Ted Turner received the World Ecology Award from the International Center for Tropical Ecology at a gala dinner held on Thursday June 8, 2000 at the Ridgway Center, Missouri Botanical Garden. He was selected to receive this prestigious award because of his long-term commitment to environmental protection and his efforts to raise public awareness of the issues that surround biodiversity conservation.
Ted Turner is vice chairman of Time Warner, Inc., the world's leading media company. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and moved to Savannah, Georgia when he was nine years old. He graduated from Brown University and began his business career as an account executive for what developed into Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Ted Turner, the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, is an active environmentalist. He crusades for cleaner transportation, sustainable population growth, wilderness conservation and greener business. He has worked to conserve endangered species, including Mexican wolves, California condors, black-tailed prairie dogs and desert bighorn sheep. He manages the largest private herd of bison on his ranch in Montana and recently reintroduced wolves to this property. He has received numerous civic and industry awards and honors and was Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1991.
Ted Turner is a member of the board of directors of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the International Founders Council of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and the Business Council of the United Nations. He is president of the Turner Foundation, the Turner family's private grant-making organization, which focuses on population and the environment. He also chairs the United Nations Foundation, a charitable organization he founded to support population and women's projects and programs which directly help the environment and children.
