shanghai Rendu Ocean NGO Development Center

(thereafter ‘Rendu’). The idea was proposed in August 2015, warmly received by many

grassroot NGOs in Hainan. Thus, it was scheduled to be held in Haikou in early

December of 2015. The Forum is the first platform in China that connects NGOs with

government, research institute and industry on ocean issues. We hope the Forum will

enhance public awareness of ocean sustainability, and encourage multi-stakeholder

collaboration to achieve sustainable development of ocean in China.

To ensure a pragmatic and problem-driven conference, questionnaires that investigate

current NGOs’ and other stakeholders’ needs for ocean philanthropic work were jointly

conducted by China Blue and Rendu. Through the Chinese most popular social-network

platform, WeChat, and emails, over 399 valid questionnaires were collected. The

feedbacks from questionnaire provided invaluable information to design and plan the

Forum. The forum agenda and side-events were then carefully planned.

The Forum was then co-hosted by the Hainan Tropical Ocean University, and jointly

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sponsored by the China Environmental Protection Foundation as well as the David and

Lucile Packard Foundation. The official website www.aihaiyang.org and WeChat official

account had broadcasted the news about the Forum. Many public media posted related

news before and during the forum.

1.2 Participants

The Forum received a lot of attention from a large number of government agencies,

including State Oceanic Administration (SOA), Ministry of Environmental Protection

(MEP), China Society of Fisheries (CSF), Department of Ocean and Fisheries of Hainan

Province, and Department of Environmental Protection of Hainan Province. The Forum

attracted nearly 100 international and local organizations across Great China (including

Taiwan and Hong Kong) (see Table 1), with over 150 participants. The organizations

include:

2 10 international environmental institutions (e.g. World Wide Fund (WWF), The

Nature Conservancy (TNC), Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), The

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Fauna & Flora International (FFI), and

Ocean Conservancy)

3 organizations from Hong Kong and Taiwan (e.g. Taiwan Environmental

Information Association and Kadoorie Conservation)

46 local organizations from inland China (e.g. He Yi Institute, Blue Ribbon

Ocean Conservation Society, University of Nature, Salmon Ecological

Environment Protection Association of Fuyuan County, Wanning Helecrab

Conservation Centre, and Shenzhen Blue Ocean Conservation Association)

17 governmental agencies and scientific research institutions (e.g. United

Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Publicity and Education Centre of

the State Oceanic Administration, Fishery Ecological & Environmental

Monitoring Centre of Ministry of Agriculture, East China Sea Environmental

Monitoring Centre of State Oceanic Administration, the Second Institute of

Oceanography of the State Oceanic Administration, Yellow Sea Fisheries

Research Institute, and East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute)

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6 Foundations (e.g. Global Environment Facility, SEE Foundation, Paradise

Foundation and Guangdong Harmony Foundation)

6 higher educational institutions (e.g. Shanghai Ocean University, Hainan

University and Shandong University)

4 Enterprises (e.g. ThoughtWorks and Weisi Taike Oil Clean Equipment Ltd.)

8 Medias (e.g. China Philanthropy Times, Development Brief, South China

Metropolitan Post, Ocean World Magazine, Sansha TV, and China News)

There were 134 participants officially registered, not including some college students

and media representatives.

Fig 1 Composition of Participants

2.1 Objectives and Themes

The theme of this Forum was set as ‘Think Globally, Act Locally ---- Exploring China

Ocean Philanthropic Strategy and Action’. Our objectives include:

To enhance the philanthropic community’s awareness of ocean environmental

issues to inspire strategic planning for ocean conservation

To strengthen the communication and knowledge-sharing among ocean NGOs

To enhance ocean NGOs capacity of program development and implementation

Domestic NGO

International NGO

Foundation

University

Public Institute & Government

Agency

CorporateMedia

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To build up connections between Chinese and international NGOs and funders on

ocean

Before the Forum, the Organization Committee conducted a survey online to understand

priority needs and interests of NGO colleagues. Based on the survey results, the

following subjects were identified as the panel topics:

Panel 1: Public participation in coastal pollution mitigation

Panel 2: Sustainable Fisheries

Panel 3: Biodiversity and Ocean Conservation

Panel 4: NGO Development

The post-Forum survey shows that over two-thirds of participants chose ‘strengthening

communication and cooperation between ocean NGOs’ and ‘improving professional

capacity in developing China ocean philanthropy’ as their primary purpose to attend the

Forum. More than half of the participants aimed for ‘obtain more status quo of Chinese

ocean NGOs’ information’ through the Forum. Overall, 99% of the participants rated that

they have achieved what they expected.

2.1.1 Keynote Speeches

With an opening remark from Mr. LI Wei, the Vice President and Secretary-General of

China Environmental Protection Foundation, the first China Ocean Philanthropy Forum

officially commenced on December 3, 2015, at 9 a.m. During the opening ceremony, two

keynote speakers – Prof. SU Jilan, an Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and

Mr. GAI Guangsheng, the Director of Publicity and Education Centre of the State Oceanic

Administration – gave speeches on ‘Vulnerable Offshore Ecosystem under Intensified

Development’ and ‘Marine Ecological Civilization Development and Public Education’,

respectively.

With illustrative figures and charts, Prof. Su reminded all of us that over the past 30

years of Reformation and Opening-up, marine economy in China has experienced an

unprecedented period of rapid development; yet such economic development has also

severely undermined coastal ecosystems. And he pointed out that China’s coast is

dominated by seagrass habitats, which is not as publically visible as mangrove or coral

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reefs. The underrepresent of coastal system in China has further increased the chance of

being overlooked for its ecological values. Prof. Su called for raising public awareness

of marine ecological crises, reflecting on the development models of coastal zone and

promoting research on sustainable development of ocean.

Started with national strategies of marine ecological civilization construction and the

13th Five Year Marine Environment Protection Plan, Mr. Gai introduced promotional and

educational activities organized by the SOA for raising public awareness of ocean

conservation over the past decade, with a particular emphasis on the program of

‘National Ocean Charity Library’ and ‘Coral Reef Restoration’. Mr. Gai reiterated the

importance of teenager education and appealed to participants to help children

understand marine ecological civilization. In addition, Mr. Gai invited NGOs to cooperate

with the SOA on the event planning for 2016 Ocean Day, seeking to popularize ocean

knowledge and to promote marine ecological civilization more effectively.

Both the speeches from academia and government sent a strong and positive signal that

invites the growing NGOs within and outside China to jointly work on ocean issues.

2.1.2 Panel I - Public participation in coastal pollution mitigation

Five speakers, including Mr. ZHANG Haofei, Vice President of East China Sea

Environment Monitoring Centre of State Oceanic Administration, Prof. XU Gongdi,

President of School of Tropical Eco-environment Protection, Hainan Tropical Ocean

University, and Ms. LIN Yuzhu, Program Manager of Taiwan Environmental Information

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Centre, etc., explored how non-profit organizations better mobilize social forces to tackle

marine litter and pollution. Illustrated with theoretical studies and practices both in

China and abroad, the talks covered areas including ‘coastal cleanup and litter

monitoring’, ‘the blackening, mudding and hardening of sandy beach’, and ‘the

organizational models of volunteer-based in ocean conservation’. The knowledge and

experience sharing of the guests inspired audience to think how to enhance public

awareness building more effectively through coastal cleanup events, how to enrich

marine pollution database through NGOs networking, systematization and

standardization, and how to strengthen cultivation mechanisms for volunteer cadres to

develop stable and long-term staffs and hence ensure the smooth running of grassroots

ocean conservation activities.

2.1.3 Panel II: Sustainable Fisheries

Four speakers, including Mr. WANG Songlin, China Director of Ocean Outcomes (U.S.) and

Mr. SHEA Stanly, Program Manager of BLOOM Association (France-Hong Kong), etc.,

revealed the depletion of fisheries, the emerging power of sustainable seafood

movement, and the alleviation of fishing pressure by adopting sustainable aquaculture

models. The speakers introduced the status quo of severe marine ecological crises

caused by coastal land reclamation and aquaculture, pointed out irresponsible

consumption as the blasting fuse of offshore ecological deterioration. Also, illustrated

with cases of promoting sustainable fishery models, including a local practice of

‘low-intensity polyculture of fish, shrimp and crab’ adopted in Hainan Xiaohao Lagoon,

the speaker explored the promising approach through ecological marine aquaculture to

restore coastal environment. The catalytic role of non-profit organizations and their

impacts on the public awareness were appreciated through the presentations.

2.1.4 Panel III: Ecological Remediation of Coastal Zone and Biodiversity

Conservation

Five speakers, including Dr. WANG Yamin, Associate Professor of Shandong University,

Mr. ZHAO Xingfeng, Program Manager of Fauna & Flora International (FFI), and Dr.

QUAN Weimin, Researcher of East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, etc., shared

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their experience and opinions on ‘ecological remediation through promoting artificial

reefs’, ‘marine and coastal spatial planning’ and ‘public engagement in coral reef

conservation’. The talks presented foreign and domestic practices of marine ecosystem

remediation with advanced tools, techniques and approaches. They recommended and

proposed solutions such as establishing reserve zones for fishery resources and

implementing environmental impact assessment for marine fishing and production.

According to the post-forum survey, this was rated the second most popular panel and

expected to gain a growing attention in the future.

Some participants argued that the majority of Chinese ocean NGOs is volunteer-based,

within which coastal cleanup activities takes up a large proportion and apparently has

become the best known but probably also the only option available for public

engagement. They expected that the Forum can steer the volunteering and social focus

towards ecological remediation and conservation of marine biodiversity. How to develop

institutional mechanisms that encourage various NGOs and social power to create more

fun and educational models integrating different ocean conservation actions will be an

interesting and important topic in near future.

2.1.5 Panel IV: Organizational Development for China Ocean Philanthropies

Covering foundations, NGO capacity building supporters and news media, five speakers

including Ms. LIU Yi, National Coordinator of the Global Environment Facility Small

Grants Program (GEF SGP) of the UNDP, Mr. ZHANG Wei, Program Manager of the SEE

Foundation, and Ms. ZHANG Jufang, Executive Director of Capacity Building and

Assessment Centre (CBAC), etc., talked about the opportunities and challenges faced by

local non-profit organizations in the process of organizational development and sector

growth. They emphasized the mobilization of local stakeholders for their local

knowledge and resources, and the importance of long-term relationship building

between non-profit organization and local community. In addition, the speakers

reminded non-profit organizations to value the network building for knowledge sharing,

and how to strengthen public communication and capacity in responding PR crisis, and

to maximize the influence by making the most use of emerging social networks. The

result of the post-forum survey shows that nearly one-third of participants recognized

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the panel as the most valuable one and mostly welcome in the future.

2.1.6 Roundtable Discussion

In order to encourage cross-sector communication and exchange, the Forum specifically

arranged a roundtable discussion in groups of ten. The organization committee

proposed ten discussion topics, from which the participants choose freely. Twenty

representatives of grassroot NGOs, who are randomly selected from the 25 NGOs

receiving travel subsidies, worked as group leader and note-taker. They received a short

training of roundtable discussion facilitation given by Ms. ZHANG Jufang and Mr. REN

Junheng. The training standardized discussion procedure consisting of the following

steps: participants sharing their key opinion one by one, voting most important issues to

be further discussed, diving in specific issue with hearing up from all group members to

ensure that each group member has equal opportunities to make statements and vote.

In the end, one representative of each group reported back to the Forum with summary

of their discussion after an hour and a half. Ms. Zhang commented each summary

presentation and pointed out that lack of professional knowledge of marine sciences,

shortage of resources, and weakness of inter-sector communication and collaboration

are the major challenges to Chinese NGOs working on ocean issues. Therefore, she

called for greater efforts to promote effective measures for strengthening the network

building between relevant organizations, identifying and filling the gap of knowledge

chain and improving social influence through joint actions.

This section, even taking place in the afternoon of the last day, was fully attended and

welcome by participants, which exceeded our expectation. The passion and powerful

brainstorming by all these groups impressed a lot of people. We are confident to believe

that the future of Chinese ocean philanthropy will be fast developed with such growing

passion and power.

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2.2 Side Events

The Forum was highly praised by the participants for organizing a series of side events,

including ‘Ocean Immersion – Films and Talks’, ‘Coastal Cleanup All Together’,

ThoughtWorks Training and Fieldtrip.

In order to deepen public’s sensory awareness of ocean, an audio-visual feast with

artists and NGOers sharing their stories with ocean was successfully held on the night of

December 2nd. The salon was hosted by Squirrel Classroom, the first studio for nature

education in Hainan, and attracted nearly 100 participants. Six guests, including Mr. XIE

Yaoting, a well-known ocean-themed oil painter, and Mr. ZHANG Fan, a young and

excellent underwater photographer for the Getty Images and UNESCO Man and the

Biosphere Programme, etc., were invited to share their art works, experience and stories

about ocean. Many kids and families attending the salon were inspired by images and

sounds from ocean.

After the first day of the Forum, over 85 participants went up to a beach nearby to clean

up litters on the beach with guidance from a local NGO. They not only picked up litter,

but also classified litter into categories and measured in weight, and well recorded the

all results for data analysis. Through such first-hand experience, many participants

realized the importance of a standardization of coastal cleanup that strengthen the

impacts and extended the use of litter data to identify sources of problems.

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ThoughtWorks provided a training on tools and steps of inception analysis that help

NGO staff better identify their target problems and strategy to define their solutions.

Over 35 participants received the training with highly positive feedbacks. Many of them

commented that this has been the best training and most inspiring one, which not only

had a great influence of their thinking about their work, but also encouraging alternative

thinking towards their personal life.

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3 Outputs & Outcomes

3.1 List of China Ocean NGOs

During the closing ceremony, Shanghai Rendu Ocean NPO Development Centre (Rendu)

released the first List of China Ocean NGOs. The List has included 111 ocean-focused

non-profit organizations, comprising of 28 domestic NGOs, 3 domestic student

associations, 6 domestic foundations, 12 international organizations, and 21 supporting

organizations. The List systemized the information of grassroots organizations that

undertake ocean conservation activities in China for the first time with their managers

and contacts details. The Full text of the List is available at:

http://www.ccmc.org.cn/sites/default/files/doc/hyngo.pdf Over half of these

organizations had participated the Forum.

3.2 2015 Survey Report of China Ocean NGOs

With the network built during the Forum preparation, the Heyi Institute, allied with the

Rendu and China Blue, surveyed 29 ocean-focused non-profit organizations and finally

complied the ‘2015 Survey Report of China Ocean NGOs’. The study analyzed seven

aspects of NGO, basic information, services, team, financial status, organizational

structure, working mode and development trend. The survey will be updated biennially

at the Forum to indicate the development tendency of ocean conservation organization.

The survey report is available at: http://www.hyi.org.cn/about_us/update/1851.html

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3.3 Sign-up the Call for Coordination and Collaboration

Over 100 participants signed up on a Call for Coordination and Collaboration on ocean

philanthropy in China as proposed by the Forum organization committee. The Call for

Coordination and Collaboration suggests to build an open, equal and friendly

atmosphere that encourages information-exchange and communication. It suggests to

strengthen regional network of NGOs that work on similar issues. Meanwhile, it

highlights the importance of respecting local culture, political, economic and social

background in China while exploring innovative and integrative models of ocean

philanthropy actions.

In fact, through the Forum, all contacts of registered participants were compiled into a

file accessible to all participants. The Forum built up the official website and WeChat

account that constantly post up-to-date information about the Forum as well as the

community of NGOs working on ocean issues in China.

The post-Forum survey shows over 99% of participants that identified ‘enhance

communication and collaboration with colleague organizations’ as their primary

purpose to attend the Forum then indicated that they have met their goal. Many

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participants commented that the Forum has been one of the best, informative, diverse

and educational conference.

3.4 Forum Coordination Committee

To continue organizing and sustaining the Forum, a group of practitioners and

advocators from a variety of organizations, including foundations, government, and

NGOs, formed a Forum Coordination Committee. The Committee now consists of 9

people. They will jointly develop a work plan to further support the Forum. These

include the timeline of Forum, the relevant events to be organized for capacity building

and industry-wide development, the fundraising and media outreach, etc. The

institutional policy will be developed and the chairman and executive secretary will be

assigned in coming months.