Neuenschwander |
Peter Neuenschwander, IITA
Scientist Emeritus, was recently elected a Fellow of the African Academy of
Science. This award recognizes his scientific career and devotion to biological
sciences over 40 years, most of this time in Africa.
Neuenschwander joined IITA in
1983. He was recruited as Research Coordinator for the biological control
project against the cassava mealybug under Dr Hans Herren and served in this
position of principal scientist for 10 years. He took over from Dr Herren as
Director of the Plant Health Management Division which he led for almost
another 10 years. In the now famous cassava mealybug project, for which several
awards including the World Food Prize were bestowed on Dr Herren, Neuenschwander led and executed research in about 25 African countries,
focusing on impact assessment while training numerous African students and
scientists. The team soon expanded into similar research on the mango mealybug
and other pests. Later it specialized on the biological control of floating
waterweeds and brought together specialists from all over Africa to write the
book Biological Control in IPM Systems in Africa, a comprehensive review
of biological control efforts.
In 2003, Neuenschwander
retired and was nominated as the first IITA Scientist Emeritus, with an office
in IITA-Bénin where he still works part time. Apart from assisting IITA
colleagues in preparing manuscripts and project proposals, Neuenschwander
was involved in several consultancies including one for the African Development
Bank on an IPM project for the Lake Chad Basin Commission and one for UNDP on
the biological control of water hyacinth in Côte d’Ivoire. He helped
reestablish the Bénin section of the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature (IUCN) with another important achievement, editing and publishing a
book on endangered species for the Red List of Bénin.
In his prolific scientific career,
Neuenschwander has produced 113 peer-reviewed journal articles, two books,
and over 30 conference papers and training manuals. He has been a founding
member of BioNET INTERNATIONAL, has received a Recognition Award from the
African Association of Insect Scientists, and has been elevated to Honorary
Member of the International Organization for Biological Control.
For over 15 years, Neuenschwander has been living in a small village north of Cotonou. There he
has rehabilitated farmland and bush to a species-rich secondary rain forest
where a rare endemic monkey roams and attracts tourists. In 2014, these 14 ha
of rehabilitated forest will be handed over to IITA as part of the Biodiversity
Center in Bénin for the study of interactions among biodiversity, biotic
stresses, and climate change, as anchored in the new IITA strategy.
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