[ 2014-09-16 ]

Ghanaian wins top Biodiversity award
Tamale, Sept. 15, GNA - Dr. Alfred Oteng-Yeboah,
Chairman of the Ghana National Biodiversity
Committee, has been named as one of the three
individuals to be awarded the MIDORI Prize for
Biodiversity 2014.

The MIDORI Prize is a biennial international
prize, organized by the AEON Environmental
Foundation and the Secretariat of the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD), to honour
individuals who have made outstanding
contributions to the conservation and sustainable
use of biodiversity at the global, regional or
local levels.

A statement issued from CBD headquarters in
Montréal, Canada, and emailed to the GNA, said
the other two winners were Dr. Kamal Bawa,
President, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology
and the Environment (ATREE), India, and Dr.
Bibiana Vilá, Principal Researcher, National
Research Council (CONICET) and Director, Vicuñas,
Camelids and Environment (VICAM), Argentina.

Each recipient would be given a wooden plaque, a
commemorative gift and a monetary prize of 100,000
US dollars to support their work in safeguarding
biodiversity.

They would be honoured at an Award Ceremony on
Wednesday 15, October 2014, in Pyeongchang, South
Korea, in conjunction with the high-level segment
of the twelfth meeting of the Conference of the
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
(COP 12).

The recipients would also deliver public lectures
at a Winners’ Forum that would be held on
Tuesday 21 October 2014 at the U Thant Hall of the
United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan.

Mr Takuya Okada, Chairman of the AEON
Environmental Foundation, said, “The
conservation of biodiversity and the prevention of
Climate Change are two of the greatest challenges
of our time.

We hope that the MIDORI Prize will contribute to
meeting this global challenge, to the achievement
of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and to the
objectives of the United Nations Decade on
Biodiversity 2011-2020.”

Mr Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive
Secretary of CBD, said: “The MIDORI Prize is a
unique and powerful initiative to help raise
awareness and encourage action for the
mainstreaming conservation and sustainable use of
biodiversity.

“I want to congratulate this year’s winners
and also thank them for their important
contributions to the biodiversity and sustainable
development agenda.”

The MIDORI Prize was established by the AEON
Environmental Foundation in 2010 to mark the
International Year of Biodiversity. The year’s
award is the third.

Source - GNA

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