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Last month, UMass Boston Distinguished Professor of Biology Kamal Bawa received the UNESCO Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Conservation on behalf of the research institute he founded in India twenty years ago. The (ATREE) is located in Bangalore and is now ranked among the world’s top 20 environmental think tanks.

"This prestigious award recognizing Professor Bawa's significant contributions to environmental research is richly deserved," said UMass Boston Interim Chancellor Katherine Newman. "His work is legendary, and the collaboration he has developed through ATREE is a model for the rest of the world."

The $100,000 Qaboos Prize, awarded at the World Science Forum in Budapest, Hungary, recognized ATREE for its socially just environmental conservation and sustainable development activities. In particular, the prize recognized the organization’s participatory approach to improving environmental conservation, applied in its initiative in India’s northeastern Sikkim and Darjeeling regions. Conservation planning and the creation and promotion of sustainable livelihoods is the focus of the research in this region. The prize also recognizes significant contributions toward the discovery of new species in the Western Ghats, and exceptional outreach to raise awareness of India’s biodiversity and train environmental leaders.

“The recognition of ATREE affirms the important work we do here at the 91̽�� Boston on global environmental issues,” said Professor Bawa. “Through my work here, the university played a pivotal role in the establishment of ATREE, and I am most grateful to my colleagues and students here for their support.”

ATREE is dedicated to the generation of interdisciplinary knowledge, education, and policy for the environment and for socially just development. It also contributes to the conservation of diverse environments throughout India, including the Eastern Himalayas, the UNESCO Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and the Western Ghats World Heritage Site, Vembanad lake, Kaziranga and Manas National Parks, the grasslands of Kutch, the wetlands of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and urban landscapes of Karnataka.

Bawa’s environmental work has been widely recognized internationally, having received the first Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science from the Royal Norwegian Society of Letters and Sciences (2012) and the international MIDORI Prize in Biodiversity (2014) from the Aeon Foundation in Japan at the United Nations Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.