Kew International Medal | |
---|---|
![]() Kew International Medal awarded to Juan Manuel Santos, President Santos of Colombia in 2017 with Richard Deverell and Kathy Willis | |
Awarded for | “significant contributions to science and conservation” [1] |
Sponsored by | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |
Location | London |
Website | www |
The Kew International Medal is an award given to individuals who have made a significant contribution to science and conservation. [1] The award was first established in 1992 by the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. [1]
Previous award winners [1] include:
The winner is ratified by the Executive Board and Board of Trustees. [4] Nominations are received from across the organisation and a selection panel made up of Kew Trustees and Executive Board Members decides the winner. Criteria the panel benchmark against are:
Edward Osborne WilsonFRS was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett.
Ensete is a genus of monocarpic flowering plants native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It is one of the three genera in the banana family, Musaceae, and includes the false banana or enset, an economically important food crop in Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa University (AAU) is a national university located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is the oldest university in Ethiopia. AAU has thirteen campuses. Twelve of these are situated in Addis Ababa, and one is located in Bishoftu, about 45 kilometres (28 mi) away. AAU has several associated research institutions including the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. The Ministry of Education admits qualified students to AAU based on their score on the Ethiopian University Entrance Examination (EUEE).
Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta is an Indian-British economist who is Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
The International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) is an organization established to promote an understanding of plant biodiversity, facilitate international communication of research between botanists, and oversee matters of uniformity and stability in plant names. The IAPT was founded on July 18, 1950, at the Seventh International Botanical Congress in Stockholm, Sweden. The IAPT headquarters is located in Bratislava, Slovakia. Its president, since 2017, is Patrick S. Herendeen of the Chicago Botanic Garden; vice-president is Gonzalo Nieto Feliner of the Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid; and secretary-general is Karol Marhold of the Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava.
Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler was a German botanist. He is notable for his work on plant taxonomy and phytogeography, such as Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edited with Karl A. E. von Prantl.
Stella Ross-Craig was an English illustrator best known as a prolific illustrator of native flora.
Maytenus dhofarensis is a species of plant in the family Celastraceae and is found in Oman and Yemen. It is an intricately branched spiny shrub or small tree with its leaves arranged alternately or clustered on short shoots. The flowers have white or cream petals and the fruit are purple or red. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Oldeania alpina, the African alpine bamboo, is a perennial bamboo of the family Poaceae and the genus Yushania. It can be found growing in dense but not large stands on the mountains and volcanoes surrounding the East African Rift between the altitudes of 2,500 meters and 3,300 meters.
Ensete ventricosum, commonly known as enset or ensete, Ethiopian banana, Abyssinian banana, pseudo-banana, false banana and wild banana, is an herbaceous species of flowering plant in the banana family Musaceae. The domesticated form of the plant is cultivated only in Ethiopia, where it provides the staple food for approximately 20 million people. The name Ensete ventricosum was first published in the Kew Bulletin 1947, p. 101. Its synonyms include Musa arnoldiana De Wild., Musa ventricosa Welw. and Musa ensete J. F. Gmelin. In its wild form, it is native to the eastern edge of the Great African Plateau, extending northwards from South Africa through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to Ethiopia, and west to the Congo, being found in high-rainfall forests on mountains, and along forested ravines and streams.
Malcolm Colin Press is a British ecologist, professor and Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), in the United Kingdom.
Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and an adjunct professor in biology at the University of Bergen. In 2018 she was elected Principal of St Edmund Hall, and took up the position from 1 October. She held the Tasso Leventis Chair of Biodiversity at Oxford and was founding Director, now Associate Director, of the Biodiversity Institute Oxford. Willis was Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2013 to 2018. Her nomination by the House of Lords Appointments Commission as a crossbench life peer was announced on 17 May 2022.
Pedro Willem Crous is a South African mycologist and plant pathologist.
Lippia abyssinica, or koseret, is a species of flowering plant in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. It is endemic to Ethiopia but cultivated throughout tropical African countries. The specific epithet abyssinica derives from Latin and means 'of or from Ethiopia (Abyssinia)'.
Sebsebe Demissew is a Professor of Plant Systematics and Biodiversity at Addis Ababa University and Executive Director of the Gullele Botanic Garden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Sandra Myrna Díaz ForMemRS is an Argentine ecologist and professor of ecology at the National University of Córdoba. She studies the functional traits of plants and investigates how plants impact the ecosystem.
Jose Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany was initiated in 2001 by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, USA. It is named after José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist and taxonomist who worked on the flora of tropical South America. It is awarded annually to a scientist who has made a very significant contribution to advancing the field of tropical botany. Nominations for the award can be made by all in the Botany Department at the museum.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema is a Tanzanian biodiversity leader and lawyer, currently based out of Montreal, Canada, who has been serving as Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 2023, under the leadership of Executive Director Inger Andersen.