Hyderabad, 17 October 2012 – The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity 2012 was awarded at a ceremony held in Hyderabad, India, at the ministerial luncheon hosted by the Government of India during the high-level segment of the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP11).

The MIDORI Prize is a biennial international prize organized by the AEON Environmental Foundation in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to honour individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels. 

The winners of the 2012 Prize are: Dr. Juan Carlos Castilla, Professor of Marine Ecology at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Dr. Rodrigo Gamez-Lobo, President of Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) and; Dr. Vo Quy, Honorary President at the Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies (CRES), Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Each winner was awarded a wooden plaque, a commemorative gift and a monetary prize of $100,000 US dollars to support their work in safeguarding biodiversity by Mr. Takuya Okada, the Chairman of the AEON Environmental Foundation. Mr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity was present representing the co-organizer of the prize.

Regarding the MIDORI Prize, Ms. Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India and COP 11 President said: "As COP11 President, I am very honoured to host this award ceremony and happy to have these distinguished winners at COP11, who have made outstanding contributions to implementation of CBD. I believe their inspiring works will help attract people's attention to biodiversity issues through this MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity."

・Short Movie (Award Ceremony and Press Conference in India/Winners’ Forum in Japan