FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 20122012 BLUE PLANET PRIZE:
ANNOUNCEMENT OF PRIZE WINNERS[Rio de Janeiro, Brazil] June 17, 2012 -- The Asahi Glass Foundation has selected Prof. William E. Rees
(Canada) and Dr. Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland) and Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy (USA) to receive thisyear’s Blue Planet Prize, the international environmental award, now in its 21st year. Two Blue Planet Prizes
are awarded to individuals or organizations each year that make outstanding achievements in scientificresearch and its application in helping to solve global environmental problems.
Professor Rees and Dr. Wackernagel were chosen for developing and advancing the Ecological Footprint, acomprehensive accounting system for comparing human demand on ecosystems to ecosystems' capacity to
self-renew. Their approach measures human carrying capacity and helps assess the risks of overconsumption
to planetary stability.
Dr. Lovejoy was selected for becoming the first person to clarify that human-caused habitat fragmentation
damages biodiversity and gives rise to environmental crisis. Dr. Lovejoy continues to be a global leader forenvironmental conservation.
This year marks the 21st awarding of the Blue Planet Prize, the international environmental award sponsoredby the Asahi Glass Foundation, chaired by Tetsuji Tanaka. Two Blue Planet Prizes are awarded to individuals
or organizations each year that make outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application, andin so doing help to solve global environmental problems. The Board of Directors and Councillors selected thefollowing recipients for this year.
1.

Professor William E. Rees (Canada)
Professor, University of British Columbia,
FRSC (Royal Society of Canada)

Dr. Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland)
President, Global Footprint Network

Flying without a fuel gauge is dangerous. Yet most nations operate without knowing how much “nature”
they have and how much they use. In developing Ecological Footprint accounting, William Rees andMathis Wackernagel have provided a natural resource "fuel gauge" for nations and the world.
Ecological Footprint calculations show that currently most countries are in ecological overshoot. It now
takes our Blue Planet one year and 6 months to replenish what humanity uses each year. The Footprint
is a unique metric that allows anyone to compare people's demand for biologically productive
ecosystems with how much is available. The graphic power of the Footprint metaphor in many
languages has helped make the Footprint the world's best-known and most-used sustainability metric.
The Footprint is backed up by detailed accounts that vividly underscore today’s life-threatening
sustainability gap, and suggest what we must do to close it.
2. Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy (USA)Professor, Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University

Through pioneering and creative fieldwork conducted in the tropical Amazon rainforest, a great
achievement of Dr. Lovejoy was shedding light on a major mechanism of species decline when thebiodiversity concept was still in its infancy. Dr. Lovejoy became the first person to scientifically clarify
how humans caused habitat fragmentation and propelled biodiversity toward crisis. Based on profoundinsights into ecosystems obtained through the series of research, Dr. Lovejoy became the first to publish“a projection of species extinctions.” He has continued to propose measures for curbing the rising rateof endangered species, significantly influenced numerous academic institutes and societies and helped
lay the foundation for protecting the natural environment based on biodiversity, which is now amainstream concept.
Both recipients will be awarded a certificate of merit, a commemorative trophy and a supplementary award of
50 million yen. The awards ceremony will be held on October 31, 2012 (Wednesday), at the Tokyo Kaikan(Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo).The commemorative lectures by the prize recipients will be held at the United Nations
University (Shibuya Ward, Tokyo) on November 1 (Thursday).

For more information and the photos of the recipients are available from the web site of the Asahi
Glass Foundation.

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About the Blue Planet Award
In 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, the Asahi Glass Foundation established the Blue Planet Prize, anaward presented to individuals or organizations worldwide in recognition of outstanding achievements inscientific research and its application that have helped provide solutions to global environmental problems.
The Prize is offered in the hopes of encouraging efforts to bring about the healing of the Earth’s fragile
environment. Past winners include Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Dr. José Goldemberg, Dr. James Lovelock,
Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Robert Watson. This year a total of 700 nominators from Japan and 600
nominators from other countries recommended 98 candidates. The fields represented by the candidates, inorder of number, were ecology (24), atmospheric and earth sciences (23), environmental economics andpolicy making (14) and compound area (12). The candidates represented 24 countries; 8 persons, 10 percentof the total, were from developing countries.

