| Maurice Strong is the
world’s leading environmentalist. Secretary General of
both the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment, which launched the world environment
movement, and the 1992 Rio Environmental Summit, he was
the first Executive Director of the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP). Maurice Strong has played
a unique and critical role is globalizing the
environmental movement.
Maurice F. Strong (born April 29th, 1929, in Oak Lake,
Manitoba) has had a career in both business and public
service, primarily in the fields of international
development, the environment, energy and finance.
Great Depression
Strong grew up in a poor family in a small town in
Manitoba during the Great Depression, in which the
poverty and hardships suffered by his family and most
others made a deep and enduring impression on him. At
an early age, he questioned the justness of a system in
which people had so many needs but could not obtain the
work that would enable them to meet those needs. When
the family began to receive regular income for the first
time after his father joined The Royal Canadian Air
Force following after the outbreak of World War II, he
was struck by the irony that it took a war to produce
the jobs and the resources that were not available
during the depression.
Despite their poverty, his responsible and hardworking
father and his enlightened and intelligent mother, a
former teacher, gave their children a sound and happy,
though necessarily austere, family life. His school
principal, a convinced socialist, subjected young
Maurice to a combination of strict discipline and the
opportunity to accelerate his learning to the point
where he had completed high school to university
entrance level by the age of 14. At the same time, he
devoted himself to the self-education which he has
continued throughout his life, spending much time alone
in nature observing and trying to understand its wonders
and its cycles.
A stowaway.
 |
Maurice Strong, visiting
an Inuit family at Chesterfield Inlet, Hudson
Bay. Photo taken by his colleague Norman Sanders
on 10 November 1945.
|
After a brief stint as a stowaway on a Great Lakes ship,
the Noronic -- the largest passenger ship of the
Canadian Steamship Lines -- Strong decided to go to sea
and rode freight trains across Canada to Vancouver.
Along the way, he heard the statement by Churchill and
Roosevelt after their meeting on a ship in the Atlantic,
that after the war they intended to create a United
Nations to bring peace and justice to the world. He
determined that this is what he would like to do with
his life and it became his principal aspiration. He then
followed closely news of the establishment of United
Nations in San Francisco.
He left the Merchant Marine at his father’s insistence
and returned home for another year. Then, in response to
a newspaper advertisement, he obtained a job as an
apprentice to a manager to the far northern trading post
of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
There he developed a deep fondness for the Inuit people
from who he learned a great deal, including their
language. He was fascinated by their relationship with
nature which had enabled them to survive and develop a
distinctive culture in the harsh climate of the Arctic.
He felt that the Inuit were a patient, persistant and
innovative people, who had evolved a way of life and a
value system that enabled them to live in harmony with
their Arctic surroundings.
Enterprise
During this period, too, he began to collect rock
samples, guided by a correspondence course for
prospectors. This brought him to the attention of a
flamboyantly adventurous American, Bill Richardson, who
had arrived on the annual supply ship to prospect in the
area. He invited Maurice to join him when he returned
to Toronto where he lived with his wife, an heiress to
an oil fortune.
Through them, Strong met with a leading U.N. official
who arranged for him to have a temporary, very low-level
appointment, which enabled him to realize his dream and
serve as a junior security officer at the then UN
headquarters in Lake Success, New York.
This confirmed Strong's belief that the United Nations
was the place for him, but made him realize, too, that
without sufficient education or political ties, he could
not expect to rise up within the ranks. He decided the
best course for him would be to return to Canada and try
to develop there the qualifications that would enable
him to return to the United Nations in a more
substantive role.
He did this, first obtaining a role as a trainee
analyst, and then specialist in oil and mineral
resources for a leading brokerage firm, James Richardson
& Sons. Moving to Calgary, Alberta, he became assistant
to one of the most colorful and dramatically successful
leaders of the oil industry, Jack Gallagher. He gave
Strong the opportunity of learning the business from a
more operational point of view and as the company, Dome
Petroleum, grew, Strong occupied several key roles,
including Vice President, Finance..
Africa visit
 |
| Kenya's first President,
Jomo Kenyatta (third from left) welcomes Maurice
Strong (right) as the first Executive Director
of UNEP. |
With his then wife, Pauline, he left Dome to take took a
two year trip around the world and arrived in Nairobi,
the capital of Kenya. Strong took up an assignment with
Caltex to develop new service station sites, which gave
him the opportunity to travel extensively in East Africa
and see a good deal of the region's rich wildlife and
its fascinating diversity of people.
In Nairobi, he was introduced to the work of YMCA, an
orgnaization with which he would do much work later on.
