13-year-old Filipina girl wins intl painting competition

A 13-year-old Filipina girl Trisha Co Reyes beat over 600,000 other young people all over the world to win the "2011 International Children's Painting Competition on the Environment." Reyes placed first in the competition organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). According to UNEP, Reyes' entry shows a young girl pulling back a large grey curtain covered in images of dying trees in a polluted landscape, to reveal a colorful forest filled with abundant wildlife. Reyes said the painting is an appeal for young people to value forests and encourage them to plant trees. "My painting shows two sides; a good and sustainable forest and the causes of forest destruction", said Reyes. "Forests are essential for life on Earth, but [today] the destruction of the forest has become a worldwide problem. We must treasure the earth's greatest biological treasure, so that we will always have forests in our lives," she said. As the overall winner of the competition, Reyes received US$2,000 in prize money. She also won an all-expenses-paid trip to the TUNZA International Children and Youth Conference on the Environment in Bandung, Indonesia (September 27 to October 1), where she received her award. The 2011 International Children's Painting Competition marks the 20th anniversary of the contest, which has seen entries from over 3 million children from 100 countries. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said, "This year's competition links the children of Rio 1992 with those who are children in the run-up to Rio+20." "The world today is markedly different to the world of UNEP's original children's painting competitions-geopolitically and economically with increasing and accelerating challenges linked with to finding decent employment for youth and countering rising environmental degradation," Steiner said. - VVP, GMA News