Over 300 leaders in environmental protection attend the award event
Spain’s principalguardians of nature gather to
celebrate ten editions of the BBVAFoundation
Awards for Biodiversity Conservation
- The BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation, now into their tenth edition, distinguish efforts to prevent the destruction of our natural heritage while seeking to promote knowledge, projects and social awareness around issues of ecology and conservation biology
- Over three hundred members of non-governmental organizations and groups, representatives of public institutions, communicators, scientists, artists and policy-makers celebrate the best in conservation in Spain and Latin America over the past ten years
- Accolades in the tenth edition go to the Divisional Prosecutor, Environment and Land Planning Prosecutors and Technical and Police Units for their work in preventing and prosecuting environmental crime in Spain; the Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza for its efforts on behalf of the monarch butterfly; and wildlife artist Juan Varela Simó for his illustrationsin multiple formats, amply disseminated through exhibitions, books, encyclopedias, etc.
Madrid,November 18,2015.- The ceremony for the tenth edition of the BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservationwas also a celebration of wildlife protection;an anniversary event attended by over three hundred members of non-governmental organizations and groups, representatives of public institutions, communicators, scientists, artists and policy-makers united around a common message: that actions anchored on scientific knowledge and social awareness of the importance of protecting natureare an effective means to conserve biodiversity.
Audience and prize winners had thechance to revisit the best conservation projects of the last ten years in Spain and Latin American countriesin the charge of authentic “Guardians of Biodiversity”, giving proof that, even in the face of apparently overwhelming global challenges, solutions can be found.
In the words of BBVA Foundation President Francisco González, “in this hall tonight is a representative cross section of the people and institutions at the forefront of the fightto preserve biodiversity in Spain and Latin America. The achievements of our thirty laureates are examples of conservation and communicationthat inspire optimism, because they show that conservation works.”
“The biodiversity crisis is one of the core challenges of the 21st century, and a threat to human, physical and emotional wellbeing,” González continued. It not only jeopardizes services, like agriculture and clean water, that only healthy ecosystems can supply, it alsoentails “the loss of a no less vital genetic, evolutionary, aesthetic and moral heritageirreplaceable for humanity.”
The BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation distinguish individuals and institutions that have advanced understanding of these challenges,and have also marshaled that knowledge to implement informed actions on the ground or to influence public opinion by means of outreach and awareness raising.From their creation a decade back, the goal has been to foster knowledge, action and awareness-raising in ecology and conservation biology.
The awards come with a cash purse of 580,000 euros distributed across three categories: two reserved for conservation projects in Spain and Latin America, and one devoted to biodiversity awareness. Nominees are evaluated by an independent jury made up of scientists, communicators and NGOs.
Awards in the tenth edition
The award for Biodiversity Conservation Projects in Spain has been granted in this tenth edition to theDivisional Prosecutor, Environmental and Land Planning Prosecutors and Technical and Police Units, for their fundamental role in preventing and prosecuting environmental crime in Spain. Proof of their effectiveness is that since the division was set up in 2006, the number of convictions for environmental offences has increased threefold. Their efforts, the jury considers, “have beeninstrumental in reducing wildfires, urbanplanning corruption, atmospheric pollution,the illegal trafficking of species, crueltyto animals and the use of poisoned bait,and in the conservation of water and otherresources.”
In the category of Biodiversity Conservation Projects in Latin America, theaward has gone to the Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza(FMCN) for its work on behalf of the monarch butterfly. This protected species makes the longest journey of any insect, flying thousands of miles to spend the winter in the forests of the Mexican plateau. It is to protect these wintering sanctuaries that the FMCN has launched an innovative system of payments for environmental services, whereby local communities are compensated for their work in combating deforestation.
The winner in the Knowledge Dissemination and Communication in Biodiversity Conservation category is wildlife artistJuan Varela Simó, whose outstanding studies of plants and animals, combining beauty and descriptive accuracy, keep alive the tradition of scientific illustration while serving as inspiration to new generations of illustrators of the natural world.
A decade of award winners
In the course of the ceremony, winners from previous editions spoke of the prestige earned by this environmental prize family within Spain and abroad, and explained how the award had brought them not just recognition but also the wherewithal to keep up their work or take on even more ambitious goals. Many also acknowledged the support it provided during the economic crisis, when there was a real danger that conservation issues would be pushed far down the list of priorities.
For some conservationist organizations, the award has been an opportunity to forge links with the research community or participate in international projects. The initiatives receiving recognition since the awards beganvary widely in their content and objectives, address multiple types of ecosystem, and owe their existence to a diverse set of institutions.
Projects in Spain have included programs focused on hotspots of biodiversity and vulnerable species and others pursuing the sustainable management of natural resources and the revitalization of the rural medium, alongside the work of institutions actively defending biodiversity through the enforcement of environmental legislation. Among the winners are public agencies, like the SpanishCivil Guard’s Nature Protection Service (Seprona), non-governmental organizations and foundations.
In the area of knowledge dissemination and communication, awardees represent media professions in areas ranging from agency reporting to the written and photographic press, as well as audiovisual production, publishing and illustration. What they coincide in saying is that these awards have trained a much-needed spotlight on the specialist field of environmental journalism.
Several of the Spanish projects honored have proved to be motors of change at a legislative level, leading to the enlargement of special protection areas and the strengthening of Natura 2000 – the EU-wide network of biodiversity conservation sites. An example here would be the award to SEO/Birdlife, whose efforts in this direction were crowned in 2014 with the designation of 39 important bird areas (IBAs) in the marine environment.
Similarly, the award to the Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO) helped to advance research vital to the setup of offshore marine protected areas (MPAs). With the prize money, the IEO was able to develop an underwater vehicle equipped for non-invasive ecosystem observation at depths of up to 2,000 meters in order to study biodiversity alterations in protected areas – particularly the El Cachucho bankoff the Asturian coast.
Other projects have pursued the recovery of degraded ecosystems. Fundación Global Nature, for instance, used the money from the award for the management of the Boada and Pedraza de Campos wetlands in Palencia and the funding of the Humedales de La Mancha restoration project, part-financed by the European Commission through its LIFE program.
In other cases, projects laid more emphasis on human uses of the target ecosystem and the involvement of local communities in its conservation. The award to Fundación Oso Pardo helped the organization to keep up its Bear Patrols, formed by volunteer residents of bear-dwelling areas, whose tasks include the monitoring of bear populations, the care of their habitats, data gathering for research, and assistance with environmental education.
Asociación Trashumancia y Naturaleza, among last year’s laureates, also pursues a society-nature partnership supportive of biodiversity. The award has enabled the association to continue its work on behalf of transhumance and extensive farming, practices with a key role in conservingbiological wealth through the medium, for instance, of seed transport and dispersal. It has also worked to facilitate the generational handover in what was until recently a vanishing activity, by encouraging more young farmers to switch to transhumant grazing.
Awardee projects in Latin America spell out the global scale of the biodiversity crisis and the importance of tackling it with supranational strategies mindful of other major environmental challenges like climate change.
At the center of many are campaigns on behalf of vulnerable species whose importance has gone largely unappreciated. Among them, the Program for the Conservation of Mexican Bats run by the NGO Bioconciencia, the amphibian rescue project of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama or the southern right whale program run by the Argentinean Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas. As a case in point, the award to this last project has ensured the continuity of the institute’s whale photo-identification and monitoring campaign for the next five years, and enabled it to strengthen international links while extending its environmental outreach programs.
For more information, contact the BBVA Foundation Departmentof Communication and Institutional Relations(+34 913745210;915373769; 91 455 3368 /)or visit