Prize recognises efforts by EC environmentalist

EASTERN Cape environmentalist Andrew Muir has received a social entrepreneur award and fellowship from the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum on Africa.

Attending the award ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Muir, along with five other leading international figures in conservation, accepted the award from the organisation, which searches out top social entrepreneurs from 40 countries around the globe.

Muir said he felt honoured, and extremely positive about the implications of this fellowship for his work with the Wilderness Foundation, one of South Africa’s leading conservation NGOS.

“The Wilderness Foundation is one of a few South African Conservation NGOS currently involved with active, sustainable social intervention programmes,” he said.

The NGO has, since 1972, been involved with various ecological and social outreach programmes.

From HIV intervention projects to the hand it has played in raising anti-rhino-poaching awareness, the Wilderness Foundation has pioneered various intervention projects based on the growing South African eco-tourism industry.

It has also focused education.

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Muir received the award alongside fellow South African, Paul Scott Matthew, director of North Star Alliance.

Scott’s involvement with providing mobile workers and communities with high-quality health and safety services via interlinked clinics known as “Roadside Wellness Centres” has targeted the rising trend in HIV/AIDS infections.

Operating since 2005, the initiative has grown to incorporate 22 centres in 10 countries.