John D. Liu - Founder

March 15th, 2009
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John's new portrait

John Dennis Liu is an American who has lived in China for more than two decades. Mr. Liu helped to open the CBS News bureau in Beijing at the time of normalization of relations between the U.S. and China. He worked for CBS News for more than 10 years. He also worked for Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI Italian Television) and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF German Television).

For the past 10 years, Mr. Liu has concentrated on ecological film making and has written, produced and directed films on grasslands, deserts, wetlands, oceans, rivers, urban development, atmosphere, forests, endangered animals and other topics primarily for Earth Report and Life series on the BBC World. In 2003, Mr. Liu wrote, produced and directed Jane Goodall - China Diary for National Geographic.

Since 1997, Mr. Liu has directed the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) which uses television to deliver ecological, sustainable development and public health messages in China and other countries. Mr. Liu was also the driving force in the creation and development of the China Environment and Sustainable Development Reference and Research Center (CESDRRC), the China HIV/AIDS Information Network (CHAIN), and the Environmental Education Media Project (Mongolia).

Mr. Liu is a foreign expert at the International Cultural Exchange Audio/Visual Publishing House, a Visiting Fellow at the University of the West of England (UWE) in the Faculty of the Built Environment and the Faculty of Applied Sciences, a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Forum on Media for Development, and currently filming in collaboration with the World Bank and other institutions a film on the rehabilitation of the Loess Plateau in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River.

A few words from John Liu:

Before the 2002 Earth Summit, I was asked to write an article for the UNEP magazine Our Planet. Here is a link to that article: http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/121/liu.html.
As a consultant to the China HIV/AIDS Information Network (CHAIN) I have learned a number of things. Here is an article that sums up some of the most important things that I have learned called What Everyone Needs to Know About HIV/AIDS.
In February 2004, I led a team from EEMP (Mongolia) to film a new episode of the Millennium Development Goals Series of Life tentatively titled Warming Up in Mongolia. Here are two pictures from -29oC when we were filming near Batsumber West of Ulaan Baatar.
Riding horses. Riding horses.
In 1998, the graduating class at the International School of Beijing asked me to speak to them. I think the administration was a little surprised, I know I was. The address is available at the following link: Address to the graduating class at ISB.
Music clip (8 Mb, MP3) recorded March 28, 2004. (This is a String pad played on a Kurzweil keyboard recorded on Logic on a Mac G4 - It is a bit heavy as I was feeling a little emotional at the time - please give me your thoughts on this.)

Quotes from the Films:

We are still ecological illiterates. We don’t know to what extent we can degrade an environment before it can’t compensate anymore and collapses.
— George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society in the film A Steppe Ahead that I produced, wrote, directed and filmed for Earth Report on the BBC World.
I think the most important message I have for everyone is that every single individual matters and that includes animals. Every single human being has a role to play in this life. Some people are still discovering what that is but perhaps most important of all every individual makes a difference every single day … you cannot live through a day without impacting the world around you and we all have a choice what sort of impact we want to make. Do we want to try to make the world a little bit better place or don’t we care. It’s as simple as that.
— Jane Goodall in the film Jane Goodall - China Diary that I produced, wrote and directed for National Geographic.

A poem from Nelson Mandela that has helped me when I felt I couldn’t go on.

Let it Shine

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant,
Gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightening about shrinking,
so that people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission
to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela Inaugural Speech, 1994 (Originally written by Marianne Williamson)

Achim Fock of The World Bank and myself presenting the important lessons learnt from the The World Bank’s Loess Plateau Rehabilitation Project to audiences at a JPMorgan China Conference.

JPMorgan. JPMorgan.

“China’s Sorrow - Earth’s Hope” will be a feature length film about the Loess Plateau showing how destructive humanity can be and how enlightened conservation can allow nature to heal herself.

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