Happy New Year from the BIS committee members!
We are delighted to announce the first event of our Spring 2017 Season! This Thursday 19 January, 2017, 7.30pm John D. Liu will speak to our members and friends on the environment: China and The Environment: The Lessons of the Loess Plateau. This event will take place at the Residence of Embassy of New Zealand 8th Floor Entrance 1 (West Entrance) Office Building (Bangonglou) Sanlitun DRC 1 Gongrentlyuchang Bei Lu.

Dear Members,

Happy New Year from the BIS committee members!
We are delighted to announce the first event of our Spring 2017 Season! This Thursday 19 January, 2017, 7.30pm John D. Liu will speak to our members and friends on the environment: China and The Environment: The Lessons of the Loess Plateau. This event will take place at the Residence of Embassy of New Zealand 8th Floor Entrance 1 (West Entrance) Office Building (Bangonglou) Sanlitun DRC 1 Gongrentlyuchang Bei Lu.

In the mid 1990s John D Liu began a participatory process with a number of media and broadcasting colleagues in Beijing that led to the creation of the Environmental Education Media Project, investigating sustainable ecological issues within China, specifically within the Loess Plateau region, which resulted in the production of over 1,000 environmental films.

The Loess Plateau has proved to be an excellent place to pursue a type of ecological forensic investigation to witness and understand how human activity over time can destroy natural ecological function.

Mr Liu will discuss how the implications of his research and activities, referencing the Loess Plateau, has broadened and evolved beyond China to consider ecosystems and human impact on a global scale. He will explore China’s efforts to confront environmental damage, the Great Green Wall of China and points of international convergence in the search for sustainability and ecosystem restoration.

Liu, as an international television producer and cameraman with CBS News, RAI and ZDF covered geo-political events including the rise of China from poverty and isolation and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the middle of the 1990’s he founded the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) to help educate the public about environmental and ecological issues first in China and then worldwide. Liu has filmed, written, produced, directed and presented many films that have been seen worldwide on many ecosystems.

A film director, who has contributed to and collaborated on many papers and numerous articles concerning understanding and embracing transformational change. Following his initial work documenting China’s Loess Plateau Mr. Liu received visiting research fellowships to continue researching from a number of organizations. From 2003 – 2006 Mr. Liu was a visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of the West of England (UWE). In 2006 he was named the Rothamsted International Fellow for the Communication of Science at the Rothamsted Research Institute of the UK. From 2008 to 2012 He pursued graduate studies at Reading University. In 2009 Liu was an Assistant Research Professor at George Mason University. From 2010 – 2013 he was a Senior Research Fellow with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and in 2013-2014, he was a visiting fellow at the Critical Zone Hydrology Group, Vrije University Amsterdam. In 2013 he received a Communications Award from the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and his film: “Hope in a Changing Climate” was named best ecosystem film by the International Wildlife Film Festival.

Mr Liu currently is Director of the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP), Ecosystem Ambassador for the COMMONLAND FOUNDATION and a visiting research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (NIOO/KNAW).

John’s published works are mostly available at: https://knaw.academia.edu/JohnDLiu

Warm regards,

BIS Committee

BIS events are open to foreign passport holders only.  All BIS events are off-the-record.  Photography, filming and recording are not permitted. 

Non-members and guests may attend lectures by paying a single attendance lecture fee of 60 RMB or 30 RMB for students with valid ID.