Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General, presented the award at the Global Awards Ceremony, held during the high-level biodiversity meeting currently underway in Nagoya, Japan.

“The wealth of entries in this competition shows the huge diversity of beauty the natural world has to offer and the array of solutions it offers to some of the most pressing questions of our day, such as global warming,” says Julia Marton-Lefèvre. “Journalists reporting on the loss of wildlife and the importance of having a healthy planet for all of us deserve a gold medal for all their efforts – we need to see this effort matched by governments here at this crucial meeting in Nagoya to reach global conservation targets, otherwise even our hope will face extinction.”

Der globale Indianer, or Using the Internet to Save the Rainforest, by Juliane von Mittelstaedt for Germany’s Der Spiegel is a feature article about the Surui people of the Brazilian rainforest. If current trends continue, the land of the Surui, three times the size of New York city, might disappear in 100 years time. Combining technology with tradition, the Surui people are determined to save their forest, their culture and their tribe by entering the global emissions market.

How to save a forest by Anjali Nayar for Nature Magazine looks at the impact of forest conservation and carbon trading projects on a rural area in Madagascar, where political unrest and extreme poverty have resulted in massive destruction of forests over the last 60 years.

“I’m glad that through this prize, I’ve helped shed some light on both the opportunities and challenges for developing countries to keep their forests standing,” says joint winner Anjali Nayar.

The two award-winning articles were selected by a Global Master Jury, which considered six regional winners’ articles, representing Latin America, North America and Oceania, Europe, Asia, English-speaking Africa and the Middle East, and French-speaking Africa. A total of 418 print entries from 81 different countries have competed for the 2010 award.

Established in 1998, the IUCN-Reuters-COMplus Media Awards aim to raise global awareness of environmental and sustainable development issues, by encouraging high standards in environmental reporting worldwide.

To read the winning articles, click on the following links:
Using the Internet to save the rainforest and How to save a forest

For more information or to set up interviews, please contact:

Brian Thomson, IUCN Media Relations Manager, t +41 79 721 8326 (Switzerland), +81 80 3462 3681 (Japan), e brian.thomson@iucn.org
Nicki Chadwick, IUCN Media Relations Officer, t +41 79 528 3486 (Switzerland), + 81 80 3462 3552 (Japan), e nicki.chadwick@iucn.org