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Sussex ecologist’s rainforest development work recognised by UN

The work of Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Dr Alan Stewart, has this week been endorsed by the United Nations as part of the Climate Change Conference in Paris.

L-R: Alan Stewart; Pagi Toko (Deputy Director, Binatang Research Center); Philip Damen (Head of Wanang clan); Prof Vojtech Novotny (Czech Academy of Sciences & Director of Binatang Research Center)L-R: Alan Stewart; Pagi Toko, Deputy Director of Binatang Research Center; Philip Damen, Head of Wanang clan; Prof Vojtech Novotny, Czech Academy of Sciences & Director of Binatang Research Center. Photo credit: M. Leponce

The Wanang Conservation Area in Papua New Guinea and its inhabitants were this week awarded a $10,000 Equator Prize by the United Nations Development Programme.

The Equator Prize recognizes outstanding ​local achievement in advancing sustainable development for people and nature.

Dr Stewart was principal investigator for the project, designed to develop sustainable livelihoods for village communities and protect an area of tropical rainforest from logging.

Dr Stewart said: “It is really fantastic that all the work that has gone into setting up the Wanang Conservation Area, to preserve its extraordinary rainforest biodiversity and promote sustainable livelihoods for indigenous people, has now been internationally recognised.

“We managed to get the head of the Wanang clan, Philip Damen, who speaks only his native clan language, to come to Paris to receive the award.

“The ceremony was a great success, including speeches from luminaries in the environmental field such as Gro Harlem Brundtland and Jane Goodall.”

The Wanang Conservation Area is an alliance of 10 indigenous forest-dwelling clans created in response to commercial logging and a lack of public services.

The initiative operates a high-tech climate research station to study the response of some 280,000 plants to the changing climate.

Local Wanang villagers have been trained to document biodiversity and assist in climate change research – boosting the local economy and protecting 10,000 hectares of forests from commercial logging.

Dr Stewart’s work was funded by the Darwin Initiative, a UK government grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment through locally based projects worldwide.