Chaired by Klaus Töpfer, former executive director of the UN Environment Programme, the Robert Bosch Stiftung’s Advisory Board for the Robert Bosch Junior Professorship has selected Asia Khamzina to receive the prestigious award in 2009. From mid-2009, she will be working at the Center for Development Research in Bonn, Germany, examining how reforestation in Central Asia could help to improve the global CO
2 balance. Dr. Khamzina has been investigating the potential for reforestation on degraded agricultural land in Uzbekistan since 2002. The first Robert Bosch Junior Professorship was awarded in 2008 to zoologist Dr. Nina Farwig, who is studying the effects on biodiversity of deforestation in the rainforests of east Africa.
Asia Khamzina is receiving up to one million euros for independent research into the retreat of the Aral Sea, one of the world’s biggest manmade environmental disasters, which has been gathering pace since 1960. The 32-year-old Uzbek national intends to use the funding to identify the ecological, economic, and institutional conditions that would enable the reforestation of degraded areas and halt the desertification of whole stretches of land. In the long term, this could allow central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan to participate in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) process of the Kyoto Protocol. The Robert Bosch Stiftung will be awarding the Junior Professorship for the “Sustainable Use of Natural Resources” again in 2010. The main focal points will be the interaction between global environmental changes and human health.
In line with the values and mandate of Robert Bosch, projects run by the Robert Bosch Stiftung aim to establish concrete solutions for key national and international issues. Projects from 2008 include the integration of migrants, the shaping of demographic change, education, health, age-related issues, and the sustainable use of natural resources. These investments are funded by the dividends that the foundation receives as a shareholder in Robert Bosch GmbH. In 2008, the Robert Bosch Stiftung distributed a total of 60 million euros among its project areas.