For more information, please contact: Tetsuro Yasuda
THE ASAHI GLASS FOUNDATION
2nd Floor, Science Plaza, 5-3 Yonbancho Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo 102-0081 Japan
Phone +81-3-5275-0620 Fax +81-3-5275-0871
e-mail: post@af-info.or.jp
URL: http://www.af-in fo.or.jp

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Attachment

Profile of the 2012 Blue Planet Prize Recipient
Professor William E. Rees (Canada) and Dr. Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland)
William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel are the co-developers of Ecological Footprint analysis, aresource accounting framework for determining human demands for biophysical productivity(biocapacity) relative to the regenerative capacity of ecosystems. They produced the firstextensive regional application of the method as part of their participation in the University of
British Columbia’s Task Force on Healthy and Sustainable Communities—of which Professor
Rees was co-Chair—in the early 1990s. (This research program provided the case study for
Wackernagel’s doctoral dissertation.)
Rees has been continuously involved in refining and applying Ecological Footprint analysis tosustainability analysis throughout most his career at that university. Various graduate students
under his tutelage have used integrated material flows analysis and Ecological Footprint analysis
to assess the impacts of cities, countries, and numerous individual economic activities fromgreenhouse vegetable production, through net-pen salmon farming and air transportation to
global trade, and have subsequently gone on to establish outstanding academic careers. His
current students continue to apply and refine Ecological Footprint analysis in studies of bothurban sustainability/vulnerability and the negative biophysical implications of globalization.
Prof. Rees has authored or co-authored hundreds of scientific papers, book chapters, and popular
articles on Ecological Footprint analysis, human carrying capacity, and related topics. He has
lectured by invitation on areas of his expertise in 30 countries around the world. From 1994 to1999 he served as Director of the School of Community and Regional Planning and led thereorientation of the School’s mission statement and curriculum in support of ‘planning forsustainability’. He is also a policy and science advisor to Global Footprint Network since its
inception in 2003, and has actively supported Global Footprint Network in leading a worldwide
effort to make the Footprint an ever-more robust measure of human demand on the biosphere.
Wackernagel completed his Ph.D. research, developing the Ecological Footprint, under
Professor Rees in 1994. He then worked in Costa Rica with Maurice Strong’s Earth Council andshortly after initiated a centre on sustainability studies at Anáhuac University in Xalapa(Mexico), where he furthered Footprint research. There, in 1997, he for the first time
consistently calculated the Footprint and biocapacity for 52 countries using UN data sets. His
research attracted a great deal of attention at the Rio+5 Conference in Rio. From 1999 to 2003,
Wackernagel was the sustainability director of Redefining Progress, an economic think-tank in
California. This experience encouraged him to co-found Global Footprint Network with Susan
Burns in 2003 with the goal of raising the profile of Ecological Footprint analysis and making
ecological limits central to decision-making. The Network has quickly grown into a major nongovernmental organization with offices in Brussels (Belgium) and Geneva (Switzerland), in
addition to its California headquarters. In 2012, it was identified as one of the top 100 NGOs in
the world.
For the last 10 years, Wackernagel has contributed to WWF’s bi-annual flagship publication“The Living Planet Report” which has become a key publication for Ecological Footprint results.
The 2012 edition was released in May from the International Space Station, generating thelargest media response of any Living Planet Report so far. The latest Global Footprint Network
calculations show that humanity’s demand for bio-resources exceeds the long-term regenerative
capacity of Earth by over 50 percent.

