Professor, University of Coimbra Portugal
Talk Title: UNESCO Conservation Sites for Climate Action and Ecosystem Restoration
He obtained a Ph. D. 1989, from the University of Osnabrück Germany. In 2009 and in 2023, he obtained the titles of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Pará, Belém, Brazil, and from the Yokohama National University, Japan. In 2018, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Civil Merit of the Kingdom of Spain. From 2017 to 2021, he served as UNESCO’s Director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences and Secretary of the Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), and, at the same time the Secretary of the UNESCO Global Geoparks Programme (UGGP). As of 2021, he is a Senior Research Associate at the UNESCO Chair on Biodiversity Safeguard for Sustainable Development, Life Sciences Department, University of Coimbra, Portugal. In March 2022, he became a Professor at the Yokohama National University, Division of Natural Environment and Information, Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Japan. In November 2024, he published together with Prof. Hiroyuki Matsuda, Dr, Benno Böer, and Dr. Ron Loughland the Springer Nature Book on ‘Blue Carbon Mangrove Ecosystems: A Concept-Based Approach’, within the Springer Series of ‘Blue Carbon Ecosystems for Sustainable Development’.