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The National Ozone Unit of the
National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) will on Wednesday,
July 4, 2007 award winners of the recently concluded “Save our Ozone
Layer” Poster Competition, which commemorates the 20th Anniversary of
the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The
ceremony will be held at NEPA’s offices at Caledonia Avenue in
Kingston.
The winning posters will be used
in the celebration of International Ozone Day, commemorated each year
on September 16. This year, the event will be celebrated under the
international theme “Montreal Protocol - celebrating 20 years of
progress in 2007.”
The poster competition, which
targeted primary school students between six and eleven years, was
guided by the theme “Protect the Ozone Layer, Save Life on Earth.”
The first to third place winners will be awarded book vouchers while
the winning school will receive a trophy. Natalia Surgeon of Jessie
Ripoll Primary (the winning school) copped first place while second
place went to Dantea McIntyre of Howard Cooke Primary. Third place
was awarded to Dexter Parkins of St. Ann’s Bay Preparatory.
The poster competition is part of
a public education initiative commemorating the Montreal Protocol, a
landmark international treaty to protect the ozone layer. In
addition, it is anticipated that the competition will help to increase
the level of awareness and understanding on what the ozone layer is,
its importance, ozone depletion and its effects on human health and
the environment.
Jamaica ratified the Montreal
Protocol in 1993 and met its first obligations under the Protocol on
July 1, 1999 with the freeze on consumption of Chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs). The country was the first in the Caribbean to phase-out CFCs,
four years ahead of the 2010 date set by the Montreal Protocol.
In January 2006, Jamaica ceased
the importation of products containing CFCs (which are found in some
refrigerants and aerosols) and is now ahead in the Caribbean region in
the phase-out of Ozone Depleting Substances. The phase-out of CFCs in
Jamaica were achieved through the enactment of legislation, the
adoption of nationally appropriate ozone friendly technologies and
active cooperation between the public and private sectors.
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