Ma Jun is a journalist and an environmental advocate with the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs in Beijing, where he advises multi-national companies on Chinese labor and environmental regulations. He is the author of the acclaimed book, China's Water Crisis, a landmark study on the historical origins of China's present day problems with floods, water scarcity, and water pollution. Time magazine described the book, published in 1999, as China's "first great environmental call to arms." Ma also set about compiling China's first public welfare database on water pollution, also known as the "Map of China's Water Pollution". This database carries information on things including water quality, and sewage discharge and sources in over 300 cities across the country. As a result of Ma's efforts, more than 2,500 enterprises including several Sino-foreign joint ventures were blacklisted for polluting the environment.

 

A former investigative journalist for the South China Morning Post, he produced and wrote numerous reports and feature articles on the Chinese environment from 1993 to 2000, before becoming chief representative of the newspaper's online version. Ma currently serves as an advisor to several non-government organizations working on river protection, and he continues to promote sustainable environmental management through various publications and lectures. He is currently writing his second book, which deals with the sustainability of China's environment.