From East Africa, the Strongs took a slow boat to
Calcutta and travelled extensively in India, including
some time in the Himalayas. Afterwards, travelling
through East Asia, including China and Japan, they
arrived back in Canada in 1954.
On his return, Strong rejoined Dome. He also volunteered
to work with the YMCA in its World Service Program,
becoming national President and Chairman of the
Extension and Intermovement Aid of the World Alliance of
YMCAs.
His work with YMCA gave him the very first experience of
participating in, and the chairing, international
meetings and introduced him to the world of
international development.
Here Strong met Tracy Strong, who was the Secretary
General of the World Alliance headquartered in Geneva,
Switzerland and a brother of Anna Louise Strong, the
American journalist whose letters from China had been
such a source of Strong’s early interest in China. Tracy
Strong confirmed that he and Strong did indeed have a
family relationship though somewhat distant, Strong was
pleased to meet, too, his son, Robbins, of the World
Council of Churches in Geneva.
Deciding that he wanted to do something on his own, he
took over a very small and failing natural gas company,
Ajax Petroleums, and built it into what became one of
the leading companies in the industry, Norcen
Resources. .
This attracted the attention of one of Canada’s
principal investment corporations with extensive
interests in the energy and utility businesses, Power
Corporation of Canada. It appointed him initially as
its Executive Vice President, then as President. His
position at Power Corporation attracted national
interest which enabled his views on Canada’s role in the
world to be heard..
Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) .
 |
Maurice and Hanne Strong
with Graca Marcel and Nelson Mandela
|
Serving on many corporate boards, he also continued to
develop his interest in foreign affairs and make
speeches about Canada’s foreign policy, which he
contended should concentrate on being a friend of the
developing world. This brought him to the attention of
the Minister of External Affairs, Paul Martin Senior,
and Prime Minister Lester Pearson.
Pearson invited him to come into the government as a
Deputy Minister with responsibility for what was then
External Aid, and which, under his leadership,
eventually became the Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA). His work at CIDA enabled him to return
to the United Nations as a Canadian delegate, in which
role he established close ties, particularly with its
Development Programme.
In the meantime, his fascination with nature evolved
into an interest in conservation. He saw the newly
emerging environment movement as being closely related
to development. This became increasingly clear to him
as his involvement in the resources industry
demonstrated how its development inflicted significant
damage to the environment. It led eventually to his
realization that it would only be through better and
more responsible management of development that the
environment could be protected.
Through his friendship with Paul Martin Sr, Strong met
his talented and ambitious young son, Paul Martin Jr,
and later hired him as his Executive Assistant at the
Power Corporation. Their friendship has been a
continuing one, even as young Paul became highly
successful in his own right in the business world.
Later, Paul Martin became Prime Minister of Canada.
Strong's work with CIDA gave him new insights into the
complexities of development. He was troubled by the
environmental and social disruption caused by major
infrastructure projects, which CIDA supported. It wasn't
long before he became involved with environmental
politics..
The Stockholm Conference and UNEP
.
 |
| Maurice Strong welcomes
Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, at 1972
Stockholm Conference. |
In 1969, the UN General Assembly decided to convene
the first major inter-governmental conference on
environmental issues, the UN Conference on the Human
Environment. The meeting was to be held in 1972, but by
early 1970, hardly anything had happened. The Swedish
government began to worry. Eventually their ambassador,
Sverker Astrom, contacted Strong, through a mutual
friend, Wayne Kines, who was a media consultuant to the
UN. Astrom recommended Strong to Philippe de Seyne, the
UN undersecretary general for economic and social
affairs. Kines arranged a meeting between Strong and de
Seyne.
UN Secretary-General, U Thant, invited Strong to lead
it as Secretary-General of the Conference and as
Undersecretary General of the UN responsible for
environmental affairs. Strong turned the preparations
for the Stockholm Conference around. He used his
consummate diplomatic skills to obtain the support of
the developing countries, who were extremely sceptical
about environmental issues.
Strong scored a major diplomatic coup when he travelled
to New Delhi and obtained the agreement of Prime
Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, to attend the
conference. At Stockholm, Prime Minister Gandhi made one
of the most influential speeches of the entire
conference.
The Stockholm Conference was a resounding success. It
adopted a Declaration of Principles and Action Plan to
deal with global environmental issues. It put the
environment issue on the international agenda and
confirmed its close link with development. The Stockholm
Conference moved into the history books as major
landmark, launching a new era of international
environmental diplomacy.
In December 1972, the UN General Assembly established
the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and
elected Strong to head it. The General Assembly also
took a landmark decision to locate UNEP in Nairobi. Thus
UNEP became the first ever UN agency to be headquartered
in a developing country, rather than New York, Geneva or
Vienna..
Return to Canada
 |
| Maurice Strong with
Canada's charismatic Prime Minister, Pierre
Trudeau and Ken Strong |
In 1976, at the request of Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau, Strong returned to Canada to head the newly
created national oil company, PetroCanada. In an
editorial the New York Times paid an exceptional tribute
to his service to the U. N. He then became Chairman of
the Canada Development Investment Corporation, the
holding company for some of Canada’s principal
government-owned corporations.
Returning to private life, Strong acquired effective
control and became Chairman of AZL Resources
Incorporated, which had large holdings of ranch lands in
the United States, including a major land development in
the San Luis Valley of Colorado.
Returning to Canada, his role in leading the UN’s famine
relief program in Africa was the first in a series of UN
advisory assignments, including reform and his
appointment as Secretary General of the UN Conference on
Environment and Development -- best known as the Earth
Summit -- held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. This
was a landmark event attended by more heads of
government than had ever met together before, as well as
more media and non-governmental representatives.
After intense negotiations, the Earth Summit
produced Agreement on Conventions on Climate Change and
Bio-diversity and launched a process which produced a
Convention on Desertification. .
Particularly noteworthy, too, was the Agreement reached
on a set of principles to set the world on the pathway
to sustainable development and a program of action,
known as Agenda 21, as the agreed basis for cooperative
action to move implement them..
 |
| Maurice Strong with the US
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice |
After the Earth Summit, Strong continued to take a
leading role in implementing the results of Rio through
establishment of the Earth Council, the Earth Charter
movement, his Chairmanship of the World Resources
Institute, Membership on the Board of the International
Institute for Sustainable Development, the Stockholm
Environment Institute, the African-American Institute,
the Institute of Ecology in Indonesia, the Beijer
Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and
others. Strong was a longtime Foundation Director of the
World Economic Forum, a Senior Advisor to the President
of the World Bank, a Member of the International
Advisory of Toyota Motor Corporation, the Advisory
Council for the Center for International Development of
Harvard University, the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development, the World Conservation Union (IUCN),
the World Wildlife Fund, Resources for the Future, and
the Eisenhower Fellowships. .
Strong public service activities were carried out mainly
on a pro bono basis, made possible by his business
activities. From December 1992 through 1995, Strong
served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Ontario Hydro, then North America’s largest electric
power utility. During this period, the company made the
transition from the largest loss in its history and
rising rates to its largest ever profit which allowed
lower rates to be established and major programs for
efficiency and sustainability to be undertaken..
University of Peace
In 1999, at the request of then UN Secretary-General,
Perez de Cuelar, Strong took on the task of trying to
restore the viability of the University for Peace,
headquartered in Costa Rica, which was established under
the authorization of the UN General Assembly, although
not a UN organization as such. The UN’s reputation was
as risk as the organization had been subjected to severe
mismanagement, misappropriation of funds and inoperative
governance. As Chairman of its governing body, the
Council, and initially as Rector, Strong led the process
of revitalizing the University for Peace and helped to
rebuild its programs and leadership. He retired from
the Council in the spring of 2007.
From 2003 and 2005, Strong served as the personal envoy
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lead support for
the international response to the humanitarian and
development needs of the Democratic People/s Republic of
Korea (North Korea). As an essential contribution to the
prospects for a peaceful settlement of the long-standing
conflict on the Korean Peninsular. .
China
 |
| The President of China, Hu
Jin Tao, greets Maurice Strong |
Strong, from his earliest days, had a deep interest
in and fascination for China and has been going to China
for more than 40 years in various capacities, personal,
United Nations, World Bank and business.
He now spends most of his time there and is active as an
advisor and business relationships in the environment,
energy, and technology sectors. His principal
activities are centered at Peking University, where he
is an active Honorary Professor, as well as Honorary
Chairman of its Environmental Foundation and Chairman of
the Advisory Board of the Institute for Research on
Security and Sustainability for Northeast Asia,
following up on his experience with the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).
Indeed, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, near the end of
his term, paid the following tribute to Strong:
“Looking back on our time together, we have shared many
trials and tribulations and I am grateful that I had the
benefit of your global vision and wise counsel on many
critical issues, not least the delicate question of the
Korean Peninsula and China’s changing role in the
world. Your unwavering commitment to the environment,
multilateralism and peaceful resolution of conflicts is
especially appreciated.” |
