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2012 ST ANDREWS PRIZE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
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An innovative project, which employs 32 non-literate Maasai warriors in Kenya as community conservationists and field biologists, has won this year’s St Andrews Prize for the Environment. The Lion Guardians have created an entrepreneurial solution through employment and empowering communities to conserve lions as a long-term livelihood strategy. The programme includes literacy training for the Maasai, mitigating lion-livestock conflict, monitoring lion populations by combining traditional and modern tracking with local participation, preventing lion killing and naming of the lions by the Maasai. At a ceremony in the University of St Andrews today, Dr Leela Hazzah, Director and Founder of the Lion Guardians team was presented with the winning prize of $100,000 USD. Leela says: ‘I am delighted with this win. This money will cover the core costs of the programme, which are the backbone of our organisation. We will continue to develop and improve the educational, technical and communications elements of each site, ensuring that they have a customised programme to fit their specific needs. It will also enable us to scale up the programme into new areas where both imperilled carnivores and indigenous communities would greatly benefit from its expansion.’ The St Andrews Prize is an environmental initiative by the University of St Andrews, which attracts scholars of international repute and carries out world-class teaching and research, and ConocoPhillips, an international energy company with operations in more than 30 countries. Sir Crispin Tickell, Chairman of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment Trustees, says: ‘The Prize continues to go from strength-to-strength. It is now in its fourteenth year and we are delighted that is has become so well established and continues to attract such a range of innovative projects from all over the world. We are looking for entrepreneurs on behalf of the environment, people able to come forward with original, innovative and realistic ideas which can be replicated elsewhere, and take full account of the social and economic implications.’ This year’s runners-up, each presented with a cheque for $25,000 USD were:
Professor Louise Richardson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews says: ‘For centuries this university has educated young people motivated by a desire to improve the world around them. We are proud to be at the cutting edge of the field of sustainability and environmental studies and to support, through the St Andrews Prize for the Environment, the current generation of creative thinkers designing solutions to today's problems.’ 'By sponsoring the St Andrews Prize for the Environment, ConocoPhillips is creating a path to a more secure and environmentally conscious energy supply for future generations. This forum lets us recognise groups and individuals with innovative environmental ideas and gives us the opportunity to focus on developing and sustaining their life changing projects,’ says Paul Warwick, President, UK and Africa for ConocoPhillips. Since its launch in 1998, the St Andrews Prize for the Environment has attracted entries on topics as diverse as sustainable development in the Amazon and Central American rainforests, urban re-generation, recycling, health and water issues and renewable energy. ContactFor further media information, photographs, and to arrange interviews please contact: Doug Allsop, Mearns & Gill Public Relations |
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