Cover of book by Jonathan Watts to be released June 2010 entitled "When a Billion Chinese Jump." [Photo: Jon Watts]

By CRI Reporter Andrea Hunt

 From his earliest childhood recollections, Guardian Asia Environmental Correspondent Jonathan Watts was struck by the implications of China's sheer size in relation to the rest of the world. So much so, the idea would inspire his book years later, "When a Billion Chinese Jump," ready for release in June this year.

"I think it was from I was seven or eight, I asked someone, 'how big is China? And then someone explains, 'there are so many people that if everyone jumped at the same time, it would knock the world off its axis and spin off into space and we would all die.' For a small child's brain, this is both wonderful and frightening at the same time."

He never realized that one day he would actually end up living in China, however. In fact, Asia came to him as a "fluke," arriving in the form of an English teaching job in Japan as a means to pay off his student loans.

Like many Westerners in Asia, a fascinating new world had an encompassing effect and he stayed much longer than anticipated. Later, he returned to nurture his dream of becoming a foreign correspondent.

Even though he never considered himself an environmental expert, he found that once he moved to China, he was increasingly reporting on pollution, climate change, melting glaciers and water issues.

Jon had already grown accustomed to covering G8 summits, earthquakes and World Cups, but one report became the catalyst for a particular interest in the environment.

The Baiji dolphin, it's a fresh water dolphin that only lives in the Yangtze River. It's always been endangered. There was a big mission I think in 2006 to find out how many to record how many Baiji are left in the Yangtze. We set out with this really well funded, all of the world's leading hydro biologists and experts to look for the Baiji dolphin and they didn't find one. The species was declared functionally extinct."