Environmental-Friendly School Award
MIRI: The Environmental-Friendly School Award Presentation or ‘Anugerah Sekolah Rakan Alam Sekitar’ (Serasi) serves as a crucial platform to enrich students’ knowledge and strengthen their awareness of environmental protection, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.
He was speaking at the ninth edition of Serasi held here today.
Awang Tengah commended the organisers of the award, adding that schools played a big role in influencing and nurturing youngsters to cherish and take care of the environment.
Tengah, who is also Second Urban Development and Resources Minister, said such programmes helped to build future environmental ambassadors.
Serasi was jointly hosted by Shell MDS (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, the Sarawak Natural Resources of Environment Board (NREB) and Tengah’s ministry.
For this edition (2018/2019), 85 secondary and 523 primary schools competed in six categories.
The categories were Star Special Award, Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards, and Teacher’s Award.
Three new awards were also introduced, namely the Hope Award, Student Icon Award and Project Award.
“The programme offers opportunities and creative engagement and experiences for youth to practise their skills and sustainability competencies while learning to preserve nature,” he explained.
Awang Tengah added that Sarawak was committed to balancing conserving environmental resources and development.
“This has been proven with policies that we (the state) have to protect nature for continuous growth towards a better future,” he said.
Awang Tengah said that the state government was planning to gazette one million hectares of land as totally protected areas by this year.
Under the State Land Use Policy for example, the forestry sector is allocated with six million hectares for the purpose of Permanent Forest Estates.
Also present were Assistant Minister of Urban Development and Resources, Datuk Len Talif Salleh and Controller of NREB, Justine Jok Emang.
