Professor Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, our Chair of the IPSI Steering Committee, attended the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress (WCC) 2020 in Marseille, France and received the John C Phillips Memorial Medal, IUCN’s highest award which “recognizes outstanding service in international conservation and commemorates the life and work of Dr John C. Phillips, a pioneer of the conservation movement”.

Professor Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, the Board Chair of A Rocha Ghana, chair of the Ghana National Biodiversity Steering Committee and Commissioner at the Ghana Commission for UNESCO, in his award statement, referring to the “three global crisis” and “the tremendous efforts made both in policy level and research level”, said that “if we can protect biodiversity, then land degradation and climate change will be a thing of the past.” Professor Alfred Oteng-Yeboah has shared the following statement with the readers of the IPSI newsletter:

We spend long hours, days, months and years to negotiate on things of nature, purely because of some misunderstandings, vested interests and national pride. If we are really convinced that the ecosystems that give us life are at their tipping points, then our negotiations must be cordial, simple and thoughtful, admitting that the issues pertaining to them are complex.

Nature has rights and these rights must be respected. We must always remain convinced that Nature has its own way of survival. I can see nature’s resilience, closely followed by processes of healing, connections, unity and changes. We must be optimistic.

A big congratulations again to Professor Alfred Oteng-Yeboah! We thank him for his leadership and look forward to working with him in further promoting IPSI with his passion, insights and expertise, together with all our partners and IPSI members.

For his biography on A Rocha Ghana website, see here.

To read about the John C Phillips medal, see here on the IUCN website.

To see the short video clip of the award statement at IUCN WCC 2020 Marseille on 9 September 2021 by the IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin, see here.