by Mary Coward
District 5020 Peace Fellow Glenn Raynor speaks at Rotary Peace Conference in Vancouver – and his sponsor club in Victoria
Glenn Raynor recently traveled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he’s serving as Executive Director of the Jane Goodall Institute, to Vancouver to speak at the Presidential Peacebuilding Conference on Feb. 9-11, 2018 where over 800 Rotarians gathered to discuss a range of topics themed around Environmental Sustainability and Peace.
Photo Caption: Glenn Raynor
Glenn is one of over 1000 Peace Fellows that have been supported by Rotary since 2002. He was sponsored by District 5020 and the Victoria Harbourside Rotary Club in 2009 to complete a masters degree at ICU in Tokyo. Following the conference in Vancouver Glenn also spoke at the Victoria Harbourside Rotary Club on Wednesday, February 14 updating them on his experience since graduating from the the ICU Rotary Peace Center in 2011.
The Rotary Peace Fellowship is designed for professionals working in the fields of international relations, conflict prevention and sustainable development who also bring a demonstrated commitment to service and the pursuit of peace. Each year Rotary funds 50 Peace Fellows from countries around the world in a full masters program at one of six Rotary Peace Centers (located at prestigious universities in Australia, Japan, Sweden, the UK and the USA) and a further 50 professionals in a 3 month intensive certificate program at the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Rotary Peace Fellows go on to become leaders and catalysts for peace and conflict resolution and can be found working in international organizations that include the United Nations, the World Bank, national governments, military, law enforcement and in many cases on the front lines of conflict prevention and sustainable development around the world.
Glenn was raised on remote Nootka Island off the rugged outside coast of Vancouver Island. He has since traded this off-grid upbringing, going on to work in countries across the Asia-Pacific and Africa on a range of projects that bring together sustainable development, conflict transformation and biodiversity conservation but credits his early exposure to nature for instilling the passion that continue to drive his work.
Glenn’s talk at the Presidential Conference in Vancouver focused on conflict sensitive approaches to conservation with examples drawn from his current work leading a consortium of partners on a large scale gorilla and chimpanzee conservation initiative in a region of the DRC that has suffered nearly 3 decades of violent conflict, which has brought extreme environmental, economic and social challenges and left many displaced and traumatized. His message is one of how conservation initiatives in conflict zones must by necessity meaningfully contribute to achieving a lasting peace if they are to succeed.
