That was 10 years ago. The significant role of environmental NGOs in developed countries has served as an inspiration to those in China with a passion for the field. Today, with several thousand individuals and over 1,000 corporate members, FON serves as a model and the foremost environmental advocator for many mushrooming environmental organizations in the country.

  Progressive lineage

Liang has always loved a challenge. Before turning to the Green cause, he had already completed a successful career as a history professor at the Academy for Chinese Culture and had edited several encyclopedias on China. When most of his contemporaries were contemplating or enjoying retirement, Liang set his sights far higher: He decided to devote the rest of his life to cleaning up China.

Progressive thought has been a trademark of Liang's family for the past three generations. In the late 19th century Liang's grandfather, Liang Qichao, served as a western-influenced reformer in the Qing Dynasty court and also a leader of the ill-fated 1898 Reform Movement aimed at introducing western political reforms to save the corrupt and ailing imperial system. Liang's father Liang Sicheng, a renowned architect who served as a Beijing city planner after the establishment of New China in 1949, is best remembered by Beijing residents as the man who fought to salvage the capital's ancient city walls, albeit unsuccessfully.

But Liang's gradual approach to change and his fight for nature Chinese-style distinguished him from the failed efforts of his forebears.

But Liang is by no means an eco-warrior. Peering through big, wire-rimmed glasses, Liang resembles a kind grandpa. He favors knitted shirts and casual slacks that belong on a golf course. The other founding members are his fellow teachers at the Academy for Chinese Culture. To his collection of scholars, Liang has added students, housewives and taxi drivers, etc. "The membership is for everybody," he says proudly, adding: "It's less like a western environmental lobby and more like a club. We have a homey atmosphere. And I like it that way."

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