Three teams leading environmental projects in Central America, rural Nepal, and Scotland have been shortlisted for this year's prestigious St Andrews Prize for the Environment.

An environmental initiative by the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and the international integrated energy company, ConocoPhillips, the aim of the Prize is to find practical solutions to environmental challenges from around the globe.

Sir Crispin Tickell, Chairman of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment Trustees, said: "The Prize is now in its eighth year and we are delighted that it has become so well established and continues to attract such a range of innovative projects from all over the world. We are very much looking forward to meeting the finalists and hearing about their projects in detail."

The finalists' presentations will be heard at St Andrews University next month and the winner announced on 9 May.

This year's finalists are:

PURE Project

Promoting Unst's Renewable Energy, the PURE project, inaugurated in May 2005 on the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, is the first off-grid renewable hydrogen system in Europe and the first community owned hydrogen production plant in the world. The system uses wind power to provide comprehensive and sustainable energy and is a practical alternative which does not use fossil fuels, has zero carbon emissions and delivers energy security locally.

The PURE system enables wind generated electricity to convert water into hydrogen which is then bottled and kept for converting back into electricity as required. As this cycle can be repeated it represents the essence of sustainable energy.

The PURE system has provided the local community with a technical solution for achieving energy security by satisfying their own energy needs from local energy production and its success has inspired a broader vision of renewable hydrogen infrastructures to be delivered throughout the world.

The PURE Energy Centre Ltd. (PURE EC) has recently been established in Shetland on the back of the PURE Project, receiving a £1.2m investment package. PURE EC aims to promote and support the development of renewable hydrogen systems worldwide, and is already in negotiation with customers in four continents and throughout Europe. PURE EC has already secured training, research and development, and consultancy contracts as well as several expressions of interest in buying a "hypod" (the PURE hydrogen production module). PURE EC is the only facility in Europe, which delivers dedicated residential training courses in the principles and practice of renewable hydrogen systems, attracting trainees from all over the world.

KanchanT Arsenic Filter

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and the Environment and Public Health Organisation of Nepal, have developed a solution to the wide-spread problem of contaminated drinking water in rural Terai, Nepal, based on five years of iterative field study.

Their KanchanT Arsenic Filter (KAF) is a low cost, awardss winning innovative household water treatment device, which removes arsenic, and microbes which cause disease, from domestic drinking water supplies. In addition, the system greatly freshens and improves water quality by removing discolouration and odours. The filter is made of materials locally available in the rural areas of the developing world such as plastic buckets, sand, gravel, iron nails and PVC pipes, and it is easily constructed by locally trained technicians.

In the filter, iron nails are exposed to air and water, which causes them to rust. When water is poured into the filter a reaction occurs and the arsenic is absorbed on the rusty iron nails. Below the iron nails are layers of sand and gravel, arranged in a slow sand filter configuration, which uses natural biological and physical processes to remove harmful microbes, colour and odour.

The KAF project is unique because of the innovative, collaborative design that takes into account the conditions and limitations in developing countries and enables the construction, installation, maintenance and long-term sustainability of the filters.

The system has been successfully installed and linked to wells in over 3,000 homes in rural Nepal where most of the research and development for the system took place. Another 5,000 filters will be installed in the next two years. The KAF is currently being introduced to Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Maya Nut - an ancient food for healthy forests and families

The Maya Nut programme works in the poorest regions of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador to educate rural women about the uses and processing of Maya Nut (Brosimum alicastrum) as a means of improving womens' incomes, organization, self esteem, food security and nutrition and to motivate conservation and reforestation.

Maya Nut is a nutritious, delicious, and easy to harvest tree seed native to lowland Central American rainforests. Once the staple food of ancient hunter-gatherer cultures, Maya Nut was cultivated in "forest gardens" which supported large and healthy human and wildlife populations.

Today Maya Nut is largely forgotten and is only consumed during drought and famine. The Maya Nut program is working to reverse this trend and re-incorporate Maya Nut into the Central American diet.

The Maya Nut program is a new paradigm of sustainable development in Latin America which targets women as the catalyst to improve family and environmental health. By acknowledging the synergy among women, family, community, food, resources and the environment, this program has yielded astonishing results with minimal cash investments.

Women program participants in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras have taken the initiative to form microenterprises to produce and sell Maya Nut products. These businesses have been lauded as successful models of sustainable development in their respective countries.

