Conservancy's Calmon Receives Muriqui Prize

 

Andrew Simpson/TNC (American lotus)

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TNC (Miguel Calmon)

The Nature Conservancy’s Miguel Calmon received the prestigious Muriqui Prize for his contributions to protecting and restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

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Adriano Gambarini (dense forest of the Pau-Brasil National Park, Bahia, Brazil)

By Cate Harrington

Miguel Calmon, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Atlantic Forest Conservation Program, has been awarded the annual Muriqui Prize for his contributions to protecting and restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. The Muriqui Prize has been awarded annually since 1993 by the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve (a UNESCO program), to individuals and groups who have made outstanding efforts to protect biodiversity, encourage sustainable development, and/or promote scientific understanding in the Atlantic Forest. Just two prizes are awarded each year, and winners are chosen through a National Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve Council vote.

Miguel came to the Conservancy in 2001 to coordinate efforts to monitor climate change and disseminate cutting-edge technologies that accurately measure carbon offsets and reduce monitoring costs. He became director of the Atlantic Forest Program in 2003, and designs and oversees strategies to bring together governments, private industry, other conservation organizations and private landowners to protect and restore Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, of which just seven percent remains. His work also increasingly incorporates avoided deforestation, carbon sequestration and other climate-change-related strategies into tried-and-true conservation and restoration techniques.

Miguel has a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from São Paulo State University, a master’s in irrigation technology from K.U. Leuven in Belgium, and a Ph.D. in soil science from Penn State. Besides the important work Miguel has undertaken in the Atlantic Forest, he recently become the coordinator of the Atlantic Forest Reforestation Pact, a coalition of more than 70 institutions including governments, private companies, non-governmental organizations and individuals committed to the restoration of this threatened forest.

A special awards ceremony was held in São Paulo on May 22, 2009, during Atlantic Forest Week. Award recipients received a bronze statue and a certificate in recognition of their outstanding commitment to the survival of the Atlantic Forest.

Muriquis are known in English as wooly spider monkeys. The name comes from the Tupi language, and the two species of wooly spider monkeys are endangered and can only be found in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credits (top to bottom, left to right): The dense forest of the thirty million acre Pau-Brasil National Park in Bahia, Brazil. Pau-Brasil National Park has one of the few remaining intact stands of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, of which only 7% remains today. This is the only place in the world that has biodiversity similar to that found in the Amazon. The Conservancy is working to protect and restore the Atlantic Forest, and in 2008 launched a campaign to plant one billion trees there. © Adriano Gambarini; American lotus © Andrew Simpson/TNC; The Nature Conservancy’s Miguel Calmon received the prestigious Muriqui Prize for his contributions to protecting and restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. © TNC