observing this new interest in religion and conservation, china's communist party is now cautiously pportingt translator: former state counselor mr. dai bingguo spoke at the annual forum on ecological civilization and buddhist culture. translator: traditional culture promotes harmony between man and nature and encourages limited consumption and a simple way of life. we support this. we don't oppose taking from nature. we do oppose overexploitation. we want gold mountain, but we also want clear water and green mountain. gary: my chinese friends were very quick to point out that when you see the government, as we did, making some very sort of friendly noises towards organized religions, it's a bit of a surprise often for people from outside china, like how is it that this government that used to be all about atheism is now sort of very friendly towards at least a schedule of religions, particularly the traditional cultural religions like buddhism and taoism and confucianism? and the fact is that the communist party is observing that tens of millions of people are becoming more religious, and th