Officiating at the ceremony were Mr John Chan, Steward of The Hong Kong Jockey Club and Mrs Lessie Wei, Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation. Pop singer Miriam Yeung also performed the Campaign theme song Green Dream at the ceremony to share the environmental message with participants.

¡§The green extra-curricular activities of "The Hong Kong Jockey Club Green Child Campaign" have been organized by a number of bodies that support environmental protection.  The aim is to strengthen primary students' environmental awareness through fun-packed and interesting activities.  Today we celebrate the opening of the "Earth Day Carnival 2001" which we hope will give our students a greater understanding and appreciation of the natural world,¡¨ said Mr. John Chan at the ceremony.

¡§The first "Earth Day" was held in the USA on 22 April 1970.  Since then the concept has been embraced globally with the aim of protecting the natural world. We hope to raise the environmental awareness of our students through the Earth Day celebrations,¡¨ said Mrs Lessie Wei.

The two-month ¡§Use Fewer Plastic Bags¡¨ exercise, Phase One of the Campaign, concluded successfully in March. Over 100,000 participating students collected over 400,000 receipts from the supermarkets supporting the exercise, namely PARKnSHOP, Wellcome and China Resources. As each of these receipts represents the saving of at least one plastic bag, the Campaign has achieved an encouraging result of saving at least 400,000 plastic bags.

Mr Chan added that the participating students had been enthusiastic in encouraging family members to join the exercise. Two students alone with the cooperation of family members saved over 100 bags in one month.  One student who lived in Sha Tau Kok even reminded his mother to use environmentally friendly bags rather than plastic bags when shopping in supermarkets across the border

A survey conducted by the Jockey Club revealled that the Campaign is effective to enhance environmental awareness among the participating students and their families.  Many schools suggested that the exercise should cover other supermarkets, convenience stores, drug stores, department stores, shopping malls, etc.  Some schools also suggested that the ¡§Use Fewer Plastic Bags¡¨ exercise should be extended to three or six months, or be turned it into an annual event.

In addition to this two-day Carnival, other green extra-curricular activities of the Campaign will include the Hong Kong Jockey Club Green Child Environmental Week to be held in mid-May; the Ocean Park Eco Tour in early June, and the "Greener and Cleaner Classrooms Planting Scheme" to be introduced in various schools between April and August.  Some of the participating schools have also applied for cash subsidies to organize their own extra-curricular activities or courses relating to environmental protection.