This year, in light of the spread of COVID-19, we have decided to cancel the Blue Planet Prize award ceremony and related events. In place of the in-person events, we have opened this special site to showcase the achievements of this year’s winners.

Please allow me to express my heartfelt appreciation to His Imperial Highnesses Crown Prince, as well as to the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment of Japan, the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim of the United States Embassy in Japan, and the British Ambassador to Japan for sending celebratory messages for the winners.

I congratulate this year’s Blue Planet Prize winners Prof. David Tilman and Dr. Simon Stuart. While it was not possible to invite you both to Japan and congratulate you in person, I am sure that people around the world, including those that visit this site, are applauding you for having won the award.

Established in 1933, the Asahi Glass Foundation has been providing research grants and scholarships, as well as conferring the Blue Planet Prize, an international award regarding the global environment. Concern over the global environmental issues has increased in recent years, and we sincerely hope that the Blue Planet Prize contributes in some way to resolving those issues.

Takuya Shimamura, Chairman
The Asahi Glass Foundation

Restoration of the Earth’s environment is one of the most imminent problems that humans need to resolve. In 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, in the hope of the restoration of the global environment, the Asahi Glass Foundation established the Blue Planet Prize, an international environmental award that recognizes the contribution of individuals or organizations in the resolution of global environmental problems. The award’s name was inspired by the remark “the Earth is blue,” uttered by the first human in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, upon viewing our planet.

Looking back, winners were selected from various research fields; global warming, climate change, biodiversity, hydrology, and elements of the social system such as economics and law. With a scientific viewpoint in mind, the target of this prize has shifted from environmental warning through observation/analysis to action like cross-sectoral collaboration to solve the problems.

We sincerely hope that through the commendation program, this prize will go a long way to resolve global environmental problems that humans face.

Hiroyuki Yoshikawa
Presentation Committee Chairman

I wish to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the laureates of the 29th Blue Planet Prize, Professor David Tilman of the United States of America, and Doctor Simon Stuart of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Professor Tilman has positioned the ‘diet-health-environment trilemma’ as an important global issue, and has advocated a shift from meat-centered to plant-based diets and agricultural practices, which would benefit both human health and the global environment.
Doctor Stuart has contributed to the conservation of species and the natural environment through leading the development of the categories and quantitative criteria for the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, and by demonstrating through the Global Amphibian Assessment that one third of amphibian species are threatened with extinction, in an indication of the extent to which ecosystems are deteriorating.
I would like to express my deepest respect to the two laureates for their remarkable achievements.

It is particularly meaningful to acknowledge that the two laureates have maintained their outstanding power of action and thirst for knowledge over many years as they have sounded the alarm to modern civilization and society, and have mapped out a course for future human activities. I hope that this year’s laureates, as well as other individuals who have considered environmental issues from profound perspectives, will continue to play a leading role in realizing a sustainable global environment and improving people’s livelihoods.

The Blue Planet Prize Award Ceremony and related events could not be held this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is a matter of great regret that I am unable to talk in person with Professor Tilman and Doctor Stuart as well as the other attendees at the Award Ceremony, I very much look forward to the two laureates visiting Japan when the situation permits, and to having an opportunity to gain more knowledge in person of their admirable work.

In concluding my address for this 29th Blue Planet Prize, I hope that this Prize will continue to heighten environmental awareness worldwide, and act as a catalyst for consequent action.

I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations to the recipients of the 29th Blue Planet Prize, Professor David Tilman and Dr. Simon Stuart, and to everyone else involved.
For almost three decades, the Blue Planet Prize has honored the achievements of people who have contributed toward the solution of global environmental problems. Today these problems are challenges that the whole world should tackle together.

Recognizing the diet-health-environment trilemma as a global challenge, Professor Tilman has advocated shifts toward agricultural practices and dietary habits that lead to both better human health and sustainability of the global environment.
Dr. Stuart led the development of the categories and quantitative criteria for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, thereby establishing the indicator as the most reliable and widely used data source on the health of the world’s biodiversity.

In addition to paying my deep respect to both of them for their achievements, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone involved in the Blue Planet Prize, which emphasizes the importance of global environmental conservation. I wish you all continued success and good health in the future.

Yoshihide Suga
Prime Minister of Japan

Dear Professor Tilman,

Congratulations on receiving the 2020 Blue Planet Prize for your important work on the health and environmental impacts of agricultural practices and dietary choices. As the global human population continues to grow, findings such as your own have highlighted challenges to our sustainable existence on this planet. Your unique research has shown the necessity of shifting our diets and approach to agriculture for the sake of human health and the global environment. Your richly deserved selection as a Blue Planet Prize recipient also demonstrates continued American leadership in this field of science.

