FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 26, 2002

Contact:
Maria Gilpin
202-835-0333
mgilpin@usaep.org

Mayor Vyas Makes Environmental Commitments at Summit

“Improvements in Solid Waste and Water Among Vyas's Top Environmental Priorities for Vadodara”

HONOLULU, HI, USA (April 26, 2002) – Mayor Bharatiben Vyas recently attended the Asia-Pacific Urban Institute Executive Seminar on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) from April 3-6 in Honolulu, HI. At the seminar, 110 leaders, water managers, and experts from Canada, Cambodia, China, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States exchanged experiences and designed local action plans to improve water management in their cities.

This was the inaugural seminar of the Asia Pacific Urban Institute, a capacity-building institution that is closely associated with the Mayors Asia Pacific Environmental Summit (MAPES), a unique bi-annual forum for local leaders to commit to improving their cities. Mayor Vyas was one of the participants invited by Jeremy Harris, Mayor of Honolulu and sponsored by the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership (US-AEP).

“The seminar is all about the sharing of best environmental practices at the global level. Experts from different fields and different countries all bring important skills to take home. We observe the trends of what others have experienced and prevent future problems and learn from others’ experiences,” stated Mayor Vyas.

At the seminar, Mayor Vyas presented the progress the city has made toward the increased capacity of wastewater treatment plant, successfully implementing the commitments she pledged at the MAPES summit in 2000. This year, she is focusing on implementing an environmentally sound water system and learning more efficient ways to distribute and monitor water supply through technologies such as a Geographic Information System (GIS).

Mayor Vyas committed to identifying an agency to construct a compost plant on a public-private partnership basis and commissioning the project within two years. She would also like to introduce a GIS system in one ward of the city as a pilot project.

Mayor Vyas summarized her experience, concluding, “We, as Mayors, are answerable to the people for the work we do – we must educate the young generation on the importance of the environment in order to continue these efforts in the future.”