The Investigation Of The Present Status Of Public Awareness And Behavior On Environment In Urumqi

Objective to better understand the status of public awareness on environment in Urumqi and its impact on environmental protection, give useful countermeasures and suggestions to increase public awareness on environment. Methods The surveys on local residents, students and other people were conducted and the collection of literatures and information were also done. Results The proportion of those respondents in Urumqi and other cities who knew World Environment Day reached 86.5 percent and 17.5 percent respectively. Those respondents who thought that"enterprises only concern economic efficiency and neglect environmental protection" greatly influent the local environmental protection were 53.0 percent, and those who belief"public awareness on environment is worse"impact mostly were 52.9 percent. The proportion of those respondents in Urumqi who thought the main channels that improved the civic awareness of environmental protection were"television media"and"school education"were 50.2 percent and 47.7 percent respectively. 61.8 percent of those respondents regarded their government as the principal responsible party for environmental protection. The male and female respondents in Urumqi who knew World Environment Day were 81.8 and 90.9 percent, who knew the telephone hotline of environmental protection were 55.4 and 64.1 percent. The ratio of students, teachers and cadres and other groups who knew the number of telephone hotline of environmental protection reached 66.9 percent, 64.4 percent and 44.3 percent. In addition, female respondents are more active than male in the behavior of environmental protection. Conclusions The public knowledge of environmental protection and participation in the environmental protection activity in Urumqi were better than other cities in the country, but the participation in environmental protection activity in Urumqi was not universal. The citizens in Urumqi and other city's both thought that"enterprises only concern economic efficiency and neglect environmental protection" and"public awareness on environment is worse"took a great impact on current environmental problems. The citizens in Urumqi regarded their government as the principal responsibility for environmental protection and neglected the individual's role. The main channels that improved the civic awareness of environmental protection were"television media"and"school education"."Newspaper"had not an important role to play in propaganda of environmental protection. Female had a better knowledge and participation in the environmental protection activity than the male. Similarly, students were better than other respondents. Suggestions:1,More efforts should be devoted to the propaganda of environmental protection and environmental education ; 2,The whole should be participated in environmental publicity and the government should increase investment in publicity and education concerning environmental protection;3,The awareness of safeguarding the environmental rights for the public should be raised and the system of rewards and penalties of environmental protection should also be established.