9/27/2011 - Trisha Co
Reyes says her winning painting shows both
"a sustainable forest and the causes
of forest destruction".
Erratum: A previous version
of this press release wrongly identified
the West Asia regional winner. The correct
regional winner for West Asia is Alya Mus
Beh (United Arab Emirates). UNEP sincerely
apologises for the error.
Bandung (Indonesia)
/ Nairobi, 27 September 2011 - A love of
walking in forests in her home country of
the Philippines inspired the winning entry
of 13-year-old Trisha Co Reyes in the 2011
International Children's Painting Competition
on the Environment. Trisha beat over 600,000
other young people to win first place in
the competition, which is organised by the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Trisha's entry shows
a young girl pulling back a large grey curtain
covered in images of dying trees in a polluted
landscape, to reveal a colorful forest filled
with abundant wildlife. She says the painting
is an appeal for people to appreciate the
value of forests and to encourage them to
plant trees.
"My painting shows
two sides; a good and sustainable forest
and the causes of forest destruction",
said Trisha.
"Forests are essential
for life on Earth, but [today] the destruction
of the forest has become a worldwide problem.
We must treasure the earth's greatest biological
treasure, so that we will always have forests
in our lives."
As the overall winner,
Trisha receives US$2,000 in prize money
and an all-expenses-paid trip to the TUNZA
International Children and Youth Conference
on the Environment in Bandung, Indonesia
(27 September - 1 October), where she will
be formally presented with her award.
The second-placed painting
is by 14-year-old Erina Hashimoto from Japan.
Her entry shows a human eye watching a mini-forest,
where ants, ladybirds and other insects
crawl over leaves and branches.
"I can find such
a lot of species in a small corner of the
forest, so when I was creating this picture,
I felt like I joined in their world to live
together with them," said Erina.
"If each of us
looks at our surrounding natural environment
with tender eyes, the Earth can change and
become an enriched planet."
Erina will join the
overall winner and five other regional winners
at the Bandung Conference to accept her
award. This year's other regional winners
are Monica Adhiambo Arego (Kenya), Marylène
Schröder (Germany), Lara Garcia (Argentina),
Alya Mus Beh (UAE) and Prerika Chawla (USA).
The 2011 International
Children's Painting Competition marks the
twentieth anniversary of the contest, which
has seen over 3 million children from some
100 countries paint their fears of a damaged
environment, as well as their hopes and
solutions for tackling problems such as
deforestation, habitat destruction and pollution.
Six previous winners
- from Bulgaria, Japan, Kenya, Malta, Nigeria
and Russia - will be attending the Tunza
conference in Bandung to join in the anniversary
celebrations. They will present the 2011
winners with their awards and help launch
a new book containing some of the best paintings
submitted by children over the past 20 years.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
"This year's competition links the
children of Rio 1992 with those who are
children in the run-up to Rio+20. The world
today is markedly different to the world
of UNEP's original children's painting competitions-geopolitically
and economically with increasing and accelerating
challenges linked with to finding decent
employment for youth and countering rising
environmental degradation."
"What hasn't changed,
however, is the skill, the talent and the
inspiring paintings of the world's young
people which over the years have provoked
admiration, reflection and action among
the millions who have viewed them on walls,
calendars and postcards and via the Internet-indeed
they just keep getting better. Congratulations
to the winners and to all who have taken
part since the 11000s up to today,"
he added.
"[It was] during
an art lesson at my school my teacher brought
up the paint for the planet competition",
remembers former painting competition winner
Andrew Barolo from Malta. "Little did
I know that it would be my painting that
would be chosen to be awarded such a prestigious
prize."
Andrew will soon start
a university degree in architecture and
hopes to use his passion for the environment
in his future career.
"Hopefully as a
qualified architect I will be able to do
even more to preserve our local environment
by pushing for more "green homes"
which, whilst not compromising functionality,
also stop contributing towards global warming",
he says.
The International Children's
Painting Competition has been organized
every year since 1991 by UNEP and the Foundation
for Global Peace and Environment (FGPE).
Bayer and the Nikon Corporation joined as
organizers in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
TUNZA International
Children and Youth Conference on the Environment
The award ceremony for
the international painting competition is
just one of several events taking place
at the TUNZA International Children and
Youth Conference in Bandung.
Organized by the Government
of the Republic of Indonesia and UNEP, the
event will bring together around 1400 young
people, mentors and celebrities from 100
countries. Participants are divided into
two categories: children (age 10-14) and
youth (age 15-25).
Under the theme 'Reshaping
our Future through a Green Economy and Sustainable
Lifestyles', the conference will explore
the role of young people in sustainable
development and provide youth input to the
upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development, also known as Rio+20, which
will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
in June 2012.
One of the main outcomes
of the conference will be a "Bandung
Declaration", which will provide a
global youth statement on sustainable development
in the run-up to Rio+20.
The TUNZA conference
will also review the contribution of youth
to the International Year of Forests and
explore how young people can encourage their
peers to adopt more environmentally-friendly
lifestyles.
The TUNZA conference
is a follow-up on the decision adopted at
the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development, in Johannesburg, South Africa,
which states that children's views should
be incorporated in decisions regarding environment.
Men and women who attended the Rio de Janeiro
and Johannesburg conferences as youth delegates
will also take part in the Bandung event
to mentor their successors and share their
personal experiences of youth activism on
sustainable development.
To view a photo gallery
of the winning entries in the 2011 International
Children's Painting Competition on the Environment,
please visit: www.unep.org/tunza
The official website
for the 2011 TUNZA International Children
and Youth Conference on the Environment
is: www.unep.org/tunza/conference2011