3

Significance of impact
Ecological Footprint accounts enable, for the first time, systematic comparisons of humandemand on nature to available supplies of nature’s goods and services (i.e., biocapacity). The
method can be applied to any population at regional, national or global scales. 1 Ecological
Footprint analysts measure both demand and supply in terms of hectares of global average
productivity. Hence, a population’s Ecological Footprint is the area of productive land and water
ecosystems required, on a continuous basis, to produce the bio-resources that the population
consumes and to assimilate its wastes, using prevailing technology. One significant waste flow is
the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. Biocapacity is the productive ecosystem area thatexists – in the world or in a region.
The Ecological Footprint is inversely related to carrying capacity: while traditional carrying
capacity would ask “how many people could this area support at a specified material standard ofliving”, Ecological Footprint analysis asks “how much area (biocapacity) is required to support
this population wherever on earth the relevant land and water ecosystems may be located.” Thisapproach accounts for both trade flows and reflects technological sophistication for the time thatis being analyzed. As noted, Ecological Footprint analysis enables scientific determination ofwhether prevailing levels of bio-resource consumption by the particular population (or the entire
human enterprise) exceed the long-term productive capacity of supportive ecosystems. In otherwords, it can reveal whether the population exceeds the carrying capacity of its domestic territoryand other ecosystems at its disposal.
Because Ecological Footprint analysis has such serious implications for global development,
both the general concept and specific features of the method have long been the subject of
discussion and controversy in various academic journals and meetings around the world. For
example, Ecological Economics, the official journal of the International Society for Ecological
Economics, frequently publishes articles and book reviews on Ecological Footprint analysis andhas run at least two special fora dedicated to debating the concept. Also the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi
commission of French President Sarkozy dedicated 15 pages of its report discussing andevaluating the Footprint.
The influence of Ecological Footprint analysis has, of course, spread far beyond the academic
ivory tower. Because Ecological Footprint analysis represents human environmental demands interms of personal consumption and a corresponding two-dimensional area of land and water, it iseasy for the general public to relate to and understand. This has facilitated the application of themethod around the world in numerous projects at a variety of spatial scales. In particular, theconceptual simplicity of Ecological Footprint analysis contributes to an increasing appreciationof the impossibility of sustaining ever-increasing material consumption on a finite planet. The
notion that there may be biophysical limits to material growth is finally beginning to resonate
with governments, international agencies and development-oriented NGOs alike, as it has serious
implications for everyone, from the lowest income communities to the highest net-worth
individuals.
It follows that the Ecological Footprint enjoys a special role as a tool in environmental education.
Many public and high-school text books feature chapters or illustrations of the method. Students
and the general public can also make use of an on-line personal Footprint calculator, (originallyproduced for Earth Day Network), which is visited by over one million people per year.
1

Ecological Footprint analysis can also be adapted to assess the ecological “load” imposed by specific economic
activities, industries, or sectors.
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Lagging behind the public, government agencies are now beginning to pay serious attention to
Ecological Footprint analysis. As previously noted, numerous national governments havecommissioned reviews to test the Footprint concept and at least seven, including the United
Arab Emirates, Ecuador, Switzerland, Japan, Indonesia and Latvia, have incorporated theFootprint assessment into some of their policies.

Global sustainable development can be assessed by tracking development (or human wellbeing) andsustainability (does it fit within the means of one planet?). These two dimensions can be measured using UNDP’s
Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of human development, and the Ecological Footprint as a measureof human demand on the biosphere. An Ecological Footprint less than 1.8 global hectares per person makes thoseresource demands globally replicable. Despite growing adoption of sustainable development as an explicit policy
goal, most countries do not meet both minimum requirements. Since every country contains different amounts ofbiocapacity, this analysis can also be adapted to each country. Also note that the world as a whole is outside theSustainable Development quadrant.

Awareness of the Ecological Footprint is certainly spreading within the Japanese government.
(Dr. Yoshihiko Wada, a colleague of Wackernagel and Ph.D. student of Rees, has been an active
promoter of the concept in Japan and beyond). WWF Japan has published a prominent
Ecological Footprint report. There is an Ecological Footprint Japan society. The Japanese
Ministry of the Environment shows research results and policy agreements concerning
Ecological Footprints in the 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2002 editions of its Annual Report on theEnvironment (review); since September 2000, Ecological Footprint specialists have taken part ina meeting for discussing procedures for trade liberalization and environmental impact
assessment, held within the Ministry of the Environment; Ecological Footprint analysis is also
cited in the environmental white paper of the Tokyo metropolitan government.
The Ecological Footprint also played a prominent role in the “Beyond GDP” initiative of theEuropean Commission. During the conference in 2007, the commissioners mentioned only threeprogress measures by name: GDP, Human Development Index, and the Ecological Footprint.

