The Pendeba Society wins the Special Project Award

In the ceremony of Vale Award on Innovative Public Participation in Western China Ecological Conservation hosted at the National Convention Center on June 29^th, The Pendeba Society was awarded with the top prize – the Special Project Award for its Nature Conservation and Community Development Project and 250,000 yuan as the project fund.  Mr. Tsering Norbu, Director of The Pendeba Society accepted the award on behalf of this project.  Mr. JIA Feng, Director of the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s Center for Environmental Education and Communication (CEEC) awarded him with the certificate and trophy. “Thank you for all your support for the Pendeba Project.  We will continue our efforts on the project and make it better,” Tsering Norbu enthused in his acceptance speech that indicated the hard work of Pendeba staff in Tibet for more than twenty years. Since the official launch of the Pendeba Project in 1994, the Project and later The Pendeba Society has created a bottom-up conservation and development model through the hard work by Future Generations and The Pendeba Society staff, participatory trainings and active community involvement, and the trainings of pendebas to lead local communities to better practice environmental conservation and achieve lasting community development in the Mt. Everest region.  In the event of final examination on the morning of June 29^th, the presentation by Tsering Norbu has gained praise and support from the demanding judging panel and the Pendeba Project was accepted in consensus as an innovative sustainable development model and therefore awarded the prize.

The Vale Award on Innovative Public Participation in Western China Ecological Conservation is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s Center for Environmental Education and Communication (CEEC) and Vale Minerals China, and hosted by Shanghai United Foundation. This award is the first innovative non-profit award that attaches importance on Western China’s ecological conservation efforts and advocate ecological protection to all sectors of the community, aiming at promoting the sustainable development of Western China’s economy, society and environment, and increasing the public concern about Western China’s ecology and attracting more people to work for the Western China’s ecological conservation. It took almost half a year since last December from the project application and telephone survey to field investigation to final reply, and all the selected projects have gone through a variety of examinations and ratings. After fierce competition the Pendeba Project finally stood out and won the top award. The 250,000 yuan funds will be used for the implementation of the project.

As a grassroots community-based organization from Tibet, we are very excited and proud for this award and it witnessed our growth and marked the achievements.  As what Tsering Norbu mentioned, The Pendeba Society will spare no effort to continue our project and strive for a blue sky and pure land in QNNP. We will not let our supporters down.