Ma Jun (
simplified Chinese: 马军;
traditional Chinese: 馬軍;
pinyin: Mǎ Jūn; born 22 May 1968) is a Chinese
environmentalist, environmental consultant, and journalist. He is the director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE).
Biography
In the 1990s Ma became known as an investigative journalist, working at the South China Morning Post from 1993 to 2000. There, he began to specialize in articles on environmental subjects. He eventually became the Chief Representative of
SCMP.com in
Beijing.[1]
Ma's 1999 book China's Water Crisis (Zhongguo shui weiji) has been compared to
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring – China's first major book on the subject of that nation's environmental crisis.[2]
He directs the IPE (Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs), which developed the China Water Pollution Map[3] (中国水污染地图), the first public database of
water pollution information in China. He also serves as environmental consultant for the Sinosphere Corporation.[1]
Ma said: "Water pollution is the most serious environmental issue
facing China. It has a huge impact on people’s health and economic development. That is why we have begun to build this database. To protect water resources, we need to encourage public participation and strengthen law enforcement. In some places, polluting factories and companies are being protected by local governments and officials."[4]
In 2010, Ma, addressing
air pollution particularly in the wake of efforts made at the time of the
Beijing Olympics, said "many of the government’s efforts to curtail pollution had been offset by the number of construction projects that spit dust into the air and the surge in private car ownership."[5]
He was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in May 2006, in an article written by Hollywood film star
Ed Norton.[2] He was awarded the
Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2009. In 2012, Ma received the
Goldman Environmental Prize.[7] In 2015, Ma Jun became the first Chinese social entrepreneur to win the Skoll Award.[8] In 2021, Jun was selected as a
Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst.[9]
Selected publications
Books
China's Water Crisis (中国水危机; 2004)
Articles
Ma Jun has written for the online journal
chinadialogue since 2006. Articles are available in Chinese and English.
"Tackling China's water crisis online" [10] (21 September 2006)
"A path to environmental harmony"
[1] (30 November 2006)
"How participation can help China's ailing environment" [11] (31 January 2007)
^"In China, Pollution Worsens Despite New Efforts", by Andrew Jacobs with Lim Xin Hui and Xiyun Yang contributing research, The New York Times, July 28, 2010 (July 29, 2010 p. A4 of NY ed.). Retrieved 2010-07-29.