In the coming decades environmental issues will play an increasing role in China's economic development drive, internal politics, legal development, international relations, and regional development issues.While several books have appeared in the 1990s which describe tangible aspects of China's environmental degradation, this book concentrates its attention on management of China's environment within various contexts and represents the state of thinking on the subject by some of the world's key social scientists in this field.It contains an international perspective of environmental problems in China often lacking in books about the Chinese environment.Chapters discuss environmental degradation in Chinese history, organisation of China's environmental protection network, the legal framework for environmental protection, agricultural land issues, water issues, biodiversity, energy, pollution, public health, and business opportunities for foreign firms.While this book shows that there is lots of room for optimism, it also indicates that many environmental problems remain intractable and some are worsening.