Geoffrey Lean

Biography

GEOFFREY LEAN, believed to be the world's longest-serving environmental specialist journalist, covering the field (taking in energy, agriculture, and world development) for almost 50 years, mainly at the The Yorkshire Post, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph, where he wrote a weekly column for six years. His work has been widely syndicated internationally and he has written regularly for such leading publications as The New Statesman, The Daily Mail, and The Evening Standard.. His consultancies incude the Global Environment Facility and the Institute of Governance and Sustainable Development.

In 1997 he was the UK Government’s official delegate to Commission IV of the General Conference of UNESCO, on Britain’s return to the organisation. He has served on the Jury of the Goldman Environmental Prize since 1996 He is the author of Rich World, Poor World (George Allen and Unwin, 1978; Japan Publications Inc, 1980), co-author of Chernobyl, The End of the Nuclear Dream,(Pan 1986, Vintage Books 1987, and 17 different language editions), and General Editor of The Atlas of the Environment (Hutchinson and Prentice Hall, 1990: Helicon and HarperCollins 1992).

In 2000 and 2001 he won Scoop of the Year in the London Press Club and the British Press Awards (the British equivalent of the Pulitzers) and in 2002 the Martha Gelhorn Award for investigative journalism. His other awards include: Glaxo Science Writers Fellowship (1972), the Communication Arts Award of Excellence (1986), UNEP Global 500 (1987), the CLEAR Award (for achievement in the campaign to ban lead from petrol) (1989), Journalist of the Year in the BEMA (1993,2002) and the Greenhouse Political (2016) Awards, the Schumacher Award (1994) and the Lifetime Achievement award of the International Media Awards (2017) In 1998 he also received the special ‘Foundation Award’ for global lifetime achievement at the launching of a new environmental journalism prize by Reuters and IUCN.