First Plenary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES-1) Meets in Bonn

Professor Matthews was well-known in both Ramsar and AEWA circles as a passionate advocate for wetland and waterbird conservation and has been recognized as one of four "Founding Gathers" of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (along with Luc Hoffmann, Erik Carp, and Eskandar Firouz). He devoted a good part of his career to developing and promoting the concept of an inter-governmental convention on the conservation and wise use of wetlands and was also involved in the early development of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement.

He has also been recognized as a great scientist in the field of waterbird biology and played a key role in the current knowledge on migratory bird navigation. He received his PhD from Christ's College, Cambridge in 1950.

In 1969, Geoffrey Matthews succeeded Dr. Luc Hoffmann to become Honorary Director of the IWRB (the International Wildfowl Research Bureau, which then became the International Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau, and is now Wetlands International) and remained active in matters of waterbird research long after that, including as a Patron of the historic ‘Waterbirds around the World’ Conference in Edinburgh in April 2004.

Following his retirement, Geoffrey Matthews wrote the definitive history of the negotiations for a wetland convention and its subsequent development, The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands: its history and development, which was published by the Ramsar Bureau (or Secretariat) in 1993, and which has now been re-issued in PDF format in commemoration of his passing (http://www.ramsar.org/pdf/lib/Matthews-history.pdf).

On behalf of the wider AEWA community, the AEWA Secretariat would like to express its deepest gratitude for Professor Matthews’ commitment to international wetland and waterbird conservation and to extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.

Both the Ramsar Secretariat and Wetlands International have added special tributes for Professor Geoffrey Matthews on their websites.