Notes

Now in its 8th year, the St Andrews Prize for the Environment has attracted entries on topics as diverse as sustainable development in the Amazon rainforest, urban re-generation, recycling, health and water issues and renewable energy.

Submissions are assessed by a panel of Trustees (see below) representing science, industry and government, with the award going to the project the Trustees consider displays the best combination of good science, economic realism and political acceptability.

The winner receives $50,000 and a medal, and the two runners-up each receive $10,000.

Sponsors

University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews was founded in 1413 and is the oldest university in Scotland. By the middle of the sixteenth century the University had three colleges - St Salvator's (1450), St Leonard's (1511), and St Mary's (1538): the buildings of St Mary's College and St Salvator's Chapel both date from this period.
For almost six centuries, the University has upheld the tradition of academic excellence, attracting scholars of international repute and students from all over the world and today, continues to offer the latest in teaching and research.

ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips is an international integrated energy company with approximately 35,800 employees and operations in more than 40 countries. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, ConocoPhillips is the fifth largest integrated energy company in the USA based on market capitalisation and proven oil and gas reserves, and production.
ConocoPhillips is committed to conducting its business to promote economic growth, a healthy environment and vibrant communities wherever it operates, now and in the future.

Contact

For further media information, photographs, and to arrange interviews please contact Doug Allsop or Dick Mutch at:

Barker Mearns and Gill Public Relations
7 Carden Place
Aberdeen
AB10 1PP
Tel +44 1224 646311. Fax +44 1224 631882
Email doug@mearns-gill.com; dick@mearns-gill.com

Previous winners of The St Andrews Prize for the Environment

• An innovative pump, providing some of the poorest people in Africa with reliable and sustainable water supplies, won in 2005. Three Zimbabwe-based teachers, Ian Thorpe, Tendai Mawunga and Amos Chitungo, developed the Elephant Pump in direct response to the deaths of three of their pupils from contaminated drinking water. Using simple technology and built from locally available materials, the Elephant Pump is easy and cheap to install and maintain.
• In 2004, British anthropologist Conrad Feather won the prize for his work which has enabled the Nahua people of Peru to map and signpost their territory using the latest GPS, photographic, radio and video equipment. The project involves the active participation of the local community, local NGOs and forestry authorities providing a basis for future sustainable management and development.
• The 2003 Prize was won by Bunker Roy, the Indian founder and head of the Barefoot College of Rajasthan, who has brought much-needed solar energy to remote Himalayan villages, using so-called "barefoot engineers".
• In 2002 Dr Monina Escalada, and colleagues at the International Rice Research Institute of the Philippines, received the prize for an initiative aimed at persuading a million rice farmers in North Vietnam to stop spraying harmful and unnecessary insecticides.
• In 2001, George Odera Outa of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, won the prize. His project related to the environmental hazards that are choking Lake Victoria and threatening the livelihoods - and the health - of the four million people who live around it. Through traditional African theatre of song, dance and drama, Odera Outa made the community more aware of what is happening and what they can do about it.
• The joint winners for 2000 were two Palestinian academics, Prof. Hikmat Hilal and Dr Amer El-Hamouz, who proposed to turn waste from olive oil production into valuable by-products.
• Daniel Limpitlaw, an environmental engineer from Johannesburg, won the first St Andrews Prize for the Environment in 1999. His project to reverse the damage caused by environmental degradation from early mining developments is now receiving commercial backing.

St Andrews Prize for the Environment Trustees

Sir Crispin Tickell (Chairman) - Director of the Green College Centre for environmental Policy and Understanding at Oxford and former Convener of the British Government's Panel on Sustainable Development.

Dr Alun Anderson - Senior Consultant, The New Scientist

Sir Neil Chalmers - Warden, Wadham College, Oxford

James Currie - Consultant in EU and US Public Affairs

Professor Howard Dalton - Chief Scientific Adviser, DEFRA

Robert Ridge - Vice President, Safety Health and Environment, ConocoPhillips

Keith Henry - Former Chief Executive of Kvaerner Engineering and Construction

Archie Kennedy - Managing Director, ConocoPhillips (U.K.) Limited

Baroness Howe of Idlicote - Chair, BOC Foundation for the Environment

Professor Jacqueline McGlade - Executive Director, European Environment Agency

Professor Sir John Krebs - Chairman of the Food Standards Agency

Dr Brian Lang - Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews

Sara Parkin - Director of Forum for the Future

President Dr Kjetil Stuland - Rogaland Research Foundation, Stavanger