Hong Kong and Nepal students win United Nations Environment Programme competition
Seas and oceans should be healthy and alive children say on World Environment Day - Local and regional winners to receive prizes at AIT tomorrow

Bangkok, June 3, 2004 - For World Environment Day young people have shown there are many practical ways we can keep our seas and oceans healthy and alive.

More than 1200 6-to-16-year-olds in 14 countries across Asia and the Pacific responded to the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) regional art and writing competition sponsored by Bayer on the theme of Wanted! Seas and Oceans - Dead or Alive?

The competition’s overall winner was 10 year old Hong Kong student Miss Lau, Hei Tung.

Ms Lau’s painting showed people of four difference races, monitoring the seas and oceans, carrying out education campaigns, stopping pollution through legislation and conducting research. “We can only achieve beautiful oceans with alive creatures through joint action by all the peoples of the world,” she said on her entry form.

The winning prize of US$500, UNEP environmental publications and a return airfare, will be made by Mr Dominikus von Pescatore, Senior Bayer Representative for Country Group North ASEAN and Managing Director of Bayer Thai, and Mr Douglas Hykle, UNEP Senior Advisor on the Convention on Migratory Species and co-ordinator of a regional agreement to protect marine turtles, at a World Environment Day programme at the Asian Institute of Technology tomorrow (June 4).

The second prizewinner was Mr Hitesh Pant (13) of Kathmandu Nepal whose essay attempts to inspire by highlighting how seas and oceans are being destroyed and the ways naturalists can conserve marine life. “…As people start to propagate, wants amplify by masses …And what does the Government have to state about it? …Saving the ocean is like a lifecycle. If we protect it, the effect might be dramatic!”

Fourteen-year-old Ms Lam Hoi Ying of Hong Kong claimed third prize by imagining herself as a shark. “I lie paralysed at the bottom of the sea: the water is murky, and heavy with the smell of blood. My body is sticky and smelly. Not far, I find another corpse lying near my tail. My heart will go on, but my flesh is weak. My eyelids become heavier, heavier and heavier.” She explained her entry: “I wanted to let people know that the fining of sharks is very cruel and I hope they’ll stop eating sharks’ fins.”

The winning entries can be viewed at www.roap.unep.org.

Mr Hykle said: "the competition once again shows the creativity of young people and their depth of awareness in helping us respond to the environmental challenges around us."

Individuals, organizations, local councils and governments across the globe are taking part in the annual World Environment Day celebrations on or around 5 June. The main global celebrations are being hosted by the City of Barcelona in Spain.

In his message for World Environment Day, UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said "We have a choice: act now to save our marine resources, or watch as the rich diversity of life in our seas and oceans declines past the point of recovery.” His full message and key facts about our oceans are available at http://www.unep.org/wed/2004/Information_Material/index.asp.

UNEP is also using World Environment Day to launch the ‘Focus on Your World’ International Photographic Competition, sponsored by Canon, with the theme “Celebrating Diversity”.

A Bangkok launch will be held at Gallery F-Stop @ the Tamarind café, 27 Sukhumvit Soi 20, Bangkok, at 6.30 – 8.00 pm, Fri 4 June, 2004.

A separate press release can be found at www.roap.unep.org and full details of the competition, which runs until 24 October 2004, can be found at www.unep-photo.com

Note to editors:

Presentation of local and regional prizes in the UNEP World Environment Day competition will be made at 10.30 am in the Asian Institute of Technology Conference Centre lobby.

For more information:

Tim Higham, Regional Information Officer, UNEP, Bangkok, phone 0 2 2882127, 09 1283803, email higham@un.org.

UNEP ROAP News Release 2004/09