The Rotary Club of Central Damansara, Malaysia RI D3300 recently honoured renowned environmentalist Dato’ Dr Dionysius S.K. Sharma with the Vocational Award.
Dato’ Dr Sharma, or more popularly known as Dato’ Dino, spent years dedicating himself to a career in conservation, which began in 1990 as a field biologist with WWF-Malaysia. He took on that role with constant efforts to save wildlife while facing many dangers, overcoming obstacles, escaping animal attacks, and surviving sickness, all to keep wildlife safe and nurtured in their environment.
He took on the role as Head of WWF-Malaysia’s Species Programme in 1999 and there after took on the role as Conservation Director in 2002, a role he served in until his appointment as Executive Director/CEO in January 2007.
His experience as an environmentalist has come a long way since starting as a young field biologist. Dato’ Dino worked on the conservation of turtles, conducted wildlife surveys at several forest reserves, supported a research programme on the Proboscis monkey and initiated a programme to address tiger-human conflicts apart from numerous other environmental efforts.
His baseline faunal surveys on mammals, reptiles and birds fed into and supported the conservation efforts of the local authorities that eventually led to the gazettement of the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary by Sabah Government and the Perlis State Park by the state’s authorities.
He is well-known for his work not only in Malaysia, but other parts of the world as well through his international network with WWF. Apart from being seen in numerous talk shows and documentaries produced locally, he was also featured in documentaries done by Animal Planet, the German Vox TV and Marissa Films of South Africa that featured Dato’ Dino’s personal journey as a biologist working at the Lower Kinabatangan swamps in Sabah.
“A career in conservation requires dedication, commitment, passion, dynamism, perseverance and most of all a willingness to adapt to an ever-changing world”, said Dato’ Dino.
He has previously picked up the The Outstanding Young Malaysian Award Certificate of Merit, Science and Development Category in 2002 and was conferred his D.P.M.P title by the DYMM Sultan of Perak, the Patron of WWF-Malaysia, in 2008.
As the global economic crisis continues, Rotary Club of Central Damansara believes there is no better time for clubs to rediscover one of the pillars of Rotary: the Avenue of Vocational Service. More than any time in history, the new generation of Rotarians, must get back to protecting the value of vocation through business-to-business networking
The Vocational Award is presented to persons who have exemplified outstanding professional achievement while maintaining very high ethical standards in their own vocation.
CJMY
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