Dr Çağan Şekercioğlu with HRH The Princess Royal. Photo: WFN

The Whitley Gold Award was presented to Dr Şekercioğlu by HRH The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) during a ceremony held at the Royal Geographical Society, London. The 32-year-old Kars-based anthropologist and biologist is Turkey’s first ever Whitley Gold Award winner.

The award to Dr Şekercioğlu recognised his work around Kuyucuk Lake, in the harsh, mile-high, Kars province of north-eastern Turkey, which provides the setting for Snow, the best-selling novel by Nobel Laureate, Orhun Pamuk.

The lake is a wildlife haven, supporting up to 30,000 birds of more than 160 species. It is also a vital for local people who rely on it to raise the livestock, crops and fuel that help them to survive minus 50 degrees C temperatures in winter.

Dr Şekercioğlu began the Kars Biodiversity Project, working with a local NGO to help local people to see how good stewardship will raise their incomes, safeguard the lake and its species, and make the area attractive to bird-watchers and eco-tourists. Progress is already evident and the community is also backing efforts to win greater protection for the region.  

His prizes included a Whitley Award of £30,000, donated by the William Brake Charitable Trust, another £30,000 as a Whitley Gold Award winner, long-term support and the opportunity to seek further WFN funding, currently worth more than £0.4m a year.

The fund’s founder, Edward Whitley, said: “The aim of the Whitley Awards is to find and support the environmental leaders who are helping to build a future where nature and people co-exist in a way that benefits both. In Çağan Şekercioğlu, Turkey has a real asset – a Harvard and Stamford graduate who turned down a Wall Street career to be an inspired conservation leader and someone we are privileged to be able to fund.”  

The awards ceremony was held in front of a 350-strong audience that included Sir David Attenborough, a Turkish embassy representative, leading scientists, and celebrity conservation supporters.  

The Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is a UK-based charity which administers the annual international awards programme and which this year celebrates its15th anniversary. The Whitley Awards are sponsored and supported by a range of corporations and individuals including WWF-UK, Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, and HSBC.

To find out more about the Whitley Fund for Nature and past Whitley Award recipients, please see: www.whitleyaward.org