Group disclaims statement questioning GMA's green award

MANILA, Philippines - Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) yesterday denied issuing a statement questioning the conferment of the Teddy Roosevelt International Conservation Award on President Arroyo.

In a letter to Environment Secretary Horacio Ramos, IUCN director general Julia Marton-Lefevre apologized for the statement made by one of its consultants, Clive Wicks.

“I wish to assure you that Mr. Clive Wicks did not have any authority to make any statement in the name of IUCN or in behalf of IUCN. Any statement that he may have made cannot and should not be attributed to IUCN nor be understood to express any position that IUCN might have taken on this matter,” Marton-Lefevre said in the letter.

In a letter to the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF), Wicks said the group was “shocked and very angry” over the conferment of the award on President Arroyo last week.

Ramos accepted the clarification and maintained that the President has “effectively set a new benchmark in environmental governance in the country.”

He noted that Mrs. Arroyo has ordered 24 areas to be put under protection, and signed into law 10 others.

The award was presented to Mrs. Arroyo by California Rep. Ed Royce, Tennessee Rep. John Tanner, and ICCF President John Gannt Jr.

President Arroyo was honored for protecting the Coral Triangle, a vast ocean area covering the seas of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. 

Mrs. Arroyo is the fourth recipient of the award named after the conservationist US President Theodore Roosevelt. Other recipients are Director Rob Portman of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (2006), former Prime Minister Tony Blair of United Kingdom (2007) and Prince Albert II of Monaco (2009).  – With Marvin Sy