Background
Faizi was born on May 25, 1960 in Poruvazhy, India.
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S. Faizi
Edit ProfileEducation
Master of Science, Madras University. Ph.D. in Environmental Management, Bharatidasan University.
Career
Started career as Field Biologist with BNHS under Dr. Salim Ali. Headed an international envtl NGO in the mid-80s, has been Unesco Fellow, Consultant Ecologist to IUCN, Biodiversity Expert to international agencies such as UNDP, JICA etc. Negotiator at key UN environmental events such as UN Conference on Envt and Devt (Earth Summit) PrepComs, UN Convention on Biological Diversity's INC, World Summit on Sustainable Development PrepCom, UNEP GC, Biodiversity Convention's CoPs, etc. Writer on global issues of importance to the global South.
Achievements
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Dr. S.Faizi, renowned ecologist, has made remarkable contributions in biodiversity conservation at various levels. He is a policy advocate, practicing professional, institutional leader, theorist, and author. He has been a key figure advocating the need for a Convention on Biological Diversity in the late 80s and as a negotiator has played a crucial role in shaping the treaty the way it is, especially in articulating the concerns of the global S. His writings and interventions on bringing the focus on the implementation of the Convention have had a significant influence in the CBD parlance. He has also chaired the CBD Alliance, the global civil society platform on biodiversity issues.
A product of India’s historic Silent Valley movement, and trained as a field biologist under Dr. Salim Ali, Dr. Faizi has helped cultivate a cadre of youth environmental leaders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the mid-eighties. Reading his research work on Adayar Estuary in 1984, the respected writer Harry Miller wrote ‘Here is a dedicated young scientist of the Zoology Department, New College, who knows his methodology and his subject-matter intimately, and who clearly has a profound reverence for his subject rather than the all-too-common motivation of getting ‘a good degree’ for its own sake’( Indian Express, 18 May 1984), and in the decades that followed Faizi has lived up to the prophecy of Harry Miller. As a Unesco Fellow, he had catalyzed networking among environmental organizations in SE Asia countries. His persistent argument for involving the indigenous people in biodiversity management represents a refreshing approach reconciling environmental and social concerns. He had been instrumental in the establishment of India’s first statutory Community Reserve at Kadalundy and in the innovative assessment of the economic loss due to industrial pollution in the Plachimada village, which led to the creation of environmental compensation law. He has been an active player in developing India’s Biological Diversity Act and the subsequent Forest Rights Act.
Dr. Faizi’s is a powerful voice in UN multilateral environmental negotiations, articulating the developing world’s concerns, and has served as an advisor to G-77 in the preparatory negotiations leading to the UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit), World Summit on Sustainable Development, etc, besides the CBD negotiations. He has been consulting for various international agencies on biodiversity management, such as IUCN, Unesco, JICA, UNDP, etc. He has advised several Indian states on biodiversity management, as well as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Nepal. He has played a crucial role in enhancing protected area management capacity in the countries of the WESCANA region (West and Central Asia and North Africa) as coordinator of the IUCN’s membership-driven Protected Area Training Centre (PATC). He has made forceful arguments for linking poverty eradication and biodiversity and also served as a member of the CBD Expert Group on Biodiversity for Poverty Eradication. He is an influential opinion shaper through his extensive writings for the mass media.
He has won many recognitions that include the Lifetime Achievements Award of the III World Biodiversity Congress/Govt of Serbia (2015), Environmental Leadership Award 2003, and also the UNEP Global 500 Honour in 1988 which was given to the organization he was then heading.
For his lifelong achievements in different states, different countries and globally. Some examples:
• Led the student movement as part of the historical Silent Valley movement of the 1980s
• Generated a global youth environmental movement as head of the International Youth Fedn for Envtl Studies and Conservation in the second half of the 1980s
• Facilitated networking among conservation organizations in SE Asia, as a Unesco Fellow
• Successfully lobbied for UNEP GC green signal for the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Articulated the global South concerns in the CBD negotiations
• Advised G-77 in UNCED (Earth Summit) and WSSD preparatory conferences
• Consistently campaigned for emphasizing on enforcement in the CBD parlance, on the legal weight of CBD and against biopiracy
• Founding member of CBD Alliance and its chairman for a period, currently its Board member (Global civil society platform on biodiversity issues)
• Developed forest/biodiversity management plans for the States of Orissa, Gujarat, Tripura and UP which has subsequently been implemented by the govts with JICA financial support. These involve community participation, livelihood support, endangered species conservation, afforestation, capacity development, addressing human-wildlife conflicts, etc
• Restructured implementation plan for the ecorestoration of Attapady in Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve implemented by Kerala govt’s AHADS which has been a resounding success in community-led conservation and livelihood enhancement (also won JICA President’s Award
• Developed CBD implementation strategy for Saudi Arabia, National Protected Area Plan for Qatar. Developed the early Management Plan for Chipboard Biosphere Reserve, Indonesia.
• Involved in supporting the local movements for protecting the Kerala Western Ghats from mining for building material
• Was instrumental in the establishment of India’s first statutory Community Reserve: Kadalundi-Vallikkunnu CR in 2007
• Actively campaigned for the Biodiversity Act and Forest Rights Act has been part of the drafting teams
• Helped create India’s first environmental compensation legislation as an expert member of Kerala govt’s Plachimada High Power Committee (currently awaiting Presidential assent)
• Was instrumental in the nomination of Sasthamkotta and Ashtamudi lakes as Ramsar sites.
• The Plachimada High Power Committee report in which he had the key role led to the creation of the first law in the country dedicated to environmental compensation; their report has been a pioneering effort in financially quantifying the environmental damages
• He had forcefully argued for the inclusion of statutory rights to protect biodiversity by the Gram Sabhas in the Forest Rights Act and it has been included in the Act which is a remarkable and new approach and paradigm.
# He has been articulating the developing world's concerns on the UN Security Council reform by arguing for the democratization of the UN SC rather than merely expanding its membership, terming it a historical anachronism.
# Similarly he has argued, through his articles, against the opposition to the WTO in the developing world but called for asserting the democratic strength of the developing world in WTO to turn the table on the western countries.
Connections
S. Faizi married to Nazeema Beevi on May 15, 1990. Children: Iqbal, Najma.
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Born
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Nationality
Indian