Panthera will make a biennial award of $50,000 to a senior scientist and conservationist who has dedicated their life to make a profound difference in the protection of wild cats. This award is the largest prize honoring wild cat specialists and was created by Panthera to acknowledge a lifetime of critical work. The next prize will be given in September 2011.
2009 Prize Winner – Carlos Manuel Rodriguez
As Minister of Environment and Energy for Costa Rica, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez implemented visionary policies that succeeded in halting the nation’s rampant deforestation restoring critical habitat for jaguars. Among his many contributions to conservation, Rodriguez is perhaps best known for developing the concept of payment for ecosystem services. This groundbreaking strategy rewards communities for protecting native ecosystems by creating economic incentives through compensation. The strategy has led to the protection of vast ecosystems in Costa Rica, which currently attract about 1.9 million foreign tourists per year. Throughout his ministerial term, Rodriguez was a driving force for jaguar conservation in Costa Rica. In 2006, he was instrumental in presenting the Jaguar Corridor to the Comisión Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo (CCAD; the Central American Commission for Environment and Development). The meeting resulted in unanimous approval at the Ministerial level and opened the door for crucial political support for the Jaguar Corridor Initiative throughout Central America. In his current role as vice president and director for Conservation International, Rodriguez advises governments on adapting payments for ecosystem services internationally, and works to create multinational alliances to further conservation on a global scale.
2007 Prize Winner – Dr. George Schaller
Since the 1950’s George Schaller has roamed through many lands observing wild beasts and conducting landmark long-term studies. These have massively deepened our understanding of wildlife in its habitat. Schaller’s land mark contribution and commitment to wild cat conservation came with the publication of The Serengeti Lion and his observations of predator prey relations in the Serengeti. In the years that followed George has worked with jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal and snow leopard in the Hindu Kush, mountain gorilla in Central Africa and giant panda in Sichuan, he has rediscovered Saola in Laos, Warty pig in Vietnam and even located a herd of Tibetan red deer again thought to be extinct. This is just one of a large number of well earned and humbly accepted awards presented to George for his lifetime of dedication to protecting animals and their habitat.
2006 Inaugural Prize Winner – Dr. Alan Rabinowitz
Dr. Alan Rabinowitz has traveled extensively in the interest of research and conservation on a wide range of species, including tigers, jaguars, clouded leopards, and other large mammals. In addition to being a world authority on big cats, he has also helped pioneer the development of range-wide species conservation and he has driven the establishment of several protected areas, including the world’s first jaguar sanctuary in Belize and the world’s largest tiger reserve in Myanmar.
