Tata Chemicals: 'Vhali' wins the Green Governance Award
October 11, 2005

Tata Chemicals has won the Green Governance Award 2005 for its project — Conservation of the Whale Shark. The award will be given by Dr Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India on November 10, 2005 at a ceremony in Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.

The Green Governance Awards have been instituted by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in order to provide impetus to sustainable development and to encourage environmental protection initiatives. The purpose of the award is to recognise and appreciate an organisation's efforts beyond meeting statutory compliance for protection and conservation of the environment. There were 28 participants in three categories: Conservation and restoration of habitat, conservation of flora and conservation of fauna.

Tata Chemicals won the award in the category — Conservation of Fauna. Tata Chemicals started work on this Whale Shark Conservation project in September 2003, and has used unique and innovative conservation intervention techniques that has brought about positive results in terms of popularising and ensuring the long-term survival of the whale shark — the largest fish on this planet. The approach involved all stakeholders in the whale shark's universe, including the whale shark hunters, boatmen, coastal communities, the forest department, the coast guard, school children and conservation NGOs. The project succeeded in creating an emotional bond between the coastal communities and the whale shark, through interpretation of Indian traditions. Tata Chemicals partnered with Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), an NGO of international repute in this project. The project won international acclaim at the Whale Shark Conservation Conference at Perth, Australia in May 2005, where experts noted that the approach deployed by Tata Chemicals and WTI is a role model for other developing nations where traditional values are strong.

The pre-requisite for this award is for the organisation to have robust environment management systems, that include recycle / reuse of effluents, environmental quality monitoring and management, use of clean technology, emergency preparedness, energy conservation techniques, and training of employees in environmental protection, and conservation of biodiversity.