Hanoi (VNA) – Nguyen Van Thai, Director of ﷺSave Vietnam’s Wildlife (SVW), has become the first Vietnamese wildli🌃fe conservationist and the only Asian so far to have received the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize - the world’s most prestigious award for grassroots environmental activists.

Known as the "Green Nobel”, the prize honours grassroots environmental heroes from the world’s six inhabited continental regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The prize, worth 200,000 USD, recognises individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risks. Thai was given the award at a virtual ceremony which took place on June 15, in recognition of his contributions to rescuing 1,540 pangolins from the illegal wildlife trade between 2014 and 2020 and establishing Vietnam’s first anti-poaching team under the co-management of Save Vietnam's Wildlife – a local non-governmental organisation and the Government since 2018. The team has destroyed 9,701 animal traps, dismantled 775 illegal camps, confiscated 78 guns, and arrested 558 poachers between June 2018 and December 2020, leading to a significant decline in illegal poaching in the Pu Mat National Park in the central province of Nghe An. In 2016, Thai opened the Carnivore and Pangolin Education Centre, the first of its kind in Vietnam, to provide wildlife conservation courses to local children and the public. He also gives training courses to customs officials, border guards and forest rangers on wildlife laws and how to properly care for seized pangolins. As a result, nearly 8,200 children living in the buffer zone of the Cuc Phuong National Park have been inspired in wildlife conservation so far, and about 2,500 law enforcement officers given training courses on wildlife conservation. The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1989 by late San Francisco civic leaders and philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman. Over the past 32 years, the prize has had an immeasurable impact on the planet. To date, the prize has honoured 206 winners from 92 nations, and shed light on many of the critical issues facing the Earth. Thai is the second Vietnamese to have win the Goldman Environmental Prize. In 2018, Nguy Thi Khanh was recognised for her crusade against the country's fume-spewing coal industry.

Passionate for pangolin

Growing up in Van Phuong commune, Ninh Binh province’s Nho Quan district, just a few kilometres from the Cuc Phuong National Park, Thai was concerned about poaching activities in which various animals were poached for traditional medicine and meat. Thai decided to commit himself to nature conservation and nurtured his dream of becoming a forest ranger. After graduating from the Vietnam National Forestry University in 2005, he worked as a coordinator of the Asian Pangolin Conservation Programme (APCP)– the first to conduct pangolin preservation in Vietnam. Pangolins - often described as "scaly anteaters" - are defenceless in the wild, curling up into a ball when they are frightened, allowing poachers to easily gather them up. Thai said the trade and use of pangolins has been on the rise over the past decade, explaining that the rapid economic development in Vietnam and China has created the mega-rich who crave unique and unusual luxury experiences over expensive items. A survey conducted by the SVW revealed that 23 percent out of the 9,000 people and traditional medicine practitioners interviewed believe that pangolin scales have medicinal values. There is no reliable evidence that pangolin scales have special medicinal values. However, due to the exaggeration of its medicinal values, pangolins are driven to the verge of extinction. Seeing the danger, Thai has committed to devoting his life to protecting the animal.

Second home of wild animals  

Over the past 16 years, Thai and his colleagues at the SVW have rescued 1,888 animals of 40 species, of which 1,540 are pangolins, and built 74 cages covering 1,100 sq.m, two animal hospitals spanning 245 sq.m, and a semi-wildlife area of 1,665 sq.m. About 60 percent of the individuals have been released into the wild by his team. Apart from rescuing wild animals, they have contributed to restoring the population of Sunda pangolins, also known as Malayan or Javan pangolins. They have pioneered in building strategies and plans for the conservation of Owston's palm civets (Chrotogale owstoni) and Chinese pangolins that have vanished from Vietnam’s forests.

Tireless efforts recognised

With his great contributions to pangolin conservation in Vietnam, Thai was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize which honours grassroots environmental leaders who have made "sustained and significant efforts" to protect and enhance the natural world. In 2016, Thai received with the "Future for Nature", an international award that aims to celebrate tangible and significant achievements in conserving floral and faunal species. He presented all the money from the two awards, nearly 6 billion VND (260,747 USD), to the crusade for wildlife in Vietnam, particularly pangolins. Thai told VietnamPlus that the “Green Nobel” is not for himself but the SVW’s staff and conservationists nationwide, expressing his hope that the award will inspire more Vietnamese to take actions to protect biodiversity./.