It's easy to miss Liang Congjie in a crowd. There's nothing immediately striking about the soft-spoken 72-year-old history professor with wire-framed glasses and silver-streaked hair. But Liang's activism speaks for itself: He is a leader in the fight to preserve China's environment.

While his counterparts in the West were chaining themselves to trees and challenging whale boats in rubber dinghies, Liang -- a Beijing native whose name means "heed warning" -- began promoting environmental protection by educating China's public and working with the State-run media.

Looking like anyone's grandfather well into his retirement years, Liang, a descendant of Liang Qichao (a prominent reformer of the late Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911), never expected to be the foremost spokesperson and champion of environmentalism in Asia.

  10-year incubation

An ordinary man in appearance, Liang has by no means had an ordinary life. A professor of history at the Academy for Chinese Culture and an editor of China's encyclopedias, Liang founded Friends of Nature (FON) -- China's first non-governmental environmental organization -- in 1993, from his deep sense of social responsibility and a love of nature.

Hearing about international groups like Greenpeace, Liang wondered "Why not in China?" and decided to do something about China's looming environmental problems. Liang, at 62 years of age, and a group of friends began exploring ways for public involvement in environmental protection in 1993. He found that creating a non-governmental organization (NGO) would be the most effective way to reach the largest number of fellow Chinese.

Liang used his personal status to gain governmental approval. After a long, difficult year of meetings, his plea was finally approved and registered as the Academy for Green Culture, an affiliate of the Academy for Chinese Culture. It is now called Friends of Nature (FON), with Liang as president.