From May 20th to 23rd, the 4-day International Conference of Environmental Aesthetics and Beautifying China was held at Wuhan University. During the conference, the participants launched a comprehensive discussion around the topic of environmental aesthetics and urban beautification in China. More than 40 experts and scholars from the United States, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Finland, Japan and from home gave their views and speculations on the theoretical and practical issues of environmental aesthetics. They brought in a new thinking and research articles to the conference, discussed and provided their suggestions for the expression "a beautiful China".

On the morning of May 21st, Professor Tan Guangming, the Vice President of Wuhan University, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony, pointing out that environmental aesthetics is a new discipline and it is of absolute necessity to further develop this field. The international conference, under the theme of environmental aesthetics and presided by Professor Chen Wangheng, the famous environmental aesthetics expert, convened domestic and foreign famous scholars for in-depth academic discussions and exchanges, bringing great benefit to the construction of a national ecological civilization.

The conference was divided into six sections, and provided 43 academic reports. The representative experts and scholars discussed on the issues of ecological civilization and environmental aesthetics, environmental aesthetics and urban construction, environmental aesthetics and rural construction, environmental aesthetics and public art, environmental aesthetics and industrial design, the ecological wisdom and the environmental aesthetics in ancient China. The conference is characterized by a series of wonderful speeches including that of the environmental ethics father, Professor Holmes Rolston, whose subject was "environmental aesthetics in China: an East-West dialogue". Meanwhile, the French sociologist Michel H. Conan gave his topic speech on "The Design with the Dao". Ex-chairman of the organization committee of the International Conference on the application of aesthetics Yrjö Sepänmaa talked about "Human Nature". And Jos de Mul, ex-president of the Institute of international Aesthetics discussed the "The Earth Garden. Not Going Back but Going Forward to Nature".

Apart from the conference, the School of Urban Design also organized domestic and international representatives to give a number of academic lectures which were warmly welcomed by teachers and students.

(Edited by Diana & Sijia Hu)