J. Paul Getty Award for Conservation Leadership

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The J. Paul Getty Award for Conservation Leadership is a $200,000 award which is an outgrowth of a prize originally instituted in 1974 by J. Paul Getty. The prize is currently supported by Gordon Getty, and administered by the World Wildlife Fund^[1]. According to the WWF website:

The award recognizes contributions to conservation through personal leadership in one of three annually rotating areas: political leadership, scientific leadership and community leadership.

The prize was instituted as the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize^[2] in 1974 by the philanthropist J. Paul Getty, but was renamed "Award for Conservation Leadership" around 2005^[3]. In its present form it is used to fund a number of graduate student fellowships in conservation research, named jointly in the name of J. Paul Getty and the prize winner, at institutes chosen by the winner.

Nominees for the Award are submitted to the World Wildlife Fund by conservation organizations around the world and the winner is chosen by an independent jury of experts.

[edit] 2007 Award

The winner in 2007 was the noted conservationist K. Ullas Karanth, who has done pioneering work on tiger and other carnivore conservation across India, particularly in the Nagarhole wildlife sanctuary. He is also seen as the motivating spirit behind the creation of three protected areas in the Western Ghats forest of Southeastern India. The money will go towards funding graduate research at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore.

Earlier winners^[2] include Billy Arjan Singh (2004), Antonio Reina (2003), Sir Peter Scott (1986), Jane Goodall (1984) and Salim Ali (1976).