Tewolde Berhan Egziabher talks on the World Future Council

Tewolde Berhan graduated in 1963 from the University of Addis Ababa and took a doctorate from the University of Wales in 1969. He was Dean of the Faculty of Science at Addis Ababa University, 1974-78 and later Director of the Ethiopian Conservation Strategy Secretariat 1991-94. Since then he has been General Manager of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia, which is effectively the country's Ministry of the Environment. During the 1990s Tewolde put much of his energy into negotiations at the various biodiversity-related fora, especially the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In this time he built up a strong group of well-prepared African negotiators who began to take the lead in the G77 and China Group. Africa came out with united, progressive positions, such as no patents on living materials and the recognition of community rights. Later Tewolde's leadership of the Like-Minded Group in the 1999 biosafety negotiations in Cartagena, Colombia, played a key role in eventually achieving an outcome - against strong US and EU opposition - that protects biosafety and biodiversity and respects traditional and community rights in developing countries.

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