Nigel Sizer, Rare VP, Asia Pacific, traveled to China to consider candidates for Rare’s fourth university-based Pride training program. This is the first in a series of his reports.
Bali: I haven’t even left Bali yet, and Paul Butler, Rare’s inimitable SVP for Global Programs, already in China for a couple of days, is complaining that there’s no “real food”. Colleague Carrie Drummond suggested I take him some Snickers … but with two weeks of travel around China ahead of us, I hope Paul can start to enjoy China’s amazing culinary diversity and forget his bangers and mash. I won’t take Snickers in principle … I’m not sure what principle, but it’ll be good for him. Besides there are KFCs and MacDonalds everywhere in China these days, and even a Starbucks in the middle of the Forbidden City.
Bangkok: Bali to Beijing means changing planes in Thailand’s huge new airport. It’s [photopress:Bangkok_airport_1.jpg,thumb,alignleft]open but still not finished. The duty free shops seem to hang in a giant void of unfinished design … or maybe it’s meant to look like that? Air travel is contributing a lot more than its fair share to global warming, must remember to get Rare to offset all of the emissions from travel!
Beijing: In Japan, if you do weird things with your food they can get pretty disgusted, but they’re too polite to ever let on. The Chinese are a lot more tolerant and less polite. They also suck up new ideas like a continental sized sponge. So when Paul used the [photopress:Nigel_and_Paul.jpg,thumb,alignright]wrong end of one chopstick to stir sugar into his green tea at a formal luncheon, our hosts weren’t quite sure whether to laugh, look the other way, or do as he was doing because maybe the foreigner had just had a good idea. We got revenge later in the day by trying to feed him some crunchy fried insects from the street vendors.
We’re here to screen five Chinese universities that have been shortlisted to host the Rare Pride training program. This is an exciting move for Rare, heading into one of the most biodiverse countries as well as one of the politically and socially most distinctive. We know that we’re going to hit some major bumps in the road, but we also know that we must succeed if Rare is to take Pride and other tools and approaches to scale.
Paul and Angela Cun, former Pride campaign manager and TNC’s lead environmental [photopress:Beijing_Normal_University_1_2.JPG,thumb,alignleft]educator in China, had met the day before with Beijing Forestry University and with China Agricultural University. Today we met Beijing Normal University. All three are huge, impressive, well-managed, committed institutions. And all are overwhelmingly keen to host Rare! They are in the top 20 universities nationally (out of over a thousand). This is going to be a tough choice and we still have several more to meet. But it’s also incredibly encouraging.
TNC’s Beijing office hosted us in the afternoon. Their new director, Professor Li, is enthused about strengthening links with Rare. The quantum leap would be to get the State Forestry Administration to adopt Pride for the thousands of nature reserves that it manages. Professor Li wants to help us make that step. This is getting scary!
Must remember to follow up with the charming Professor Li, who not only heads their Beijing office but is also head of the Chinese Entomology Society. He has organized feasts where every dish is made entirely of insects. Maybe a good theme for the next Rare fundraising dinner in New York? Or for Paul’s birthday lunch?
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