Von Hernandez, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia) co-coordinator and Greenpeace toxics campaigner for Asia, received yesterday the Goldman Environmental Prize (GEP) for Asia in Washington DC, making him the first Filipino to win what has been dubbed as the "Nobel Prize for the environment."
The award recognizes Hernandez’s efforts to fight the serious health hazards posed by incinerators, which release cancer-causing dioxides into the air.
Hernandez, 36, helped make history in 1999, when the Philippines became the first country in the world to ban waste incineration nationwide. He remains at the forefront of a heated battle to maintain the ban in the face of strong industry pressure.
According to a statement from its organizers, the GEP "is given annually to grassroots environmental heroes from six geographic areas. Each receives a no-strings-attached award of $125,000." It is the largest award of its kind.
Hernandez’s efforts to fight the hazards posed by incinerators have "alerted the entire region to the real costs of waste incineration," the statement said, "making it one of the electoral issues during the 1998 presidential elections."
In spite of the Clean Air Act of 1999, Hernandez said the struggle against waste incineration is far from over.
A proposal to repeal the ban is pending in Congress, "supported by some powerful local politicians and a backlash is expected from certain sectors, including the Department of Health (DOH), in relation to the pending phase-out of existing medical waste incinerators in July," the statement said.
Hernandez, said the prize was a "very pleasant and encouraging surprise. Personally, I feel gratified and vindicated (for) having spearheaded this campaign and having been ridiculed constantly for it. The international recognition is an important validation that we are doing the right thing."
He said, "the deadly fixation with non-solutions like mega-landfills and dumpsites has to be stopped if we are to move away from the current approach of wasting valuable resources toward an alternative material recovery strategy which benefits both the environment and the local economy."
Other awardees include grandmothers Julia Bonds of West Virginia and Aborigine Eileen Wani Wingfield of the Australian Outback and other winners from Peru, Nigeria and Spain.
Philanthropist Richard Goldman and his late wife Rhoda created the GEP in 1990. Richard founded Goldman Insurance Services in San Francisco and Rhoda is a descendant of Levi Strauss, founder of the worldwide clothing company.