Chinese Research Perspectives on the Environment (formerly The China Environment Yearbook), Volume 1, was written and produced by China's first environmental non-profit organization, Friends of Nature. This edition combines two years of reports on China's environment from the view of civil society.

Yang Dongping is president of Friends of Nature and professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
Friends of Nature was the first environmental non-governmental organization in the People's Republic of China, established in 1994 by Liang Congjie, Yang Dongping, Liang Xiaoyan and Wang Lixiong. The organization has more than 3000 active members and has been recipient fifteen prestigious national and international awards.