Award winning campaigner Von Hernandez
Von Hernandez, a Greenpeace toxics specialist from the Philippines, has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his tireless work to stop the spread of incinerators in developing countries.
Dubbed the Nobel Prize for the Environment, the Goldmans are awarded annually to six grassroots individuals from around the world. Hernandez is the first Filipino to win the prize.
Hernandez is the Convenor of the Philippine Clean Air Coalition and coordinator of Greenpeace International's toxics campaign in Asia. His fight to stop incineration began when it was first touted as the solution to Manila's waste problems in 1988.
He was instrumental in making incineration and waste management an election issue and securing widespread support for the campaign, including that of the country's church leaders.
Hernandez's efforts saw the Philippines become the first country to impose a nationwide ban on waste incineration. Yet he can't rest on his laurels, as corruption and industry pressure means the 1999 ban is continually under threat.
Much of Hernandez's work has focused on Quezon City, which is home to Payatas, the region's biggest dump waste. The capital of the Philippines, Manila, produces 6000 tonnes of garbage per day, much of which ends up in Payatas.
In 2000, a rain storm caused the dump's mountain of garbage to collapse, killing at least 300 people and destroying more than 500 homes.
Hernandez weathers strong industry pressure and harassment throughout the course of his work. He has been threatened with libel suits, ridiculed in the press by industry sympathisers, and even blamed for the Manila garbage crisis.
But his perseverance has paid off. The incineration ban was approved in the Clean Air Act of 1999. The ban is scheduled to take full effect this year, but powerful members of Congress and local government officials, some of whom have documented ties with the waste management industry, are working to have the ban repealed.
Last year the campaign was dealt a blow when the Philippine Supreme Court ruled in favour of a waste management consortium's plans to build a landfill dump and waste incinerator to service Metro Manila.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo used her authority to reject the contract. However, the case made the ban legally vulnerable to attack. Meanwhile, international financial institutions like the Asian Development bank, the World Bank and the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation continue to promote incineration projects in the Philippines and throughout the developing world.
"Dirty technologies like incinerators tend to follow the path of least resistance," says Hernandez. "The incineration industry will always find advantages in operating in less regulated environments."
"With a little bit of public relations, obsolete incinerators can easily be packaged as modern, non-polluting technologies for handling waste - and this is exactly the trend we are seeing in many Asian countries."
Hernandez sees the Philippines' victory (to date) against incinerators as both a triumph against polluting technologies, and a key opportunity to break away from the traditional development paradigm.
"[The Philippines can] chart a different course for managing its resources in a sustainable way," he says. "In other words, this is an opportunity for countries like the Philippines to avoid repeating the mistakes of the West."
Visit the Goldman Environmental Prize site to read about the other winners.
