Problem overview:

     Awareness and visions: Individuals can make a difference in raising worldwide awareness on environment, especially these days with an information network that spans the planet in seconds. Everyone, including the highest levels of government, is touched by the message in Aikas book called Secret of the Earth. There have been many environmental heroes, but none more touching than Aika Tsubota.

Background:

     A young girl changes the world

     Aika Tsubota, a girl who was profoundly interested in environment: Aika Tsubota was a sixth-grade student in the Shimane prefecture in Japan. Deeply interested in the environment and skilled as a graphic artist, she decided to put her skills to rendering environmental issues into comics so that children in the lower grades could understand the issues involved.

     Her interests were portrayed in a comic book she single handedly worked on: The book was entirely Aika's own work. For two months she worked diligently on gathering information from the library and worked on an interesting comic story involving man and nature. She researched background information, planned the storyline, drew the illustrations, wrote the text and organized the overall layout and presentation.

     Unfortunately, Aika passed away soon after she finished the book: Just after the book had been finished, tragedy struck. Aika collapsed from cerebral hemorrhage and died two days later. In memory of their daughter, who was 12 years old at the time of her death, her parents printed 50 copies of Secrets of the Earth and presented them to Aika's classmates and teachers.

     However, her book still lives on: Soon the young girl's initiative, and her untimely death, became widely known in and outside of Japan. Aika's book was made into a textbook for elementary and secondary schools. Since then it has also been translated into English, Chinese and Arabic.

     Aikas Secret of the Earth has been displayed at international gatherings: The Save the Sea Campaign of Japan took over the promotion of the book and has taken it around the world along with an exhibition of children's environmental paintings. It has also been displayed at the UN Headquarters in New York. Copies of the book have been distributed at key environmental conferences and gatherings, including the Earth Summit.

     Her innovation won her an award from UNEP: In 1993, UNEP posthumously awarded its Global 500 honor to Aika Tsubota for her innovative and single-handed effort towards environmental communication. Aika's book, and its many language versions, continues to inform and inspire children in Asia and the Pacific and beyond. It shows that, with determination and hard work, even a single child can make a difference.