ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the environmental developments for the Three Gorges project from 1972 until 2001. It discusses four issues of importance for the environmental developments. The four issues include: a shift in scientific focus; the increased emphasis on environmental networking, environmental supervision and management; and National Environmental Protection Agency's role in the environmental process. In 1998, a new stage in the environmental developments of the dam project began, when Zhu Rongji became Premier and head of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee. When the resettlement policy change took place in 1999 due to the environmental capacity in the reservoir area, resettlement and the environment were linked together in a new way and the issue of mutual dependency was lifted up to the highest political level. Resettling the population within the reservoir area as originally intended would increase the pressure on the environment, and existing environmental problems would aggravate.
