Awards & Honors

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

PETA on December 20,  2010 named former U.S. President Bill Clinton “Person of the Year” for adopting a vegan diet.  “”I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit,”  Clinton told CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer,  crediting the diet with helping him to lose 24 pounds before his daughter Chelsea’s July 2010 wedding.  “Bill Clinton won not only because he’s the most prominent person to go vegan this year but also because he used his platform to articulate the reasons why a plant-based diet is the most healthy diet,” PETA senior vice president Dan Mathews told media. “It doesn’t hurt,”  Mathews added, “that he has [his daughter] Chelsea’s lead to follow.  She went vegan at 10.  Her motivation was not wanting to support cruelty to animals.”

The Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries on December 7, 2010 presented the inaugural Carole Noon Award for Sanctuary Excellence to the Animals Asia Foundation,  in recognition of the sanctuaries the foundation has operated in China since 2000 and in Vietnam since 2007 for moon bears rescued from bile farms.  Together, the sanctuaries currently house about 350 bears.  Named in honor of Save The Chimps sanctuary founder Carole C. Noon,  the award included a donation of $5,000,  underwritten by the Pettus Crowe Foundation, the Humane Society of the U.S.,  Born Free USA,  and the American Anti-Vivisection Society.

New Delhi TV and Toyota in December 2010 presented “Greenie Eco Awards” to animal defenders including wildlife ranger Mukul Tamuli,  who is credited with stopping rhino poaching at the Pabitora sanctuary in Assam,  and the Forest Guards Railway Patrolling Force, of Rajaji National Park in northern India.  While fatal train collisions with elephants have increased elsewhere,  none have occurred in Rajaji National Park since 2005.

Tinatin Chavchanidze,  chairing the Animal Rights Committee of the Republic of Georgia since 2007,  was named Person of the Year for 2010 by the Georgian youth magazine Hot Chocolate.