- ENGOs, civil society and biodiversity
conservation
1Preceding chapters have discussed the institutional framework and operation
of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan. In this chapter we shift
our focus to the bottom-up dynamics of environmental non-governmental
organizations (ENGOs). They are major agencies of change, as they alert
institutions to the existence of problems in species and ecosystem preserva-
tion, monitor the performance of institutions, and even play roles in the
administration of government programs.
ROLE OF NGOS IN ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE
AND CIVIL SOCIETY
The increasing importance of environmental non-governmental organizations
in environmental governance has attracted attention from scholars as well as
policy makers. As William Clark argues, in the scheme of ‘global governance’,
the third sector composed of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has
undergone the greatest change vis-à-vis the environment. Such organizations
have existed for a century or more, but it is only in recent decades, and
particularly since the success of NGOs in shaping the Rio Conference on
Environment and Development in 1992, that their numbers have multiplied.
The NGO community has shown a remarkable ability to utilize emerging
information and technologies and to aggressively construct ad hoc coalitions
to address issues.^2 Table 7.1 summarizes the trajectory of NGOs by showing
the three stages of environmental movements and environmental reforms.
As noted in Table 7.1, ecological modernization in the third stage of
environmental reform is a process of environmental restructuring. Ecological
modernization is expressed in various transformations regarding the
traditional central role of the nation-state in environmental reform. First, there
is a trend toward more decentralized, flexible and consensual styles of national
governance, at the expense of top-down hierarchical command-and-control
regulations; second, non-state actors increasingly take over traditional tasks of
the nation-state, seen in the emergence of ENGOs and the formation of
alliances between the private sector and ENGOs; finally, international and
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