WLH: I was born in this small village in 1968. My childhood was beautiful. There was clean mountains and waters, singing birds and fragrant flowers. We could eat our own crops and vegetables. They weren’t poisonous. Today the crops and vegetables are contaminated by chemical factories. The crops are all poisonous. TITLE: Jailed, But Not Silenced NARRATION: This is Jonah Kessel, reporting for the New York Times in Wuxi, China. WLH: Lake Tai is to our east. The polluters are in the west. The river flows eastwards, see the direction? It flows into Lake Tai. I protect the environment. I protect Lake Tai. But they put me ... Who has made contributions to our future generations, in jail. Wasn’t that biting the hand that feeds them? NARRATION: Wu Lihong spent three years in jail for speaking out against pollution that turned his beloved Lake Tai into an environmental disaster. 2007 File Footage: Why Won’t you let me go in and look? I’m already here. This is wrong! it’s normal procedure. I’ve been waiting ... Leave! NARRATION: In 2007, the New York Times followed Mr. Wu’s sister as she tried to enter the courtroom where he was being tried for blackmail. His family and friends all said he was framed, after angering factory owners and local government officials with his reports of industrial pollution. WLH: The local party officials in the government and the polluting companies are in a league. At first we reported it for a better earth, for the local ecology. But the law-enforcement departments that should have protected me, became these polluting companies’ paw. NARRATION: At few months after Mr. Wu went to prison the government pledged 14 billion dollars to clean up Lake Tai, which is China’s third largest fresh water lake. Today it is apparent that pollution at the lake is worse. Chemical factories upstream continue to dump waste into the rivers. But to stop the pollution would entail slowing economic growth around the lake. WLH: The local government wants economic benefits. They want to create an economic miracle. The water, air, soil and vegetables are all polluted. The’ve damaged the ecology and the earth. Ordinary people don’t benefit at all. But the black-hearted bosses earn a lot of money. NARRATION: After three years in jail, Mr. Wu has been released, but with a warning. WLH: They promised me everything: a good job, a good life, compensation, and a lot of benefits, as long as I would stay away from environmental corruption and the lake, as well as corruption within the system or human rights issues. Their purpose was to make me silent. To shut me up. But I didn’t accept that. NARRATION: Environmental concerns do increasingly make headlines in China.But Mr. Wu is skeptical that even if China’s president Xi Jinping advocates for change little will filter down to places like Lake Tai. WLH: In 2013 he published The White Paper on Human Rights in China. It mentioned that beautiful China needs protecting. That environmental protection is of vital interest. But I’m not even able to go to America to receive an environmental protection award. Neither is my family. Where are environmentalists’ rights? Where is our beautiful China with such sever pollution? NARRATION: Today, Mr. Wu is monitored closely by the government. They have installed security cameras around his house and will not let him leave his home town. But even with this, three years in jail and continual threats Mr. Wu refuses to be silenced.