I deeply admire your accomplishments and look forward to your continued discoveries. On behalf of all my colleagues at the U.S. Embassy, I wish you the greatest success in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,

Joseph M. Young
Charge d’Affaires, a.i.

I am delighted to offer my warmest congratulations to Dr Simon Stuart on being awarded the2020 Blue Planet Prize.

Dr Stuart’s ground breaking work is truly global in scope and needed now more than ever. As the world we all depend upon comes under increasing pressure, halting environmental degradation and safeguarding nature must remain a top priority. But to succeed, we must be even more ambitious and more steadfast in our determination to act. The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Kunming, China next May will be the moment to agree the ambitious post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework our planet needs. As the vital work of Dr Smith and others leading the charge shows us, we have no other choice.

Paul Madden CMG
British Ambassador to Japan

I have the honor to extend my heartfelt congratulations to both Professor David Tilman and Doctor Simon Stuart on winning this year’s Blue Planet Prize.

We are facing the two global crises of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. As we stand at a turning point of our civilization, the coronavirus pandemic is sending us a clear message: we need to Redesign our socio-economic system to be more sustainable and resilient, rather than return to the pre-pandemic society.
Needless to say, science plays a key role in advancing environmental policies toward Redesign. Especially important is to effectively communicate scientific findings to policy-makers and the public. That is exactly where Professor Tilman and Dr. Sturart have made outstanding achievements for which I would like to express my deepest gratitude and sincere respect.

Recognizing the tightly-linked diet-health-environment trilemma as a global challenge, Professor Tilman advocates for shifts toward diets and agricultural practices that are better for human health and the global environment.
While issues we are currently confronted with, such as the climate and biodiversity emergencies, are of a global scale, I strongly believe that the accumulation of individuals’ small behavioral changes and actions can lead to a global change that will protect our planet.

In this sense, Professor Tilman’s findings linking human diets and health to global environmental issues are significant. His research also has had a worldwide influence, as it was repeatedly referred to in the 2019 IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land.

Doctor Stuart led the development of the categories and quantitative criteria for the well known IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and contributed significantly to the expansion of the number of species assessed.

The Red List is an established source of data for policy-making on species’ extinction risk and used by numerous institutions including the Washington Convention (CITES) and for monitoring the implementation status of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
While the field of Biodiversity is particularly challenging to develop a taxonomy, Doctor Stuart’s scientific contributions were instrumental in the identification of species to be safeguarded.
These findings will also be extremely valuable for consideration of a new biodiversity framework at next year’s COP15 to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

I sincerely hope that the Blue Planet Prize will continue to encourage research in environmental issues, further contributing to the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Once again, congratulations to Professor Tilman and Dr. Stuart and I look forward to their future scientific achievements.

KOIZUMI Shinjiro
Minister of the Environment, Japan

Dear Dave,

I was very pleased to learn that you are receiving the Blue Planet Prize - it is richly deserved. It recognizes your brilliant research experimentally showing that biodiversity is of central importance to the functioning of ecosystems, and for showing how the current global wave of extinctions could be greatly decreased by changing agricultural practices and adopting healthier diets.

But you didn't stop there. Because agricultural expansion poses the single greatest threat to global biodiversity, you spent the last two decades seeking ways to "feed the world and save the Earth." Wisely you have emphasized three actions essential for saving biodiversity: stopping land clearing by helping developing nations rapidly increase crop yields via sustainable intensification; shifting to healthier, mainly plant-based diets; and decreasing food waste.

I'm happy to be able to congratulate you on your many great contributions to humanity's future.

Best,

Professor Paul R. Ehrlich
President, Center for Conservation Biology
Stanford University

Dear Simon,

It is a great pleasure to write this congratulatory letter as you are named one of two winners of the 2020 Blue Planet Prize.
This prize recognises the truly outstanding work that you have led over more than 30 years to both conserve the world’s species, and to put species conservation on a firm scientific and evidence-based footing.
Your work to develop the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria was a large and complex process.
I know this well because we worked together on it. It was your dedication to seeing it to a conclusion, and your clarity of thought about how to devise and implement a system that would be widely adopted, that made the crucial difference.
You should be proud of the fact that more than 120,000 species have now been assessed for the Red List, and critical information to support their conservation is now fully available via IUCN.
I sincerely congratulate you on this prize, a just reward for your many contributions to conserving the world’s species.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Georgina Mace DBE FRS