5But the Footprint is cited many more international fora, including in the Environmental
Commission’s report on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in various
United Nations agencies’ reports. For instance, UNDP’s Human Development Report is listing
the Footprint as an indicator – as well as The Economist’s Pocket World in Figures. Also theConvention on Biological Diversity proposes the Footprint as a biodiversity indicator – withplenty of documents on their site pointing to the Footprint.
The Ecological Footprint concept, developed by Drs. William E. Rees and Mathis Wackernagel,continues to gain popularity, momentum and credibility with sustainability analysts everywhere.
Of course there is also sometimes resistance on the path, that’s part of the program and an
indication that the approach challenges people’s thinking. Empirical observations on everythingfrom climate change to fisheries collapse confirm daily the reality of the resource limitations
and overshoot that have long been highlighted by Ecological Footprint analysis. And acomprehensive approach as proposed by the Footprint help people to make sense out of thecomplexity and guide action that truly resolve problems, rather than shifting them from one
issue to the next.
There is little question that the method has succeeded in helping to re-open the debate on humancarrying capacity. The stage is set for a renewed effort by the Global Footprint Network toconvince ever more countries to adopt the Ecological Footprint as a key measure of well-being
and sustainability. Data for Ecological Footprint assessment may well become as central tonations’ national accounting systems as economic data are for GDP calculations today.
Biographical Summary

Professor William E. Rees
1943:
Born in Manitoba, Canada on December 18
1966:
Graduated from the Department of Zoology, University of Toronto (Canada)
1969:
Assistant professor, University of British Columbia (Canada)
1973:
Received Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (Ecology and Ethology)
1976:
Associate professor, University of British Columbia
1988-90
Founding Member, City of Vancouver Task Force on Atmospheric Change
1990:
Professor, University of British Columbia
1994:
Founding member, Canadian Society for Ecological Economics
1994-1999:
Director, School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP)
1997-1999
President, Canadian Society for Ecological Economics
2006 - :Founding member, One Earth Initiative (now a continuing Fellow and Member,
Board of Directors)
2007-2009:
Director, Centre for Human Settlements
2006 - :Fellow, Post Carbon InstituteAwards
1997:
2005:
2006 -:
2007-10:
2012:
2012:
2012:

Killam Research Prize
City of Barcelona 2004 Award (Multimedia Category) for the exhibition
Inhabiting the World (10 February 2005) as member of winning team
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC)
Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellowship and Prize
Honorary Doctorate, Laval University, Québec, Québec, (Canada)
No 13 in the global (En)Rich List – top inspirational individuals whose
contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures (www.enrichlist.org)
Kenneth Boulding Memorial Award in Ecologicaleconomics (jointly with Dr Mathis Wackernagel)6Dr. Mathis Wackernagel
1962:
Born in Basel, Switzerland on November 10
1987:
Graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in MechanicalEngineering
1994:
Received Ph.D. from The University of British Columbia (Canada) in
Community and Regional Planning
1995-2001:
Coordinator, Centre for Sustainability Studies, Anáhuac University, Xalapa(Mexico)1999-2003:
Director, Indicators Program at Redefining Progress (San Francisco)2003 onwards: Co-Founder and President, Global Footprint Network (with Susan Burns)(Oakland, USA; Brussels, Belgium; Geneva, Switzerland)
2011 onwards: Guest professor, Cornell University
Awards
2005:
2006:
2007:
2008:
2011:
2012:
2012

Herman Daly Award (Society for Ecological Economics)
World Wide Fund for Nature Award for achievements in environmental
conservation
Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (with Susan Burns);
Honorary Doctorate, University of Bern
Gulbenkian International Award (with Global Footprint Network)
Zayed International Prize for the Environment
No 19 in the global (En)Rich List – top inspirational individuals whose
contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures (www.enrichlist.org)
Kenneth Boulding Memorial Award in Ecological
Economics (jointly with Dr William Rees)

7Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy ( USA )Dr. Lovejoy is responsible for a long list of creative and important contributions to research on
the severe impact of land use on biodiversity and ecosystems. As early as 1965 he began
researching ecosystems in Brazil’s tropical Amazon rainforest. In 1967, he started the bird
banding2 in the tropical rainforest, and observed migrant birds inhabiting the Amazon in termsof biocenology3.
In 1987, Dr. Lovejoy began his fieldwork in the Amazon as a researcher with the Smithsonian
Institution and an onsite researcher with the World Wildlife Fund (now World Wide Fund for
Nature). Appointed as a leader of a collaborative project of the Smithsonian Institution and theInstituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA) in 1979, he led American and Brazilian
researchers and performed a pioneering landscape experiment1, the largest long-term such
experiment in the history of landscape ecology. The experiment, known as the Biological
Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), were supported by the early work of Dr.
Lovejoy about bird banding2 started in 1967, Dr. Lovejoy’s group based its research on theunique concept of minimum critical area4 of ecosystems. The research showed marked
superiority of a well-organized protected zone over a compactly fragmented protected zone of
the same acreage in terms of species survival. It also provided useful guidelines for the design
and management of large natural parks and reserves. Apart from leading to 600+ academic
papers, well over 100 theses and numerous books, the project has provided Latin American
biologists with important venues for fieldwork training for many years. Disappearance andfragmentation of habitats, discovered in the project, are now considered to be one of the great
threats to biodiversity along with climate change.
In the 1970s, Dr. Lovejoy was devoted to activities for educating the public on the impact of
decreased tropical rainforest. In 1980, he published an estimated species extinction rate andbecame the world’s first person to sound the alarm for species extinction at the policy level.
Dr. Lovejoy was also the first to clarify the unpredictable and profound characteristics of“habitat fragmentation” affecting biodiversity and carbon pool dynamics through, for example,
the accelerated destruction of rainforest. Through his research, he put forth profound insight into
environmental conservation science and its practice. One outstanding contribution wasdeveloping debt-for-nature swaps5, an important policy mechanism for addressing the impact ofmajor change such as deforestation and climate change on tropical rainforests, and for theprotection of natural landscape. Since 1989, debt-for-nature swaps have been implemented in
upward of , definitely, more than 11 countries. An environmental foundation worth much morethan $1 billion has been established with an aim of conserving nature and a biological protection
area of at least one million hectares. Debt-for-nature swaps are among the largest sources offinancing to support international environmental projects.
The Brazilian government awarded Dr. Lovejoy the Order of Rio Blanco decoration for his
commitments to numerous environmental conservation activities in Brazil, and he was the firstenvironmental scientist to receive the award. In 1998, the Brazilian government also awarded
him the Order in the Grade of Grand Cross in Science.
Other career highlights
Dr. Lovejoy was born on August 22, 1941 in New York. He became interested in biology at theage of 14 as a student at the Millbrook School (Millbrook, NY). He received a bachelor’s degree(1964) and Ph.D. (1971) in biology from Yale University. In 1964-1965, he was the Yale

8

Carnegie Teaching Fellow. He also served as an assistant researcher of the Belem Project at the
National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution and the planning executive
assistant at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s,
he assumed many important positions, including program director, science vice president andexecutive vice president at the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF, United States). In 1987, he
was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution as assistant secretary for environmental andexternal affairs. He was appointed as science adviser to the US Secretary of the Interior in 1993,
counselor to the Secretary of biodiversity and environment at the Smithsonian Institution in1994 and director of conservative biology there until 1998. Serving on the advisory council forscience and the environment in the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, Dr. Lovejoy
exerted influence based on his unique analysis and understanding of ecosystems. He also trained
environmental conservation specialists from Latin American and Caribbean nations in an effort
to help improve the global environment. He worked for the World Bank as its chief biodiversity
adviser and a leading specialist concerning environmental issues of Latin American and
Caribbean countries.
Dr. Lovejoy was one of the chairs of the Society for Conservation Biology in its first years. He
has been a member of numerous science/conservation boards and advisory groups, such as the
New York Botanical Garden, Global Environment Facility (GEF), Committee for the National
Institute for the Environment, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, World Wildlife Fund andResources for the Future and World Resources Institute.
Dr. Lovejoy is a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association
for the Advancement of Science, American Ornithologists' Union, American PhilosophicalSociety and Linnean Society of London.
He received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2001, Ralph W. Schreiber
Conservation Award in 2005 and BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in
Ecosystems and Conservation Biology in 2009. He was appointed as Conservation Fellow for
National Geographic in 2009.
In 2002-2008, Dr. Lovejoy was President of the Heinz Center (Washington, D.C.), a research
institute on science, economy and environment, and is currently its biodiversity chair. In 2010,
he was appointed as University Professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason
University (US).
Dr. Lovejoy made pioneering achievements in the field of biodiversity, which is regarded today
as a serious topic of concern in the global environment. Notably, he warned the entire world of
the fact that the tropical Amazon rainforest, the “lungs of the Earth,” is facing a crisis. In 1980,
he coined the term “biological diversity,” which was abbreviated later as “biodiversity”,
popularized worldwide and is already common knowledge for people connected with theenvironment. This fact alone speaks of the significance of influence he has exerted. Throughpublications and lectures, Dr. Lovejoy is committed to informing the general public on thepossibility that population increase, depletion and extinction of habitat environments, climatechange, environmental pollution, excessive deforestation and other forms of excess exploitationof plant and animal life could induce a rapid increase of species extinction worldwide. He has
been proactively devoted to numerous efforts such as testifying before the US Congress and thebroadcast of the television series “Nature,” which was well received by audiences and became along-running hit.

