Bonn, 7 July 2016 – the Secretariat has received the sad news that Hugh Boyd passed away on 3 July after a long period of ill health. 

Hugh was a pioneer of waterbird science and helped lay the foundations of AEWA as well as being a great supporter of the Ramsar Convention.  In the UK, he helped establish from scratch a great deal of the essential work, now taken for granted, such as systematic counts, the use of ringing in understanding demographics, studies of age ratios and aerial surveys.  Moving to Canada, he provided great impetus to the work of the migratory bird section of the Canadian Wildlife Service.   He was also in the vanguard of those considering the impacts of climate change in the Arctic.

Group photo of AEWA MOP5 Participants taken in honor of Hugh Boyd / Photo: IISD (May 2012, La Rochelle, France)

At the Waterbirds around the World conference in 2004, Hugh was one of the honorary patrons whose formal address concluded with the words: “We especially hope that we were able to encourage those now active in the field to continue to work as hard as they can to create and maintain a better world, where biodiversity conservation is an integrated part of sustainable development”.

As Hugh was unable to travel to the AEWA MOP5 in 2012, delegates posed for this photo to send him as a memento of the event.

The Secretariat would like to extend its condolences to Hugh’s friends and family.