Sunhak Peace Prize - First Award Recipients Selected

[The Monthly JoongAng, July Edition] First Award Recipients of the Sunhak Peace Prize Selected “Leading the Peace Civilization in the 21st Century”

The Award Recipients for the “Korean Nobel Prize,” a Peace Prize for the Future Generations, have been announced.

President Anote Tong stands on the frontline to Resolve Climate Change in Nations that face imminent risk of being submerged.

Dr. Vijay Gupta, South East Asia Starvation Relief through Development of Fish Farming Technology:

“I am grateful and happy that Korea, which is not even an international organization such as the UN, is taking great interest in climate change.”

Republic of Kiribati President Anote Tong(63 years old) spoke after having been selected as a recipient of the Sunhak Peace Prize on June 8. The Republic of Kiribati is a small Pacific island nation made up of 33 coral islands, and sustains a population of one hundred thousand people. This nation, whose name is relatively unfamiliar, has recently been garnering the attention of the global community. This is because,

with a very low average altitude of 2m above sea level, its islands are gradually being submerged by the rise in sea levels caused by recent years of global warming. It faces the tragic fate of having its entire nation submerged by 2050. President Tong has been raising awareness about his homeland’s critical situation which bears the risk of total submersion by the ocean. He has also been promoting awareness in the global community on the gravity of climate change, and for this he has been highly praised.

On June 8, the Sunhak Peace Prize Committee (Chairman Il-Shik Hong, former Secretary General of Korea University) held a press conference with domestic and foreign journalists at the National Press Club (NPC) in the US capital of Washington, DC. They announced that Dr. Gupta, who contributed towards resolving South East Asia’s poverty, as well as the food crisis, and President Tong were selected as the co-recipients of the first Sunhak Peace Prize. President Tong, also a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, was elected as the fifth president of the Republic of Kiribati in 2003. And during his three consecutive terms, he has been raising awareness throughout the UN and other international organizations on the crisis faced by small island nations in the Pacific Ocean, due to climate change, and has been urging resolution measures through global partnerships.

Co-recipient Dr. Modadugu Vijay Gupta(76 years old) is also known as the “saint for poor people” for helping to quell starvation throughout South East Asian nations by developing revolutionary fish farming technology. As a biologist, his methods were responsible for an explosive increase in the number of fish through improving the breeding species of cultivated fish. He led the so-called “Blue Revolution” of fish farming business. The “Green Revolution” gave rise to a rapid increase in farming productivity. Similarly, the “Blue Revolution” has rapidly increased the productivity of fishing businesses, and has been receiving attention as an alternative for the food crisis. Dr. Gupta has given his fish farming technology to many poor people, and has been widely recognized for making possible the miracle of self-sufficiency and independency. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that they would promptly post this news of Dr. Gupta’s award on their homepage.