Dear Colleagues
The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set ambitious targets for all the world’s nations to strive for, so that humankind might hope to prosper, sustainably and equitably. But how do nations meet them while also respecting the delicate balance between human civilization and the resource-providing bounty of nature?
This is a question addressed by this year’s winner of the TWAS-Lenovo Science Award, geographer and sustainable development researcher Fu Bojie. He is currently a Vice President of International Geographical Union (IGU) and professor in geography and landscape ecology at the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his work focuses on finding evidence-based strategies to make sue civilization and nature can co-exist, and thus flourish together.
His research has extended into examining the ways different SDGs can synergize, or produce a joint effect greater than the sum of their separate effects, and ways they can interfere with each other, necessitating trade-offs. This research aims to provide strategic insight that individual nations can apply to their environmental policies as they strive to develop sustainably and meet major challenges such as preventing health risks, ending poverty and strengthening biodiversity.
“The TWAS-Lenovo Award, one of the most prestigious honours given to scientists from the developing world, was announced at the TWAS 16th General Conference, held online 22nd November 2022 and hosted by Zhejiang University of China. The annual award, now in its eighth edition, includes a prize of USD100,000 to the winner provided by the Chinese technology company Lenovo, the global leader in consumer, commercial, and enterprise technology that is the largest PC company in the world.” https://twas.org/article/science-balancing-nature-and-civilization
