The chief of Thailand's Pollution Control Department (PCD) has won a major regional award for improving air quality.

PCD director-general Supat Wangwongwatana was presented with the award last week by Cornie Huizenga, head of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities secretariat (CAI-Asia).

Supat was named Air Quality Management Champion 2006 for outstanding efforts to institutionalise air-quality oversight. He was among four recipients honoured initially at the Better Air Quality 2006 workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in December.

The workshop was attended by 1,000 participants from 35 nations. Supat was among 30 people nominated for the awards last year.

Criteria for the award was people or organisations with a vision, or desire to make a difference. People or groups must have shown initiative, leadership, an ability to make ideas happen, plus bravery to take a risk when failure or loss of face was possible, according to Frank Murray of Murdoch University in Western Australia, who led the AQM Champion selection panel.

Supat was recognised for outstanding work, including the network developed to monitor Thailand's air quality, the successful phasing out of leaded gasoline in the late 1990s, and establishing a better vehicle exhaust standard, Murray said.

Supat's work included tackling sulphur pollution at Mae Mor power plant in Lampang, pollution at Rayong's Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate and noise pollution at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, Murray said.

Supat had a respected role on the international stage, and is the current president of the Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network, a former CAI-Asia president (2003 to 2004) and had helped in formulating the WHO Air Quality Guidelines, Murray said.  He had also received an Award of Distinction from the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2002, he said.

Other winners were Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso for his outstanding leadership to provide the city with sustainable public transport especially Asia's largest Bus Rapid Transport system, known as the Trans-Jakarta Busway.

Justice Hamid Ali Shah of Pakistan also won an award for his work in improving air quality in the Pakistani city of Lahore, while Sara Stenhammar, from the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (SIDA) received an award for SIDA's assistance in helping Asia tackle air pollution problems.

Janjira Pongrai

The Nation