Group wins green award

Xinhua News Via ShanghaiDaily.com

2006-07-12

A CHINESE women's group has won an international prize for promoting the use of clean energy resources in rural northwest China.

The Shaanxi Mothers Environmental Protection Volunteers Association, a non-profit non-government organization, won second prize at the 2006 Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy.

The president, Wang Mingying, said her organization won the prize for its efforts to promote use of methane in rural areas.

The association, founded in 1997, conducted activities such as tree planting, environment protection campaigns, and training rural women in the use of methane to raise environmental awareness while improving rural living standards, Wang said.

In 1999, the association started a program under which rural women were taught how to raise pigs, then use pig dung to produce methane and use the byproducts as fertilizer for fruit trees.

It had trained 8,015 women in 105 villages, of whom 1,294 have established methane generating facilities in their homes, Wang said.

Using methane, each household can save annually at least 1,500 kilograms of firewood, formerly used in cooking, she said.

Sarah Butler-Sloss, founder of the Ashden Awards, said the association had set an example for other countries and in the study of global climate changes.

Founded in 2001, the Ashden Awards encourage the development and use of renewable energy resources.