Philip Osano

Philip’s interest is in environmental policy, development and international affairs. He holds a BSc in Environmental Science from Egerton University, and an MSc in Conservation Biology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where he was also a graduate research student at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, studying financial costs of conservation in the Cape Floristic Kingdom, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The resulting paper won first prize at Cambridge University’s Sixth Annual Student Conference on Conservation Science in 2005.

In 2006, Philip joined BirdLife International African Partnership Secretariat as Co-ordinator of projects on livelihoods and conservation at Important Bird Areas (IBAs) sites in Botswana, Burkina Faso and Kenya, and providing support to BirdLife’s policy work with several Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). Philip has also served as a consultant to several organizations, including the Center for Sustainability at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Following his time as a Sauvé Fellow, Philip remained at McGill, working with his Sauvé Mentor, Prof. Peter G. Brown, to pursue a PhD in Geography. He won the J. W. McConnell Memorial Fellowship and the Neil Croll Memorial Award. He completed his Sauvé Project – co-editing “Young People, Education and Sustainable Development: Exploring the Principles, Perspectives and Praxis” . A contribution to the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development, it was published on Earth Day, 22 April 2009.

Active in several environmental fora, he was the keynote speaker at the 2008 Students Summit on Sustainability. He also co-ordinates the African Edition of the “Youth Encounter on Sustainability (YES-Africa)”. Philip was one of  the Emerging Leaders selected to attend the  Global Environmental Governance (GEG) Forum  in Switzerland in 2009, an experience he describes as “truly inspiring, motivating and challenging”.

Links

• Statement by MP Marc Garneau about Philip Osano
• A Student’s Perspective: Sustaining the Future

Testimonial

The people I met and interacted with at McGill were always very helpful … my Mentor and I unfailingly compared notes on a range of issues concerning the state of the environment on a weekly basis. The center piece of my life in Montreal was of course the Sauvé program. I enjoyed the company, friendship and collegiality of my fellow scholars. The debates we had, the history we shared, the knowledge we exchanged, and the group activities we participated in, all enriched my personal and professional life in very profound ways.