Sanctuary-ABN Amro Wildlife Awards announced

Continuing with its six years of association with Sanctuary magazine, ABN Amro Bank announced the sixth Sanctuary-ABN Amro Wildlife Awards today. These awards have been instituted to recognise people fearlessly standing up to protect wildlife and environment.

The awards include Green teacher award, Young naturalist award, Wildlife service award and Lifetime service award. However, this year a new award category 'Wind under the wings award' has been introduced.

"We are happy about our association with wildlife concerns. We believe that honouring those who protect nature is in the best interests of generations to come," said Romesh Sobti, executive vice-president, ABN Amro Bank NV.

"We will continue with our association to the cause of environment. The passion of Bittu Sahgal impressed us and our association with him goes several years back," he added.

In light of the recent tiger crisis, much emphasis was given on tigers' protection in India. Bittu Sahgal, editor, Sanctuary, said, "We are losing bio-diversity in the Indian subcontinent. If we remained a mute spectator, the coming generations will see the extinction of many species." Dwindling forests, tigers and turtles are great environmental concerns, he said.

"We hardly have more than 1,500 tigers in the country. There seems to be no political will to prevent the extinction of tigers in our country. By creating awareness about such wildlife issues, we want to force the government to protect wildlife," said Sahgal.

Jay Mazoomdaar of Indian Express was awarded 'Wind under the wings award' for his investigation on tiger disappearance in Sariska. "There are no equipment provided to the people in forest reserves. Forest officers are not trained and take no interests in wildlife," said Mazoomdaar.

Sahgal said that from today we have launched Operation Tiger - II. " We can no longer depend on the government. Through this we want each child of this country and all people in the society to have a awareness of tigers issue. We did a mistake by not involving children in the sixties and seventies but we cannot afford to repeat it," said Sahgal.

"Nearly 300 rivers originate from the 27 tiger reserves in the country. In fact, tigers are the saviour of our water resources but we are not doing enough to conserve this natural habitat. Tigers are also called " Pattedaar pani ka devta" (Stripped water god)," Sahgal observed.

There are many ground level foot soldiers in the country committed to wildlife protection. "We are thankful to ABN Amro for providing a platform for these heroes ," Sahgal added.