When 2,000 ducks died suddenly in a village on the northern outskirts of Beijing, Wang Canfa, a lawyer, satisfied a local court that pollution from an industrial-scale pig farm was to blame. Noxious sodium hydroxide had been discharged illegally into the Huai River. A judge awarded seven village households a total of 90,000 yuan ($10,880) in damages. But the pig farm, one of the area's largest enterprises, was affiliated to the local government and saw no need to pay. Mr Wang, a professor of environmental law and founder of the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims in Beijing, went back to court on behalf of the duck farmer with the single largest claim and secured it. But Mr Wang is especially pleased that the other duck farmers in the village then successfully pursued their claims in the courts on their own.
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