Dr. Mohamed Abdel Fattah Al-Kassas (also known as Mohamed Kassas, 6 July 1921N.N.:
Biography of Mohamed Kassas
', MedWetCoast. URL retrieved 2011-01-24. – 21 March 2012) was an Egyptian botanist and conservationist. He was professor emeritus for Botany at the

University of Cairo Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...

and a specialist in Arid land Ecology. He studied at the University of Cairo, where he received a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in 1944 and a M.Sc. in 1947, and at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

(Ph.D. in 1950). A specialist in the ecology of desert plants, and was among the first to publish on the topic of desertification. Kassas was an advisory member of the

United Nations Environment Programme The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...

from its beginning, and from 1978 to 1984 president of the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

(IUCN).Hesselink, Frits; Čeřovský, Jan:
Learning to Change the Future
'', IUCN 2008, p. 22. URL retrieved 2011-01-24. In 1981, he was appointed a member of the Shura Council, the

upper house An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restric ...

of the

Parliament of Egypt The Parliament of Egypt is the bicameral legislature of the Arab Republic of Egypt. It is composed of an upper house (the Senate) and a lower house (the House of Representatives). The Parliament is located in Cairo, Egypt's capital. Under t ...

. He was a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Science and the world Academy of Art and Science, and member of the Club of Rome. He was a founding member of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (2007). He received Honorary Doctorate Degree from universities in the Sudan, Sweden, Egypt and USA, and was on the editorial boards of several international journals in fields of ecology and environmental sciences. His principal research interests during the last 55 years were in plant ecology, especially in arid lands. He and his students surveyed plant life in the deserts and coastal lands of Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq and contributed to the basic understanding of the ecology of the desert vegetation. He was among the pioneers who warned the world against hazards of desertification, contributed to the UNESCO Arid Lands Research Program, (1950-1960) and to the scientific preparation for the United Nations Conference on Desertification (1977) and was senior Advisor to the Intergovernmental committee that negotiated the Convention on Desertification (1992-1994).

Honours

;Egypt *First Order of Science and Arts (1959) *Order of the Republic (1978) *First Order of Merit (1981) *State Science Prize (1982) ;International *The Golden Order for Education (Sudan, 1978) *United Nations Prize for Environment (1978) *Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) Gold Medal (1978) *Commander in the Order of the Golden Ark (The Netherlands, 1981) *Commander: the Swedish Royal Order of the Polar Star (1998) *Zayed (UAE) International Prize for Environment (2001)

References

* Dr Mostafa K. Tolba, former executive director, UNDP, Delivering his Eulogy in honor of Prof Kassas
Arabic
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kassas, Mohamed 1921 births 2012 deaths Botanists active in Africa Botanists active in Egypt Academic staff of Cairo University Cairo University alumni Alumni of the University of Cambridge 20th-century botanists Presidents of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Egyptian expatriates in the United Kingdom