Awards

On the three occasions when it was held, the UNEP/CMS Thesis Award on Migratory Species Conservation recognized laureates with outstanding scientific research on migratory species. It was established to promote scientific research and conservation of migratory species, as defined by the Convention, and was sponsored by National Geographic Deutschland and Lufthansa.

The Thesis Award was launched by the Secretariat of the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species, on the occasion of its 25th Anniversary in 2004. It was bestowed for the first time at the 8th meeting of the CMS Conference of the Parties (COP8) in November 2005, in association with Museum Alexander Koenig and the Global Register of Migratory Species. Below you will find the award winners and laureates as well as the full reports from 2005 to 2011.

UNEP/CMS Thesis Award 2011

The third competition was launched on July 2010 with the closing date for applications set at 15 April 2011. Sixty-one entries were received from twenty-five different countries. The jury met on 20th September and chose Dr Lucy King's thesis on "the interaction between the African elephant and the African honey bee and its potential application as an elephant deterrent" as the winner. The prize was awarded at the CMS COP in Norway in November.

07 October 2016

UNEP/CMS Thesis Award 2008

The winner of the CMS Thesis Award in 2008 was Dr Samantha Petersen of South Africa for her work entitled ‘Understanding and Mitigating Vulnerable Bycatch in southern African Trawl and Longline Fisheries’. By-catch is a major concern to CMS as it affects a number of migratory species including albatrosses and petrels, marine turtles, sharks and cetaceans.

07 October 2016

UNEP/CMS Thesis Award 2005

The first winner of the UNEP/CMS Thesis Award, chosen by the jury in July 2005, was Dr. Zeb Hogan, a scientist from the United States. He was rewarded for his work on ‘The Ecology, Genetics, and Conservation of Migratory Catfish (Pangasiidae) in the Mekong River. Dr. Carlos Rodriguez from Spain and Dr. Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete from Chile were nominated second and third laureates. Dr. Hogan was later appointed by the Conference of the Parties to the CMS Scientific Council as the expert on fish species.

07 October 2016