Mr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias today
began his tenure as the Executive Secretary to the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) at the Secretariat’s offices in Montreal, Canada.
Mr. Dias, a Brazilian national, brings
many years of experience in policy-making and in coordinating the implementation
of biodiversity policies, programmes and projects at the national and
international level. Deeply involved
with the negotiations and implementation of the Convention on Biological
Diversity since its beginnings, he participated as a member of the Brazilian
delegation in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the
Convention.
Previously the National Secretary for Biodiversity
and Forests at the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, Mr. Dias was directly
responsible for overseeing several multi-institution programmes and the work of
four institutions attached to the Ministry.
Mr. Dias was previously a member of the Scientific
and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility, Vice-President
of the International Union of Biological Sciences, and Coordinator of the
Steering Committee of the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network.
Trained as a scientist, he holds a
Bachelor of Science in biological sciences from the University of Brasilia,
with a Doctor of Philosophy in zoology from the University of Edinburgh. Born
in 1953, Mr. Dias is married and has one child.
Mr. Dias succeeds Ahmed Djoghlaf, who
had served as Executive Secretary since January 2006.
On assuming his post, Mr. Dias stated:
“It gives me great pleasure to succeed those that have successfully led the
Convention Secretariat since the beginning – Angela Cropper, Calestous Juma,
Hamdallah Zedan and Ahmed Djoghlaf. If you ask what my three priorities are for
the Convention, my answer is implementation, implementation and
implementation.”
Mr. Dias begins his tenure following the
strong success of the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the
Convention, held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010. At that historic meeting,
Governments approved a new Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 with its
twenty Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Governments also agreed on the Nagoya
Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of
Benefits Arising from Their Utilization to the Convention on Biological
Diversity and the Nagoya – Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and
Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.
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