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Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2002 |
Speakers |
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Dr Claude Martin Director General, WWF International
Before joining WWF International, Claude Martin was Director and Chief Executive of WWF-Switzerland from 1980 to 1990. Under his leadership, WWF-Switzerland emerged as one of the strongest of the national organizations within the WWF network, both in terms of achieving conservation objectives and generating membership and financial support. Claude Martin’s career with WWF started in the early 1970s, when he lived in Central India, studying the ecology of the barasingha deer in Kanha National Park. While fewer than 100 animals of this threatened deer survived at the end of the 1960s, his findings led to a revision of habitat management and a subsequent increase in the population size and range of the barasingha deer. He was educated in Zurich and holds an MSc in biology from the University of Zurich, and in 1975 he graduated with a Ph.D. in wildlife biology from the University of Zurich. The status and ecology of the barasingha deer in Central India was the subject of this thesis. From 1975 to 1978, Claude Martin worked for the Wildlife Department of Ghana and served as Director of the Bia National Park and other tropical rainforest areas in the Western Region of Ghana. In addition to his planning and administrative duties as parks manager, he was also responsible for research programmes on primates and the forest elephant. Over the years, he has carried out numerous field missions on behalf of WWF and IUCN – The World Conservation Union, primarily on forest conservation issues in African countries, and published large numbers of articles on conservation. Since becoming Director General of WWF International, Claude Martin has initiated several new approaches in conservation such as the WWF Target Driven Programmes, as well as partnerships, for example with the World Bank and business/industry groups. He is a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) – a high-level advisory body to the Chinese Government, a Board member of the Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust (GHCT), a member of the Advisory Board of the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science & Technology, and other environmental bodies. A Swiss, Claude Martin was born in Zurich in 1945. He is married with four children and is fluent in English, German, and French. |
Claude Martin was appointed Director
General of WWF International in October 1993. Prior to this he served as Deputy Director
General from 1990 to 1993, overseeing the field, policy, education, and communications
programmes of WWF International. In this capacity, he led an organization-wide effort to
focus WWF's worldwide programmes by establishing global priorities and strategies.