> Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher is an African Environmentalist and our hero.
Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher won the Right Livelihood Award in 2000 "for his exemplary work to safeguard biodiversity and the traditional rights of farmers and communities to their genetic resources."
Tewolde Berhan graduated in 1963 from Addis Ababa University and received his doctorate from the University of Wales in 1969. He returned to Addis Ababa University where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Science (1974-78). Other activities include keeper of the National Herbarium (1978-83), the President of University of Asmara (1983-91) and Director of the Ethiopian Conservation Strategy Secretariat (1991-94).
Since then he has been General Manager of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia, which is effectively that country's Ministry of the Environment.
In the 1990s, he was a leading advocate for the progressive stand to stop the patenting of living material in favor of community rights at many international biodiversity forums held by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and for the Convention on Biological Diversity.
In 2006, Tewolde Berhan was also one of the winners of the United Nations top environmental prize, Champions of the Earth.
Source: Heroes from the Better world
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