GLOBAL 100 ECO-TECH AWARD

     The Philippines has done it again!
     Barely two weeks after winning the gold in the Nature's Wisdom Award of the World Expo 2005 in Japan, the Philippines bagged another prestigious award, this time for its unique global environment technology.
     This was announced by Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano shortly after the Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition had a similar announcement in a press conference in Aichi, the site of the ongoing World Expo 2005.
     Durano said Dr. Justino Arboleda's waste coco coir for geotextiles won the Global 100 Eco-Tech Awards.
     "Dr. Arboleda gets the award, and the Philppines the honors," Durano said, citing the victory as another big boost to the vigorous campaign of promoting the country as pro- Nature destination for Japanese tourists.
     Arboleda is the Filipino scientist who pioneered the use of coconut coir for geotextile nets, which are installed on eroded slopes and other degraded landscapes to arrest soil runoff and promote regreening by protecting vegetative shoots.
     Geotextiles made of coco coir degrade naturally ata rate allowing for the recolonization of the ground by plants. Other similarly organic materials degrade too fast.
     While arresting soil erosion, Arboleda's geotextile has found both ecologically and economically beneficial use for the Philippines' some six billion kilos of coconut husks that constitutes the biggest bulk of the country's farm wastes, which harm the environment when burned.
     Coco coir is actually one of the natural materials used in the design of the Philippine Pavilion in the World Expo 2005.
     Arboleda's technology is now being used in Sri Lanka, India, China and Japan. He is now negotiating with parties in Mongolia for his geotextiles to arrest further desertification of areas near the Gobi Desert.
     Arboleda's waste coco coir for geotextiles is one of a hundred environmental technologies that have been chosen by the screening committee for the Global 100 Eco-Tech Awards.
     He was nominated by the Philippine Pavilion exhibit curator Marian Pastor Roces as endorsed by Philippine World Expo Commissioner-General Rosvi Gaetos, also the head of Team Japan of the Department of Tourism.
     Sponsored by the Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition, the Global 100 Eco-Tech Awards is aimed at stressing and promoting the role of technology in sustainable development and environmental protection.
     The screening committee for the awards was composed of Japanese and other foreign environment technology experts headed by Professor Jiro Kondo, professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo and chairman of the Science and Technology Foundation in Japan.
     The awarding ceremony will be held on Sept. 1, three weeks before the World Expo 2005 ends on Sept. 25.
     "The Philippines' victories in the Global Eco-Tech and the Nature's Wisdom awards are significant since these are the country's first in the 150-year history of world expositions, and the World Expo 2005 is the first for the 21st century," Durano said.
     The Nature's Wisdom Award, on the other hand, was conceived to encouraged people worldwide to be in social and technological harmony with nature.
     Competing for the award were the participating countries, whose pavilons were uniquely designed to effetively and attractively carry and promote the World Expo 2005 theme of "Nature's Wisdom".
     "Our victories in both the Nature's Wisdom and the Global Eco-Tech awards strongly reinforce our country's positioning as 'Premium Resort Islands Philppines' in the Japanese market, from which we aspire to attract 25 percent or over a million of our five-million total target foreign arrivals by 2008", Durano aid.

Source: The Philippine Star, June 19, 2005, Sunday Ed.