This special issue covers several important aspects of China's environmental policy, ranging from evaluation of government programs (biogas and the Sloping Land Conversion Program) that aim directly to enhance the rural environment, to the reform of natural resource sectors (collective and state forest reforms) that set foundations for the sustainable use of natural resources, and to the impacts of urban environmental policies (including urban transportation management and industrial pollution control policy). We provide an overview of the topic and a brief introduction to each of the contributed papers.