SAN FRANCISCO, April 17 Alexander Peal, Liberia's champion of conservation and sustainable development, was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize Monday, in San Francisco, along with six other recipients from each continent around the globe. Peal is a forester and wildlife manager by training and a former goalie for the Liberian national soccer team. Peal has used his public image as a soccer star to spearhead conservation in Liberia. The first major conservation victory for Peal was the creation of Sapo National Park in 1983. Liberia's first and only national park is a tropical low-land rainforest located in eastern Liberia and is 509 square miles. Liberia shelters almost half the remaining rainforest from Togo to Guinea, including the only remaining large blocks of forest which provide habitat to the forest elephant and the pigmy hippopotamus. In 1986, Peal co-founded the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL), Liberia's fore most NGO (non-governmental organization) dedicated to conserving the country's spectacular environment, which he supported until 1990. In 1989, the Liberian civil war broke out and soon after Peal took refuge in the USA. While in exile, he worked where ever he could to support his family and in 1992 founded the Society for the Renewal of Nature Conservation in Liberia (SRNCL). After several visits to his homeland while the war was still raging, Mr. Peal returned to Liberia in 1998 to assume active leadership of SCNL and to restart conservation efforts in post-war Liberia. Today the hardships in Liberia remain. Peal and his colleagues have not been paid properly for their work in years. In his homeland poverty, dismal economic opportunities and little health care exists, however Peal continues to work on behalf of the people and forests of Liberia. The Goldman Environmental Prize is a San Francisco based foundation awarding each recipient a $125,000 cash award. Applications are not accepted for the Goldman Award. A network of 23 environmental organizations world-wide and a confidential panel of experts representing more than 40 nations anonymously submit nominations for each continent. As the world's only major prize program honoring grassroots environmental activists, the Goldman Environmental Prize has been recognized by 113 heads of state. To date, the Prize has been awarded to 71 individuals from 49 countries. Peal stated after receiving the Goldman Prize, "I am determined to gain the full support of the Government of Liberia. I will lobby them directly to find solutions to the post-war economic crisis that will provide for the long-term sustainable use of it's forest, rather than strategies that produce immediate financial gains." "The leaders of West Africa must understand the path which has brought us to a world environmental crisis and begin to take future actions out of dedication for our future generations. We must strengthen our will in order to protect Liberia's remaining fragile ecosystems" said Peal. Founded in 1903, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) is the world's oldest international conservation organization. Its mission is to conserve threatened species and ecosystems world-wide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science, and take in to account of human needs. Today, FFI is active in 66 countries, working in partnership with in-country organizations and community-based groups to develop, implement, and manage biodiversity conservation projects around the globe. FFI has worked in active partnership with SCNL since right after the war ended in early 1997. Other partners associated with SCNL include: The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, African Wildlife Foundation, and many other organizations around the world. For a complete schedule of Peal's activities and a biography of Peal please go to www.goldmanprize.org. For more information or to schedule an interview call Kath Delaney at 415-383-7922 or Bob Bruce at 925-370-7632. Kath Delaney, 415-383-7922 or 415-652-1193 email: kdelaney@igc.org or Bob Bruce, 925-370-7632, both for Flora and Fauna International
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Biographical Sketch of Alexander Peal from
www.goldmanprize.org:
Despite West Africa’s once vast forest area, today Liberia is the only country left in the region with any significant forest cover. Since the mid-1970s, Alexander Peal, has been a primary champion of that nation’s forest conservation and wildlife preservation efforts. Despite civil war and his own exile from the country for several years, he has remained vigilant about protecting Liberia’s forest and wildlife interests, which are 60 percent extant. As president of the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL), an organization he founded in 1986, Peal heads the country’s first and only private sector environmental conservation group. Peal’s first major achievement in conservation work occurred a year after Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority was created in 1976. The agency was charged with the management and protection of Liberia’s forests. Peal organized the agency’s Wildlife and National Parks section and then led the unit from 1977 until 1990. In 1983, in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), he organized the creation of Sapo National Park, Liberia’s first and only national park. He then spearheaded efforts to draft and enact the country’s wildlife and national park laws, and was responsible for Liberia’s ratification of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). A former goalie for the Liberian national soccer team, Peal has used his public image as a soccer star to the advantage of the conservation movement. In the mid-1980s he launched a national conservation education program. This momentum was stalled, however, in 1989, when civil war forced the collapse of civil society and the country was ruled by chaos and terror. All conservation activities ceased during the war and Peal — like many other civil servants, some of whom were summarily executed — was forced into hiding. With the intervention of his foreign conservationist colleagues, Peal and his family fled Liberia, finding political asylum in Southern California, where he worked as a field director for the Foundation for Field Research and later as a laboratory technician at UCSD. In 1992, while still in exile, Peal founded the Society for the Renewal of Nature Conservation in Liberia (SRNCL) to keep the conservation efforts in Liberia alive. Within weeks of the 1997 cease-fire in Liberia, he led a small group, accompanied by international peacekeeping soldiers, to assess the status of Sapo National Park and its surrounding communities. Peal returned to Monrovia in 1998 where he is now working, gratis, to resume the country’s conservation activities. Thanks to his efforts, in November 1999, the Liberian Senate ratified the United Nations’ agreement on biodiversity. Contact Alexander Peal's Society for the Conservation of Nature in Liberia.
04/23/2000
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