A University of British Columbia professor who argued—long before it became popularly accepted—that the world has a finite bio-capacity to sustain the human population, has received a $225,000 Trudeau Fellowship Prize.
Prof. William Rees, of UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, was one of five prize recipients announced this week by the Trudeau Foundation. The prizes are given annually in recognition of outstanding achievement, innovative approaches to issues of public policy and commitment to public engagement.
Rees is known for originating, in 1990, the ecological footprint analysis (EFA)—a framework that describes the amount of productive land needed to support a given population. With the EFA, Rees has shown that North Americans use far more than their share of world resources, stating that to bring the present world population up to U.S. or Canadian material standards with prevailing technology, it would require four additional Earth-like planets.
“Prof. William Rees is a most deserving recipient of this leading Canadian fellowship,” says George Mackie, Vice President Academic and Provost pro tem. “He is a pioneer in his field, has worked tirelessly to advance public understanding of sustainability, and has identified how individuals and society can reduce their impact on this planet.”
Rees’ book Our Ecological Footprint was published in 1996 and has been translated into eight languages. In addition to teaching at UBC since 1969, Rees is a recent past-President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics and a co-founder of the One Earth Initiative, which aims to help Canadians scale back their eco-footprint by 80 per cent. He was elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada in 2006.
The Montreal-based Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, established in 2002 as a living memorial to the late Prime Minister, encourages public debate and supports exceptional research on issues of public policy. It has granted over 100 major awards to top researchers and highly accomplished individuals, in Canada and abroad. UBC Geography Prof. David Ley earned a fellowship in 2003. For more information, visit: www.trudeaufoundation.ca .
2007 Trudeau Fellowships also went to Profs. William Coleman (McMaster), Eric Helleiner (Waterloo), Shana Poplack (Ottawa), and Joseph Yvon Theriault (Ottawa).
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