Dragonair is pleased to announce that, thanks to the support and generosity of its passengers over the past five years, more than HK$7 million has been raised through the airline's inflight charity campaign - Change for Conservation.

"The response to the campaign from our passengers has been very encouraging. Environmental conservation concerns everyone and, thanks to the strong support we have received, we can continue to give our full support to this initiative," said Dragonair Chief Executive Officer Kenny Tang in a cheque presentation ceremony on December 12, 2008.

Since 2004, Dragonair has been working closely with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to raise awareness of the importance of nature conservation and help to fund TNC's projects in remote areas of China. Over the years, TNC has successfully launched the "China Biodiversity Conservation Blueprint Project", in which studies and analysis have been carried out to help develop a systematic approach to conserving biodiversity in the Upper Yangtze River Basin and in Sichuan Province.

TNC also helped start the "National Park Project", through which China's first national park Pudacuo National Park in Shangri-La, was established. The project also helped to set up two more national parks in Yunnan Province - Laojun Mountain and Meili Snow Mountain.

TNC also works closely with various organisations to promote environmentally friendly building concepts and the protection of natural forests to facilitate sustainable local development. With the support from Dragonair's "Change for Conservation", projects are progressing well. These include the "Yunnan Alternative Energy Project" and "Green Village Credit". The former has seen over 10,000 households in Yunnan install alternative energy devices, greatly helping to reduce the use of wood as fuel. The latter has helped to boost conservation and poverty-reduction awareness.

Photograph: Dragonair CEO Kenny Tang presents the HK$7 million cheque to The Nature Conservancy's Director of Philanthropy Asia-Pacific Region, Margie Kim Bermeo.