• The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS) will bestow the Gunnerus Sustainability Award — the world's first major international award for work on sustainability — on India-born Dr. Kamal Bawa, Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He will receive the Gunnerus Gold Medal and the award of 1 million Norwegian Kronor (about $190,000).
  • Dr. Bawa is most noted for, among other works, his pioneering research on population biology in rainforest areas. His wide span of work includes groundbreaking biological discoveries made in Central America and in the Western Ghats and the Himalayas in India. He is specially noted for the establishment, and as president, of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in Bangalore. Until recently, he also held the Ruffolo Giorgio Fellowship in Sustainability Science and Bullard Fellowship at the Harvard University.
About the The Gunnerus award
  • The Gunnerus award is the first major international prize for outstanding scientific work that promotes sustainable development globally, and will be awarded every two years starting in 2012, a press release said. The award is named after DKNVS’ founder, Bishop Johan Ernst Gunnerus (1718-1773), and is the result of a collaboration between DKNVS, Sparebank1 SMN and the society Technoport. DKNVS has been responsible for the international launch, and the selection of the winner.
  • The selection of the winner took place after a jury process in which five internationally prominent researchers have considered a number of international nominees from many countries.
 
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