Prepared Speech

Honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

First of all, let me take this chance to present to you a set of data that I hope won't bore you since the source is China Daily.

China's tourism revenue last year reached 500 billion RMB, an increase of 10.5 percent from the year before, and comprised more than 5% of China's GDP. According to experts, this number will grow to 8% in the coming ten years and more than 40 million jobs will be created.

As a student majoring in economics, I can't be more sensitive to the essential meanings behind these numbers. They mean progress, prosperity, employment and stability.

However, as a conscientious Chinese and citizen of the world, I can't help but care more about the losses incurred in this transaction, by which I mean the disturbing images of environmental destruction, which leads to ecological crisis. The global environment has changed for the worse during the past few years, and tourism is partly to blame. Take China for example, in order to attract tourists, many unknown places are built into resorts. Forests are cleared, prairies trampled, rivers and lakes 6)contaminated, wild animals are driven away, plants jeopardized and secluded populations disturbed.

If this seems too remote and abstract, my own traveling experience may speak louder here. Last year I took a tour around Emei Mountain in Sichuan Province. Like most tourists, I was eager to embrace nature and enjoy its beauty. However, as soon as I got on the bus, the stench of gasoline and the noise of the engine tainted my appreciation of the wonderful scenery and the tranquility of the country road. When we finally arrived, what I saw was not a beautiful landscape but crowds of people; what I heard was not the melodious singing of birds, but yelling and bargaining from the gift shops; what I smelled was not the fresh mountain air, but stinking suffocating smoke coming out of small dirty restaurants. Moreover, I could not understand why the lovely monkeys living there had to take photos with tourists all day; why the beautiful butterflies and flowers had become lifeless samples in shop windows; why the strongest impressions I had was trash scattered everywhere on the ground.

However, this is not the end of the story. Before I left Emei, I met a group of kids in an ecotourism program with the slogan: "Experiencing, Learning and Protecting." When I saw their young hands picking up trash from the ground, when I felt their enjoyment and harmonious relationship with the animals, when I found their purest eyes filled with passion and love for nature, I realized to my great satisfaction that there doesn't have to be a tradeoff between tourism and ecology, because deep within us is an inclination toward natural beauty and a desire to protect it. Yes, environmental problems will eventually ease with the advancement of science and technology and improvement of our management system. However, an increase of ecological education and hands-on environmental involvement of our fellow citizens will do even better. To realize this, the best way for us lies in tourism itself because nothing other than nature can teach us how to love and cherish our sweetest home. At the end of my speech, please let me quote Bob Dylan:

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?

How many years can a mountain exist before it's washed to the sea?

The answer, my friend, is not in the wind-the answer is ours! Thank you!