Eight-Year-Old Thai Student Wins Asia Pacific Prize for UNEP International Children's Painting Competition

Bangkok, 5 June 2010 – A Thai student's painting caught the eyes of judges, making it the Asia Pacific winner of United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) annual International Children’s Painting Competition. Eight-year old Wigavee’s painting, based on the competition theme, "Biodiversity: Connecting with nature", beat more than 8700 entries from Asia Pacific to make her the winner of this year’s competition.

The painting competition is an annual event that is jointly organized by UNEP, Bayer AG, the Japan-based Foundation of Global Peace and Environment (FGPE) and Nikon Corporation.

Wigavee's painting conveys the importance of the environment that affects all life living in this world and how people around the world can maintain the environment and also to replace what people used, such as planting the tree.

"In this painting I wanted to convey the importance of the environment that affects all life living in this world. So I drew diverse people planting trees to maintain the environment and also to replace what people used. I think everyone whether they are children or adults can protect the environment. I hope my picture can inspire people to help to protect forest and animals for our future." she said.

Wigavee's painting, along with other winning entries, will be exhibited at various venues in Japan and other countries and the websites of UNEP and Foundation of Global Peace and Environment (FGPE).

"Children's artworks attract us with their cheerful expression of beautiful nature and ecosystem. On the other hand, they show the suffering of creatures living in a polluted sea or a depleting forest as their own pain, and straightforwardly appeal the crisis of biodiversity. They awake in us the realization that we, human beings, are just one of the millions of species, a weaving thread of a fabric made of lives. We hope children's works will strike much more people around the world, and encourage them to take actions for future generations live in harmony together on the one and only planet earth." Tomoko Yano, Secretary General of FGPE said.

Wigavee's entry will move on to the global level, to compete with entries from other regions - West Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America. The winners of the global competition will be announced at the 2010 Tunza International Children's Conference on the Environment in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010.

"This year's competition offered children a way to think of actions to protect our environment and they have responded overwhelmingly by creatively showing simple actions we all can take. They have artfully shown that there are actions we can take now." said Mr. Young-woo Park, Regional Director.

"We are very proud of the again increasing number of entries for our Painting Competition - a core element of our partnership with UNEP. The children's paintings are fascinating artworks with a very clear message to all of us: Care about this planet! We must take the concerns and wishes of the many children from all over the world very seriously. I can just encourage everybody to have a look at these impressive paintings", says Michael Schade, Head of Communications of Bayer AG.

"The rate of biodiversity loss has been increasing day by day. Now we must deal with people around the world to cooperate to prevent this. It is very important that people around the world understand and share this problem. Nikon wants to appeal, together with the partners, on the importance of conservation of biodiversity to people through the children's paintings, and hope they will start taking an action to save the biodiversity." says, Yoshimichi Kawai, Director, Member of the Board and Executive Officer at Nikon Corporation.

Wigavee wins a US$1,000 cash prize and all expense paid trip for her and an accompanying adult to the 2010 Tunza International Children's Conference on the Environment in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010.

The selection of the regional winner was done by a Jury Committee made up of UNEP staff, representatives from Bayer Thai Co. Ltd., and Nikon.

For More Information:

Satwant Kaur, Regional Information Officer, UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific,
E-mail: satwant.kaur@unep.org , Tel: +662 2882127, Mobile: +6683 9086000

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