Australian Marine Park Authority and Mexican Ecologist Receive 2005 Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Protection

UNESCO press release:

This year's Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Protection has been awarded "jointly to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (Australia) and to Dr Ernesto C. Enkerlin-Hoeflich (Mexico). The Bureau of the International Co-ordinating Council of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme chose them at its meeting on June 29, during which it also selected ten young researchers to receive the 2006 MAB Young Scientist Awards. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), principal adviser to the Australian Government on managing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, received the prize for its crucial contributions to the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef, a critical global resource. Guided by the principle of balancing conservation and sustainable use, the GBRMPA has created an innovative framework that, whilst allowing for reasonable human use, will still ensure the healthy survival of the coastal and marine ecosystems.

"The Bureau also recommended that the prize be given to Dr Ernesto C. Enkerlin-Hoeflich (Mexico), President of the National Commission on Natural Protected Areas of Mexico (CONANP), for his outstanding contributions to nature and wildlife conservation, ecological research and environmental education. Born in 1958 in Monterrey, Mexico, and an expert on the ecology of parrots, Mr Enkerlin-Hoeflich is active in a number of research areas. During his four-year tenure at CONANP, which is charged with the conservation of all protected areas in Mexico, five new sites have been incorporated in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves."