An award given to the world’s largest tobacco producer for its “significant contribution to ecological protection” has infuriated anti-tobacco activists.
The Chinese Association on Tobacco Control sent a protest letter to the China Green Foundation yesterday asking it to withdraw the award given to the China National Tobacco Corp.
“China Tobacco cuts down 2 million trees every year to sustain its business, which has caused mass deforestation and soil erosion,” the association said.
The letter added: “The award is against the spirit of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and ignores the fact that the tobacco industry destroys people’s health and the environment.”
The China Green Foundation, a charity supervised by the State Forestry Administration, said China Tobacco was among 23 enterprises which got the “2011 Ecology Contribution Award,” an honorary award, due to their huge donations.
“The company started to make donations in 1999, and in 2010 it set up the Jinye Ecology Fund aiming to plant more trees,” a foundation official surnamed Fei told Shanghai Daily.
It needed time to consider whether to accept the association’s advice to revoke the company’s award, he said.
The total amount the company donated to the foundation and details of the 23 awarded enterprises haven’t been made public. But Fei said petrol refining plants and heavy metal processors were among them.
In April, China National Tobacco Corp withdrew its research on cigarette improvement from a top award competition amid a nationwide outcry, with opponents accusing it of promoting smoking and misleading the public.
Research into a “Chinese-style cigarette” had been nominated for a National Science and Technology Progress Award.
Last December, the association also protested when Xie Jianping, a tobacco scientist, was honored with membership of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Meanwhile, the WHO yesterday awarded Chen Zhu, China’s Minister of Health, with a Director-General’s Special Recognition Certificate for his commitment to tobacco control.
