The Conservancy Association's links with China dated back as early as 1978 when Tang Wai Kong, then president of YEAG, wrote to Professor Qu Geping, head of the Environmalta1 protection Office under China's State Council. In June 1979, seven members of the Association visited Professor Qu while in Beijing. All seven had maintained active participation in the Association and three of them are currently on the Board of Directors of the Association (Chan Wai Kwan, Simon Yick, and Ms Betty Ho.)

Since then Professor Qu's office had bean expanded into the State Environmental Protection Agency, with a Provincial Bureau in Guangdong headed by Qiang Binhuan. The Association maintains regular contacts with both he State Environmental Protection Agency and the Guangdong bureau on various occasions, including the Earth Summit in Brazil. In June 1993, the Association sent an eight-member delegation to Beijing to visit Professor Qu and the Environmenta1 Protection Agency, as well as took part in the World Environment Day events in China.

The Conservancy Association believes that our development in Hong Kong is closely related to our works in China. Beginning from the 1990s, The Association has taken a proactive approach and organised various environmental protection projects in China, the largest in scale and most significant of them is "Green Gifts to Our Beloved Country."