Ecological Civilization:
From Philosophical Ideas to Practice in China
By Zhu Yan
Director, Ecological Civilization Project
Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
Healthy ecosystems provide an essential foundation for human well-being and long-term prosperity. Yet growing environmental pressures around the world are challenging the foundations of both nature and society. Ecological civilization calls for a relationship in which human development and the flourishing of nature support one another, while recognizing the difficult choices and trade-offs that this may involve. China's efforts to build an ecological civilization offer an opportunity to explore how this vision can be put into practice, including both its achievements and the challenges it continues to face.
The Ecological Civilization in Practice series explores how this vision is being put into practice in China. Guided by the Chinese understanding that “mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and deserts form a community of life,” the series examines experiences in forest conservation, desertification control, river and watershed management, agriculture, urban development, and business transformation.
The idea of ecological civilization has evolved through decades of intellectual debate and practical exploration. In the late twentieth century, scholars and thinkers in Europe, the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere began to reconsider the development model of industrial civilization and the relationship between humans and nature. Discussions of ecological culture, ecological civilization, and environmental ethics gained increasing attention, contributing to the intellectual development of ecological civilization. Beginning in the 1980s, Chinese scholars engaged with and reinterpreted these ideas, bringing them into dialogue with China's environmental challenges, development experience, and cultural traditions. Ecological civilization gradually became an important concept for understanding the human–nature relationship and reconsidering prevailing approaches to development.
Chinese culture has long reflected on the relationship between humans and the natural world, drawing on Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions. The Song dynasty Confucian philosopher Zhang Zai expressed the interconnectedness of humans and all beings through the phrases “Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother” (qian cheng fu, kun cheng mu) and “All people are my siblings, and all things are my companions” (min bao wu yu). Daoism emphasizes “following the natural way” (dao fa zi ran), recognizing that all beings develop according to their own patterns and coexist within the natural world. Buddhism, through its emphasis on compassion and non-harming, encourages care for other living beings.
These traditions recognize the deep connections between humans and the wider world. Yet traditional Chinese ecological wisdom is not simply a romantic ideal of harmony with nature. Through centuries of farming, water management, forestry, and life in grassland and arid regions, people observed seasonal changes, soil and water conditions, and the processes of life. They gradually developed an understanding of natural processes, learned to use natural resources, and improved their living environments through labor and technology. This tradition reflects both human agency—the capacity to actively shape one's surroundings—and ecological wisdom developed through sustained observation of and interaction with nature, including an awareness of the limits of human action.
Human agency, however, does not necessarily amount to ecological wisdom. China's modern history demonstrates that when human power is understood primarily as the ability to conquer and dominate nature, the desire to transform the environment can lead to a disregard for natural processes. The belief that “humans can conquer nature” (ren ding sheng tian), and some of the practices associated with it, contributed to environmental damage. Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth further intensified problems such as air pollution, land degradation, and pressure on water resources.
Contemporary ecological civilization in China, therefore, is not the outcome of an uninterrupted historical progression from the ancient ideal of “the unity of Heaven and humanity” (tian ren he yi). Its development also includes periods of conflict between human activities and natural systems, environmental crises, and processes of reflection and adjustment. The central question is not whether humans should exercise their creativity, but how that creativity is understood and applied: whether people seek to overcome nature's limits or work within natural processes to improve the relationship between human societies and their environments.
Against this historical background, ecological civilization gradually moved from academic discussion into China's national development philosophy, planning, and institutional frameworks. National governance priorities increasingly aligned with people's aspirations for green landscapes, clear skies, and a better quality of life, helping translate the concept of ecological civilization into long-term, large-scale public policies, ecological projects, and collective action. Sustained public investment and institutional support have enabled these efforts to continue across regions, sectors, and generations. Building an ecological civilization has not been an easy path. It has required economic and social sacrifices and has inevitably involved setbacks and mistakes. Yet these challenges have not brought the efforts to a halt. Through continued practice, experience has been gained, mistakes corrected, and approaches adjusted, deepening our understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature.
These efforts extend across forests, grasslands, rivers, wetlands, farmlands, and deserts, as well as cities and rural communities. They include natural forest conservation, afforestation, watershed management, decades of desertification control, ecosystem restoration, and the establishment of national parks. Scientists, government officials, farmers and herders, businesses, civil society organizations, and members of the public have participated in different ways.
