TIME magazine recognizes Von Hernandez of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Von Hernandez, Campaigns Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, in a visit to Payatas garbage dump in Metro Manila. Hernandez is recognized by Time Magazine as one of this year’s Heroes of the Environment in recognition of his unrelenting campaign against waste trade and highly polluting waste incinerators in the Philippines and the region.
Hernandez started working with Greenpeace International in 1995
as coordinator for the environmental group’s toxics campaign in
Asia. It was during this time when he launched the campaign
against the ill advised plans of setting up waste incinerators to
deal with the burgeoning waste problems of Metro Manila.
Hernandez’s campaign exposing the economic pitfalls,
environmental and public health hazards of toxics pollution from
the burning of waste, quashed these plans. That campaign culminated
in the passage of the Philippine
Clean Air Act in 1999 which included the first ever national
ban on waste incineration. Together with allies in the Philippine
environmental movement, Hernandez subsequently and successfully
campaigned for the approval of the Ecological
Waste Management Act which mandates the segregation of wastes
and the development of materials recovery facilities and recycling
targets nationwide.
For this work, he was awarded the Goldman Environmental
Prize in 2003 , considered to be the equivalent of the Nobel
prize for grassroots environmentalists. Hernandez is the first
Filipino to win the prestigious award whose previous awardees
include Nobel laureate Wangari
Maathai.
“It is an honor to be recognized for one’s work. More important
than the personal tribute is the recognition of the urgency of the
environmental challenges now confronting our future. We cannot
continue sleepwalking our way into disaster.
The waste crisis is a reminder of how our societies are
mindlessly undermining our life support systems, and gobbling up
valuable and finite resources which ought to be shared with future
generations.
“That we now have less than 100 months to reverse an impending
climate catastrophe is perhaps the most stinging indictment of
society’s deadly addiction to wasteful and environmentally
destructive activities. This is the greatest challenge of our time,
and for the sake of our collective survival, we must act and strive
to make a difference.”
Von Hernandez
Greenpeace Southeast Asia
As an environmental activist of more than fifteen years, Von has
initiated a number of environmental campaigns and projects in the
Philippines such as the campaign for the rehabilitation of the
Pasig River, and the crusade to clean-up toxic contaminated sites
in the former US military bases in Clark and Subic. He is also a
founder and key driver of various environmental initiatives and
coalitions both at the national and international levels including
the Global Anti-Incineration
Alliance (GAIA), Waste
Not Asia, Lakbay
Kalikasan, the Eco-Waste
coalition, the Sagip Pasig
Movement, and the People’s Task
Force for Bases Clean-up.
He is now the Campaign Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia
where he directly oversees the environmental group’s campaigns on
climate change, toxics and water pollution, forests, and
sustainable agriculture.
Time magazine article
Read the full article from the Time Magazine Heroes of the Environment feature
Read the Greenpeace blog
Read the blog story on Greenpeace Making Waves blog
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