The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is an international institution (a programme, rather than an agency of the UN) that coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its headquarters in the Gigiri neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP also has six regional offices and various country offices.

Its activities cover a wide range of issues regarding the atmosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, environmental governance and green economy. It has played a significant role in developing international environmental conventions, promoting environmental science and information and illustrating the way those can be implemented in conjunction with policy, working on the development and implementation of policy with national governments, regional institutions in conjunction with environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). UNEP has also been active in funding and implementing environment related development projects.

Achim Steiner (born 1961 in Brazil) is a German expert in environmental politics. From 2001 to 2006 he was Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Since June 2006 he has been Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Acting on the nomination of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN General Assembly unanimously elected Steiner as the Executive Director of UNEP on 16 March 2006 for a four-year term, effective 15 June 2006. In this office he succeeded Klaus Töpfer. He became the fifth Executive Director in UNEP's history. From 1 March 2009 to 15 March 2011, Steiner was also Director-General of the UN Offices at Nairobi (UNON).

At its 83rd plenary meeting, on 22 April 2010, the General Assembly, on the proposal of the Secretary-General, re-elected Steiner as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme for another four-year term of office beginning on 15 June 2010 and ending on 14 June 2014.

Izabella Teixeira is the Brazilian Environment Minister.

In October 2010 Teixeira made a statement on behalf of Brazil at the 10th conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, in which she outlined Brazil's view that the time for talking had stopped and that compromise may be required amongst the various nations in order to achieve actions. She subsequently spoke at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún.

On 16 December 2010 it was announced that Teixeira would retain her position as Environment Minister in Dilma Rousseffs new administration in 2011.

Carlo Petrini (born 22 June 1949), born in the province of Cuneo in the commune of Bra in Italy, is the founder of the International Slow Food Movement. He first came to prominence in the 1980s for taking part in a campaign against the fast food chain McDonald's opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

In 1977, Petrini began contributing culinary articles to communist daily newspapers il manifesto and l'Unità. He is an editor of multiple publications at the publishing house Slow Food Editore. He has written weekly columns for La Stampa and is currently a regular journalist on La Repubblica. In October 2004, he founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences, a school intended to bridge the gap between agriculture and gastronomy. He was chosen as one of Time magazine's heroes of the year.

http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/slowfood

Jack Dangermond is an American business executive and environmental scientist. In 1969, he co-founded with his wife Laura the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), a privately-held Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software company. In 2009, with an estimated net worth of $2 billion, Dangermond joined the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

Dangermond is the company's President and Chief Executive Officer and works out of Esri's headquarters in Redlands, California. Dangermond founded Esri to perform land use analysis, however its focus evolved into GIS software development, highlighted by the release of Arc/INFO in the early 1980s; the development and marketing of Arc/INFO positioned Esri with the dominant market share among GIS software developers. Today Esri is the largest GIS software developer in the world and its flagship product, ArcGIS traces its heritage to Dangermond's initial efforts in developing Arc/INFO.

Jack Dangermond grew up in Redlands, California, as the son of immigrants. His parents owned a plant nursery in Redlands. Dangermond attended Redlands High School