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AWARD-WINNING environmentalist and Greenpeace Southeast Asia
Campaigns Director Von Hernandez has been appointed as the new
Executive Director for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia Board Chair, Dr. Opart
Panya, who announced the appointment, said Hernandez has brought to
Greenpeace a wealth of campaign experience.
“Von’s leadership will reinvigorate
Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s regional campaigns to defend the
environment from the threats of climate change, deforestation,
pollution, and genetic contamination,” Panya said.
Panya added that “we are especially pleased
that one of his major priorities will be to lead the fight against
climate change which will adversely affect the poorest nations in
the region.”
He added that with Hernandez, Greenpeace
Southeast Asia will remain true to its core values of non-violent
direct action, but at the same time will be innovative in its
high-profile regional campaign and political work.
Hernandez’s involvement with Greenpeace began
in 1995 with his work as coordinator for Greenpeace
International’s Toxics Campaign in Asia. He is a board member of
Greenpeace India, and served as Campaigns Director of Greenpeace
Southeast Asia for four years.
Hernandez has been an environmental activist for
more than 15 years and is known for his campaigns in exposing and
stopping waste trade and incineration in Southeast Asia.
Recently, Hernandez has been cited as one of
Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment 2007, for his work
exposing the economic pitfalls, and environmental and public health
hazards of toxics pollution from waste incineration.
In 2003, he was awarded the Goldman
Environmental Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize
for grassroots environmentalists. Hernandez is the first Filipino to
win the that award, whose previous recipients include Nobel laureate
Wangari Maathai.
Hernandez also initiated the Philippines’
campaign for the rehabilitation of the Pasig River, and the crusade
to clean up contaminated sites in the former US military bases in
Clark and Subic.
-- Ira Karen Apanay
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