5 persons win govt-sponsored environmental prize

BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Tian Guirong, a farmer from central China's Henan Province, and four other environmentalists have won the first government-sponsored prize for environmental protection in China.

The list of the winners, dubbed Green China Annual Figures, are announced here Sunday and the prize-awarding ceremony will be held on Nov. 30 this year.

The prize is established by the State Environmental Protection Administration to honor those who have made outstanding contribution to combating environmental degradation in the country.

Tian, a farmer from Henan's Xinxiang City, won the prize for her voluntary collection of used batteries at her own expense, costing more than 200,000 yuan (about 25,000 US dollars) over the past years.

Another winner Liang Congjie is the founder of the Friends of Nature, the first non-governmental environmental protection organization in China, which was set up in the early 1990s.

Wang Canfa, a university professor of law in Beijing, was honored for his being the first person in China to provide legal aid to pollution victims and his persistent efforts in the regard.

The other two winners are Zhao Yongxin, a staffreporter from the People's Daily newspaper, and Liang Liming, director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Taiyuan, capital city of the north China's Shanxi Province.

Zhao has written a lot of stories on environmental protection and is the first journalist in the country to unveil an illegal construction project that would bring ecological disaster to Yuanmingyuan, a former imperial garden in the western suburbs of Beijing.

Liang has made pains-taking efforts to tackle pollution in Taiyuan, and eventually remove the city from the list of the most polluted city in China.

The winners are chosen among 20 candidates by online voting, opinion survey and expert appraisal, according to the organization committee.

The award will be given annually in the future, said the committee