9Dr. Lovejoy has published numerous scientific papers and coauthored or coedited the following
books:Key Environments: Amazonia (coauthored with G. T. Prance); Global Warming and Biological
Diversity (coauthored with R. L. Peters); Ecology, Conservation and Management of Southeast
Asian Rainforests (coauthored with R. Primack) and Lessons from Amazonia (coauthored with R.
O. Bierregaard Jr., C. Gascon and R. Mesquiuta)
Climate Change and Biodiversity (coauthored with Lee Hannah)
1

Landscape experimentation involves analysis of the extensive impact of “habitat fragmentation.” This is aimed atstudying the impact on the entire tropical rainforest as the system accompanying changes in land use. As theoriginal habitats of organisms are replaced by farmlands, urban areas and artificial forests, a decrease in the ratio of
habitat to landscape is referred to as “loss of habitat.” Isolation of a habitat area resulting from a decrease in its
acreage is referred to as habitat fragmentation.
2

In bird banding, birds are released after a small band with a symbol or number is attached around their leg. Thenthey are collected and identified by the number written on the band in order to obtain accurate knowledge on their
movement and longevity.
3

Biocenology aims to clarify the relationship among organisms inhabiting the same area (interspecies relationship)or to obtain knowledge about their mechanisms (community structure).
4

In a fragmented and small island-like patch, species decrease due to unsustainability of the biodiversity existent
before fragmentation. The inflow of new species shrinks and, consequently, species extinction is triggered.
5This is a mechanism for requiring implementation of a nature reserve conservation program on the condition thatthe accumulating foreign debt borne by developing countries is shouldered.

Biographical Summary1941
1955-19591964:
1964-1965
1965:

1971:
1970s:
1970s-1980s:
1973-1987:
1978:

1979:
1980:

1980s:

Born in New York on August 22
Millbrook School
Becomes interested in biology while in the Millbrook School, a private boarding school
providing secondary education
Receives bachelor’s degree in biology from Yale University
Yale University Carnegie Teaching Fellow
Conducts research in the Brazil’s Amazon region as a tropical biologist and conservation
biologist. During that time, he acts as a go-between for science and local environmental
policies
Receives Ph.D. in biology from Yale University; receives guidance from Dr. G. Evelyn
Hutchinson
Engages in activities for informing the general public about deforestation
Member of World Wildlife Fund (program director, vice president of science)
Leads an environmental conservation program at the World Wildlife Fund (now World
Wide Fund for Nature) with Michael Soule and Bruce Wilcox
Organizes the world’s first international conference on conservation biology with B. A.
Wilcox et al. (La Jolla) and plays a significant role in the establishment of conservation
biologyLaunches the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments ProjectIntroduces the term “biological diversity” in two publications
Predicts that 20% of all species around the world will have died out by 2020.
Becomes the world’s first person to publish the extinction rate of species around theworld (in the “Global 2000 Report to the President”)
Directs the world’s attention to tropical rainforests, mainly in Brazil’s Amazon region101982:

1987-1998:
1989:
1989-2009:
1992, 1997:

1993:
1994:
-1998:
1999

2002-2008:
2008

2009:

2010:

