Winners of the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity 2012 announced

Tokyo/Montreal 20 September 2012 – The winners of the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity have been announced today in Tokyo. The MIDORI Prize is a biennial international prize organized by the AEON Environmental Foundation in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to honour individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels.

The winners of the 2012 Prize are: Dr. Juan Carlos Castilla, Professor of Marine Ecology at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Dr. Rodrigo Gamez-Lobo, President of Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) and; Dr. Vo Quy, Honorary President at the Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies (CRES), Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Each recipient is awarded a wooden plaque, a commemorative gift and a monetary prize of $100,000 US dollars to support their work in safeguarding biodiversity. The Prize will be awarded at a ceremony in Hyderabad, India, on Wednesday 17 October 2012, held in conjunction with the high-level segment of the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity. A Winners’ Forum will then be held in Tokyo, Japan on Monday 22 October 2012 at the U Thant Hall of the United Nations University.

Tayuka Okada, the Chairman of the AEON Environmental Foundation said: “I hope the outstanding work of the winners, and the recognition given by the MIDORI Prize, will serve to inspire others to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the objectives of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity 2011-2020.”

Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said: “Protecting life on earth, which is the basis of, and closely connected to our daily lives, is not only the responsibility of the ministries and agencies in charge of protection of the environment, but is also the responsibility of each and every citizen and all sectors of  society. The Secretariat is pleased to be a partner of this unique initiative that strongly supports promotion of public awareness on biodiversity”.

The MIDORI Prize was established by the AEON Environmental Foundation in 2010, during the International Year of Biodiversity. The year 2012 is the second time the MIDORI Prize is being awarded.

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