OUR BLUE PLANET

Every year, two major contributors to the solving of global environmental problems are selected as winners of the Blue Planet Prize. 2016 winners are Mr. Pavan Sukhdev, an environmental economist from India and Professor Markus Borner, the zoologist from Switzerland.

Mr. Sukhdev has contributed in the development of the green accounting, which factors and valuates the profit from natural capital into the financial results of operations. He has introduced its practical method to measure the pressure imposed on the natural environment. Based on his experience of working as a banker, he believes the importance of conversion of natural capital to numerical form in the accounting systems of private companies, and released a guidance of the procedures when companies introduce natural capital accounting, “Natural Capital Protocol”, making the sustainable society possible.

The other prize winner, the zoologist professor Markus Borner, has dedicated nearly 40 years of his life to conserve the rich diversity in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. He protected the animals from the hands of poachers, saved black rhinoceros from the verge of extinction, and encouraged the revision of the highway road which would have blocked the great immigration of gnus.
From these activities, professor Borner has realized that the people living in or near the national park are part of the ecosystem of the area, and to protect the environment there is only one successful solution: to bring the communities, politicians, scientists, the conservation organization and etc., to work together.

We will introduce how each winner has strived to the consistency in coexistence of economic development and conservation of nature and their devotion to keep the blue planet from the different ground.