DUBAI, 20 December 2005 — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was announced yesterday the winner of a $500,000 environmental award named after the late Emirati ruler.
Annan won the biannual Zayed International Prize for the Environment for being the “one person who has done more than most to catalyze political and public opinion” for environmental protection, the prize’s jury said in a prepared release.
The prize, named after longtime UAE leader Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahayan, who died last year, went to Annan for backing United Nations summits and reports on environmental degradation that have spurred collective action by most of the world’s governments, UN and Emirates officials announced.
The jury is headed by Zayed Prize founder Sheikh Mohammad ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai’s crown prince. Annan was “delighted and thrilled” to learn he had won the prize but has not yet decided what to do with his winnings, said UN Environment Program spokesman Nick Nutall.
Annan hopes to be able to attend the Feb. 6 award ceremony in Dubai, Nutall said.
The jury awarded Annan the prize for adding the environment to the UN’s usual list of responsibilities — peacekeeping, disaster relief, development and international diplomacy, Nutall said.
Organizers describe the Zayed Prize, with three awards worth a collective $1 million, as the world’s most lucrative grant restricted to environmental achievements. It was inaugurated in 2001 and previous winners include former US President Jimmy Carter and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The prize’s $300,000 award for scientific or technological achievement was won by the 1,360 experts in 95 countries of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The team wrote a landmark study cataloguing rampant degradation of global ecosystems — from fisheries and fresh water to forests.
Economist and former UN adviser Angela Cropper and Emil Salim, who heads several Indonesian environmental organizations, shared the $200,000 award for environmental action.
Cropper was recognized for her efforts in Caribbean forest management. Salim’s honor stems from conservation work in Indonesia and elsewhere.
The jury said it hoped the cash awards would prod winners to “push for more sustainable life on earth.”
