Environmental pioneer John Agard dies at 71

Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor John Agard, one of the Caribbean's most in­flu­en­tial en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­en­tists and cli­mate change ad­vo­cates, has died at the age of 71.

The an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day by The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, which said Agard died on June 19.

In a trib­ute, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal Rose-Marie Belle An­toine de­scribed him as "a bril­liant, in­no­v­a­tive, en­ter­pris­ing per­son who gave so much to The UWI, his com­mu­ni­ty and be­yond."

A pro­fes­sor of Trop­i­cal Is­land Ecol­o­gy, Agard earned in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for his work in sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and cli­mate change. He played a key role in shap­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's en­vi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance Rules, Noise Pol­lu­tion Rules and Wa­ter Pol­lu­tion Rules in­tro­duced in 2001.

Agard al­so helped es­tab­lish sev­er­al pro­tect­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing the Matu­ra Nat­ur­al Park, Nar­i­va Swamp and Aripo Sa­van­nahs, while serv­ing as chair­man of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty.

His in­flu­ence ex­tend­ed glob­al­ly through his work as a lead au­thor for the Small Is­lands chap­ter of the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change's Fourth As­sess­ment Re­port, which shared the 2007 No­bel Peace Prize with for­mer US Vice Pres­i­dent Al Gore.

Re­mem­ber­ing his life­long com­mit­ment to en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, The UWI re­called Agard once say­ing that his pas­sion was "to make the world a bet­ter place. To make my coun­try a bet­ter place. To make my re­gion a bet­ter place."

The uni­ver­si­ty ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and friends.