2002 Winners and Finalists

Dr Monina Escalada who, along with colleagues at the International Rice Research Institute of the Philippines, won the award for an initiative aimed at persuading a million rice farmers in North Vietnam to stop spraying harmful and unnecessary insecticides.

This research has shown that a large proportion of the insecticide spraying carried out by farmers is applied at the wrong time and directed at the wrong targets. Dr Escalada and her colleagues developed a multi-media campaign to motivate farmers in the Vietnam's Red River Delta to experiment with new information, change their beliefs and stop spraying unnecessarily and ineffectively.

Runners-up were Yash Joshi a 15-year-old student from Bombay, India and Robert Lamb, from a London-based environment TV production company.

Yash devised an innovative plastic waste recycling process for use in the home, office and in public places. Robert aimed to develop a series of creative Public Service Announcements to help publicise solutions to the global water crisis.