The St Andrews Prize for the Environment

14 April 2005

THE ST ANDREWS PRIZE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

Three teams leading environmental projects in Uganda, Zimbabwe and the USA, have been shortlisted from a record 261 entries for this year’s prestigious St Andrews Prize for the Environment.

An environmental initiative by the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and the international integrated energy company, ConocoPhillips, the Prize recognises significant contributions to environmental conservation from around the globe. It has attracted entries from more than 50 countries each year since its launch in 1998.

Sir Crispin Tickell, Chairman of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment Trustees, said: “We are very much looking forward to meeting the finalists and hearing about their projects in detail. Again, this year, we received many high quality submissions and deciding the three finalists has been a challenge.”

The finalists’ presentations will be heard at St Andrews University next month and the winner announced on 10 May.

This year’s finalists are:

Elephant Pump

Today, over one billion people worldwide are living without safe water, with one child under the age of five dying every 15 seconds as a result. Following the death of three of their pupils from contaminated drinking water, Zimbabwe-based teachers, Ian Thorpe, Tendai Mawunga and Amos Chitungo, developed the elephant pump design and founded the non-governmental organisation, “Pump Aid”, to provide reliable and sustainable water supplies for some of the poorest people in Africa.

Based on ancient Chinese technology and adapted to operate using materials locally available in Zimbabwe, the Elephant Pump can lift water from wells from a depth of up to 50 metres. The Elephant Pump is ten times less expensive to install and operate than viable alternatives and ongoing maintenance costs are negligible.

As well as providing water for drinking and irrigation, the Elephant Pump can be combined with low cost drilling technologies, hygiene education and cheap drip-irrigation systems to provide a sustainable integrated solution to one of the single biggest environmental issues in the world today.

Global Coral Reef Alliance

Worldwide, coral reefs continue to deteriorate and vanish at an alarming rate and the decline of these fragile ecosystems threaten the food stocks, economies and shorelines of millions of people in poor nations in the tropics.

Nicholas Sammons represents Global Coral Reef Alliance (GCRA), a non-profit organisation which has developed a solution called Biorock™ to help reefs survive and recover from diseases and from exposure to excessive nutrients, climate change and physical destruction. Artificial reefs have been built in Mexico, Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand and Papua New Guinea.

A low voltage electrical current is applied to a submerged conductive structure causing dissolved mineral crystals in seawater to precipitate and stick to it. Within days, the structure gains in rigidity and strength, attracting a wide range of colonising marine life. Divers then transplant corals, which grow on the structure up to five times faster than normal, and the reef soon takes on the appearance and utility of a natural reef ecosystem.

For over a decade, GCRA has helped communities round the world deal with the effects of reef destruction. Biorock™ has been used in over a dozen countries for applications including the creation of coral nurseries, fish and lobster habitats and reefs to act as wave barriers to prevent and reverse erosion of beaches.

Tree Talk

Uganda is green and fertile and was once heavily forested. Ninety-seven per cent of the population relies entirely on wood for their energy needs, and in 2001 Uganda began to consume more wood than it grew. With no national tree-growing programme, Catharine Watson and colleagues from the Ugandan non-governmental organisation Straight Talk Foundation (STF) along with a group of foresters launched Tree Talk. A simple four-page environmental newsletter, Tree Talk is sent to the remotest communities with sachets of tree seed and planting instructions to stimulate tree growing.

Tree Talk is completely original and provides the only mass tree seed distribution in the country.

As a result, over 8,000 new tree nurseries have been set up and the National Tree Seed Centre has been energised with demand for seed, including previously undervalued indigenous species.

The Tree Talk initiative is a world wide best environmental practice which is replicable in any country with a tree seed centre and postal service.

Notes

Now in its 7th year, the St Andrews Prize for the Environment has attracted entries on topics as diverse as sustainable development in the Amazon rainforest, urban re-generation, recycling, health and water issues and renewable energy.

Submissions are assessed by a panel of Trustees (see below) representing science, industry and government, with the award going to the project the Trustees consider displays the best combination of good science, economic realism and political acceptability.

The winner receives $30,000 and a medal, and the two runners-up each receive $5,000.

Information about the St Andrews Prize is available on www.thestandrewsprize.com

Contact

For further media information, photographs, and to arrange interviews please contact Doug Allsop or Dick Mutch at:

Barker Mearns and Gill Public Relations

7 Carden Place

Aberdeen

AB10 1PP

Tel +44 1224 646311. Fax +44 1224 631882

Email ;

Previous winners of The St Andrews Prize for the Environment

· In 2004, British anthropologist Conrad Feather won the prize for his work which has enabled the Nahua people of Peru to map and signpost their territory using the latest GPS, photographic, radio and video equipment. The project involves the active participation of the local community, local NGOs and forestry authorities providing a basis for future sustainable management and development.

· The 2003 Prize was won by Bunker Roy, the Indian founder and head of the Barefoot College of Rajasthan, who has brought much-needed solar energy to remote Himalayan villages, using so-called “barefoot engineers”.

· In 2002 Dr Monina Escalada, and colleagues at the International Rice Research Institute of the Philippines, received the prize for an initiative aimed at persuading a million rice farmers in North Vietnam to stop spraying harmful and unnecessary insecticides.

· In 2001, George Odera Outa of the University of Nairobi, Kenya won the prize. His project related to the environmental hazards that are choking Lake Victoria and threatening the livelihoods – and the health – of the four million people who live around it. Through traditional African theatre of song, dance and drama, Odera Outa made the community more aware of what is happening and what they can do about it.

· The joint winners for 2000 were two Palestinian academics, Prof. Hikmat Hilal and Dr Amer El-Hamouz, who proposed to turn waste from olive oil production into valuable by-products.

· Daniel Limpitlaw, an environmental engineer from Johannesburg, won the first St Andrews Prize for the Environment in 1999. His project to reverse the damage caused by environmental degradation from early mining developments is now receiving commercial backing.

St Andrews Prize for the Environment Trustees

Sir Crispin Tickell (Chairman) - Director of the Green College Centre for Environmental Policy and Understanding at Oxford and former Convener of the British Government's Panel on Sustainable Development.

Dr Alun Anderson - Senior Consultant, The New Scientist.

Sir Neil Chalmers - Warden, Wadham College, Oxford.

James Currie - Consultant in EU and US Public Affairs.

Professor Howard Dalton - Chief Scientific Adviser, DEFRA.

Robert Ridge - Vice President, Safety Health and Environment, ConocoPhillips.

Keith Henry - Former Chief Executive of Kvaerner Engineering and Construction.

Archie Kennedy - Managing Director, ConocoPhillips (UK) Limited.

Lord Jenkin of Roding - Chairman of the Foundation for Science and Technology.

Professor Sir John Krebs - Chairman of the Food Standards Agency.

Dr Brian Lang - Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews.

Henry McGee - President, Europe and Africa Region, ConocoPhillips.

Sara Parkin - Director of Forum for the Future.

Richard Sandbrook - Senior Adviser to the United Nations Development Programme.

Jonathan Startup - Director Sustainable Development, DTI.

President Dr Kjetil Stuland - Rogaland Research Foundation, Stavanger.

ENDS

The St Andrews Prize for the Environment