State capacity and long-term investment have provided important foundations for action on a large scale. Scientific research and technological advances have helped improve management approaches, while the lived experience of local communities has contributed valuable knowledge about different ecosystems and their management needs. Ecological civilization has thus become more than an abstract philosophical concept. It has developed into an ongoing social undertaking involving a wide range of participants.
Over several decades, China's ecological governance efforts have produced significant environmental improvements in many regions and, in some places, have also contributed to better livelihoods and living conditions for local residents. At the same time, management objectives, scientific understanding, and practical approaches have continued to evolve.
In some areas, the emphasis has shifted from simply increasing vegetation cover toward improving ecosystem stability and functioning; from stressing humanity's capacity to transform nature toward recognizing the constraints imposed by water availability, climatic conditions, and ecological carrying capacity; and from individual engineering interventions toward integrated management of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and deserts. These changes did not unfold entirely according to a predetermined plan. Rather, they emerged through scientific research, long-term monitoring, local experience, and feedback from the outcomes of ecological interventions.
Any large-scale effort to manage ecosystems inevitably involves questions of power, competing interests, and social costs. State capacity can sustain long-term action, but whether ecological civilization becomes deeply rooted in society also depends on the participation of local communities, exchanges among different forms of knowledge and values, and whether people share meaningfully and fairly in the benefits of environmental improvement.
Who decides the goals of ecological protection? Who bears the costs of ecological transitions, and who benefits from environmental improvements? These questions are not unique to China. Societies with different political systems, levels of economic development, and cultural backgrounds all face the challenge of reconciling public authority, social participation, ecological protection, and social justice. Continued scientific evaluation, meaningful public participation, and attention to equity are therefore essential to the healthy development of ecological civilization in practice.
These tensions also suggest that no single model of ecological civilization can be applied across countries, cultures, and ecosystems. China's experience does not offer a complete or final answer.
Moreover, China's experience suggests that religious beliefs, cultural traditions, legal institutions, and scientific and technological advances alone may not fully explain why people across society devote themselves to creating healthier environments and more fulfilling lives.
Why do people long to live under clear skies, beside clean waters, and on healthy land? Why would someone plant a tree whose shade they may never enjoy? Why would a society choose to protect forests, rivers, and deserts for generations not yet born?
The history of the universe and the evolution of life remind us that humanity is not a species separate from nature. We share an evolutionary history with other forms of life, and our survival depends on air, water, soil, plants, animals, and functioning ecosystems. Yet our relationship with nature extends beyond material needs. Nature also shapes our understanding of beauty, belonging, responsibility, and the meaning of life. Mountains, forests, rivers, and deserts provide not only the conditions for survival but also sources of cultural memory, emotional attachment, and spiritual experience. They help us understand our place within the larger natural world.
Thomas Berry emphasized that humans are part of an evolving Earth community. Our relationships with other living beings should not be understood solely in terms of using nature as a resource, but should also involve recognizing and respecting the intrinsic value of other forms of life and the relationships that connect us.
Confucian traditions likewise emphasize the profound connections among Heaven, Earth, humanity, and the myriad beings, giving rise to ethical responsibilities toward other forms of life. Although these perspectives arise from different historical and philosophical contexts, both offer important insights into how we might reconsider humanity's place in the natural world.
Human beings depend on nature for the material conditions of life, but we also seek spiritual belonging and meaning through our relationships with the natural world. More fundamentally, nature is not merely the setting for human survival and spiritual experience. Through its changing conditions and living processes, it continually shapes how we understand the world and our own place within it.
China's experience over recent decades includes significant environmental improvements and institutional innovations, as well as mistakes, social and ecological costs, and unresolved challenges. Its significance lies not only in the outcomes of large-scale environmental governance, but also in what it reveals about how a vast and populous society has sought to translate ecological ideas into sustained practice, and how, through that practice, people continue to reconsider nature, human capabilities, and their relationships with other living beings.
The achievements, lessons, and challenges of this ongoing experience deserve attention in the broader global conversation about human civilization and its relationship with the Earth.