Becomes one of the creators of the television series “Nature” broadcast on PBS,
Discovery Channel and many other channels, and largely influential on the generalpublicAssistant secretary for environmental and external affairs, Smithsonian Institution
Introduces the debt-for-nature swap to the World Wide Fund for Nature
Science and environment adviser to Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations
Published Global Warming and Biological Diversity with Robert L. Peters
Article about Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFF Project) is
published (Bierregaard et al. and Laurence)
Science adviser to the US Secretary of the InteriorCounselor to the Secretary of biodiversity and environment, Smithsonian Institution
Director of environmental conservative biology, Smithsonian Institution
Chaired subcommittee of the OECD Megascience recommending establishment of a
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (a global data base on biodiversity information).
GBIF was created in March 2001.
President of the Heinz Center
Biodiversity Chair at the Heinz Center
Advocated ecosystem restoration at a planetary scale as a means to reduce CO2
concentrations in the atmosphere in an International Herald Tribune op-ed with Tim
Flannery and Achim Steiner (October 28).
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation
Biology category
National Geographic Society Conservation Fellow and chair of the Scientific TechnicalAdvisory Panel for the Global Environment Facility
University Professor of Environmental Science and Policy
George Mason University
co-chair of the review of the Third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO3) and presented it
to the United Nations General AssemblyAwards1998:

Order of Brazil in the Grade of Grand Cross (science)

2001:

Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement

2005:

Ralph W. Schreiber Conservation Award

2009:

Frontiers of Knowledge Award

11

Remarks from the Award Recipients upon Notification of their Selection
Professor William E. Rees
I am at a point in my career where I thought nothing could take me by surprise so it was with unreserved
excitement, happiness and delight that I learned that my friend and colleague, Dr Mathis Wackernagel, and I
had been selected to receive a Blue Planet prize. I am proud and humbled to accept this singular award fromthe Asahi Glass Foundation.
We have reached a critical stage in human evolution and, indeed, the evolution of life on Earth. We canjustifiably celebrate humanity’s remarkable evolutionary success but must now also acknowledge that therelentless expansion of the human enterprise marks us a rogue species. Homo sapiens has become the major
geological force altering the face of the Blue Planet; humanity’s dominance in ecosystems everywhere
threatens the very existence of thousands of other species; we are beginning to undermine the biophysicalbasis of its own existence.
My life’s work as a human ecologist has been dedicated to the proposition that the human family can learn tolive more equitably within the ample biocapacity of the ecosphere. Indeed, the challenge of ecology andeconomics in the 21st Century is to facilitate the reintegration of Homo sapiens into the web of life as acooperating partner and responsible citizen. We should all be grateful that the Asahi Glass foundation has,through its creation of the Blue Planet Prize, recognized both the importance and enormity of this task. And,of course, among the critical steps is an orderly reduction of humanity’s collective Ecological Footprint inways that recognize the right of the impoverished to a larger share of the pie.

Dr. Mathis Wackernagel
It is with enormous joy, gratitude and surprise to learn about Asahi Glass Foundation’s generosity to extend aBlue Planet Prize to both my dear friend Bill Rees and me. Not only is this a humbling experience but I accept
this magnificent honor also with a great sense of responsibility. Humanity’s growing resource hunger has
moved us into global overshoot. Yet so many people in the world are deprived of sufficient opportunities for adignified life. This spectacular double challenge is confronting us – and there is little evidence that our pastefforts have been effective in redirecting our destiny onto a sustainable path. Making this most daring
challenge the focus of Asahi Glass Foundation and its Blue Planet Prize is both noble and courageous. And I
am deeply thankful for it. I feel particularly touched by the opportunity to join forces with the amazing
laureates who come before – and after – me, and to be part of a much wider community of dedicatedindividuals at Global Footprint Network and its partner organizations across the globe, the indispensable
community of funders, supporters, teachers, enablers as well as all the others who have dedicated themselvesto the most fundamental and so utterly necessary dream of flourishing lives for all on our great Blue Planet.

12Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy
I am both humbled and honored to become a Blue Planet Prize Laureate and thereby join so many
distinguished Laureates since the inception of the prize. Much of what I am being honored for was achieved incollaboration with others, so I salute and thank them for their help and inspiration at this moment. In the end
what we celebrate is life on Earth itself -- the magnificent exception to the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
because of its ability to harness energy, principally but not exclusively, from the sun and use it to build the
awesome order and complexity of life itself. I accept this on behalf of, and in deference to, the diversity of life
in all its wondrous glory: every living thing – plant, animal, and microorganism. We are all related, and eachthe product of four billion years of evolution. Together we constitute the living part of the planet -- what
science calls the biosphere. Collectively we are why the Earth functions as a living planet -- the one we callour home.

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