BirdLife Peter Schei, BirdLife International's Chairman, enjoying some birdwatching in the UK Zoom In

BirdLife’s Chairman and the MDGs

14-09-2005

During his long career with the Norwegian government, BirdLife International Chairman Peter Schei was involved with sustainable development as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity, and with what he describes as “the mainstreaming of the environment into the major economic sector” as well as the implementation of protected area networks.

He was a member of the steering committee which developed the concept of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and subsequently of the board which oversaw the MEA to its completion. He also worked with the Millennium Project, which devised an operational framework for meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

“I felt very early that it was important to see conservation in relation to people’s needs,” Peter says. “One important reason for my joining BirdLife was the ‘for birds and people’ message, which fits what I’ve been working for throughout my career.”

Peter was a member of the working group of the WEHAB initiative, commissioned by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to investigate the five key areas of Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity in advance of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. Charles McNeill, Environment Programme Team Manager at the UNDP, who worked with him on the biodiversity component, recalls: “As Peter Schei likes to say, ‘biodiversity is the insurance policy for life itself!’”

Peter is also Director of the Oslo-based Fridtjof Nansen Institute, an independent foundation engaged in research on international environmental, energy, and resource management politics.

Click here for a fuller biography of Peter Schei.