In the Ecological Civilization in Practice series, we examine not only environmental improvements but also the difficulties, debates, costs, and adjustments that accompany them. Alongside national institutions, scientific research, and technological innovation, we pay attention to local communities, everyday lives, cultural traditions, and the deeper relationships between humans and the natural world.
Through these accounts of ecological civilization as an ongoing practice in China, we hope to encourage dialogue with ecological ideas and experiences from other cultures and societies. Together, we seek to explore how humanity can meet its material and spiritual needs while respecting natural processes and the value of other living beings, and leave future generations an Earth where humans and the wider community of life can flourish together.
References:
Berry, Thomas. The Dream of the Earth. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988.
Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. New York: Bell Tower, 1999.
Berry, Thomas. Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community. Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014.
Bryan, Brett A., et al. “China’s Response to a National Land-System Sustainability Emergency.” Nature 559 (2018): 193–204.
Buntaine, Mark T., et al. “Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China.” American Economic Review 114, no. 3 (2024): 815–50.
Chen, Chi, et al. “China and India Lead in Greening of the World through Land-Use Management.” Nature Sustainability 2 (2019): 122–29.
Clayton, Philip, and Wm. Andrew Schwartz. What Is Ecological Civilization? Crisis, Hope, and the Future of the Planet. Process Century Press, 2019.
Cobb, John B., Jr., and Jay McDaniel. Choosing Life: Ecological Civilization as the World's Best Hope. Gonzalez, FL: Energion Publications, 2020.
Feng, Xiaoming, et al. “Revegetation in China’s Loess Plateau Is Approaching Sustainable Water Resource Limits.” Nature Climate Change 6 (2016): 1019–22.
Gare, Arran. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization: A Manifesto for the Future. London: Routledge, 2017.
Goron, Coraline. “Ecological Civilisation and the Political Limits of a Chinese Concept of Sustainability.” China Perspectives 2018, no. 4 (2018): 39–52.
Hansen, Mette Halskov, Hongtao Li, and Rune Svarverud. “Ecological Civilization: Interpreting the Chinese Past, Projecting the Global Future.” Global Environmental Change 53 (2018): 195–203.
Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by D. C. Lau. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963.
Li, Yifei, and Judith Shapiro. China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020.
Mickey, Sam, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and John Grim, eds. Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020.
Shapiro, Judith. Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Shapiro, Judith. China’s Environmental Challenges. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2024.
Swimme, Brian, and Thomas Berry. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era—A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.
Tiwald, Justin, and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds. Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han Dynasty to the 20th Century. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2014.
Tucker, Mary Evelyn. “Ecological Civilization and Confucian Values.” In Handbook of Ecological Civilization: Concept, Philosophy, and Pedagogy, edited by Michael A. Peters, Benjamin J. Green, Greg William Misiaszek, and Xudong Zhu, 161–70. Singapore: Springer, 2026.
Wang, Zhihe, and Junfeng Wang. “Ecological Civilization as a Compassionate Civilization.” In Handbook of Ecological Civilization: Concept, Philosophy, and Pedagogy, edited by Michael A. Peters, Benjamin J. Green, Greg William Misiaszek, and Xudong Zhu, 65–81. Singapore: Springer, 2026.
Wu, Jiannan, Mengmeng Xu, and Pan Zhang. “The Impacts of Governmental Performance Assessment Policy and Citizen Participation on Improving Environmental Performance across Chinese Provinces.” Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018): 227–38.
Xue, Bing, et al. “Understanding Ecological Civilization in China: From Political Context to Science.” Ambio 52 (2023): 1895–1909.
Yang, Kaizhong, ed. The Construction of Ecological Civilization in China. Translated by Wen Pang. Singapore: Springer, 2024.
Zhang Zai. “Western Inscription.” Translated by Bryan W. Van Norden and Justin Tiwald. In Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han Dynasty to the 20th Century, edited by Justin Tiwald and Bryan W. Van Norden. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2014.
Forests: From Cultural Roots to a Green China
Forests have played a vital role in Chinese civilization for thousands of years. Rooted in traditions that emphasize harmony between humans and nature, forests provide ecological security, cultural inspiration, and human well-being. Following extensive degradation in modern history, China has undertaken one of the world's largest forest restoration efforts. Today, forests are being revitalized and renewed, standing at the heart of Ecological Civilization and linking biodiversity conservation, climate action, ecological security, and sustainable development.