It is with great pleasure that the International Peace Festival | Festival International de la Paix Awards Committee announces David Suzuki, a long time activist and promoter of a sustainable balance between society and the natural world, as the 2023 recipient of the IPF | FIP Honourary Artistic Award to be formally presented to Mr. Suzuki at the IPF | FIP Awards Ceremony that will be held in Toronto, Canada, on September 24, 2023. The IPF | FIP Honourary Artistic Award recognizes the specific nature of cultural and artistic work and the uniqueness of cultural and natural heritage conservation, protection and promotion as a critical contributor to peace. The award honours Mr. Suzuki’s broadcasting career and environmental activism by which he has aimed to stimulate interest in the natural world, to point out threats to human well-being and wildlife habitat, and to present alternatives to humanity for achieving a more sustainable society. Since the mid-1970s, Mr. Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is best known as host and narrator of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen in over 40 countries. He is also well known for criticizing governments for their lack of action to protect the environment. Mr. Suzuki began in television on January 10, 1971 with the weekly children's show Suzuki on Science. In 1974, he founded the radio program Quirks & Quarks, which he also hosted on CBC AM radio (the forerunner of CBC Radio One) from 1975 to 1979. Throughout the 1970s, he also hosted Science Magazine, a weekly program geared towards an adult audience. Since 1979, Mr. Suzuki has hosted The Nature of Things, a CBC television series that has aired in nearly fifty countries worldwide. In this program, Mr. Suzuki's aim has been to stimulate interest in the natural world, to point out threats to human well-being and wildlife habitat, and to present alternatives to humanity for achieving a more sustainable society. Mr. Suzuki has been a prominent proponent of renewable energy sources and the soft energy path. Mr. Suzuki was the host of the critically acclaimed 1993 PBS series The Secret of Life. His 1985 hit series, A Planet for the Taking, averaged more than 1.8 million viewers per episode and earned him a United Nations Environment Programme Medal. His perspective in this series is summed up in his statement: "We have both a sense of the importance of the wilderness and space in our culture and an attitude that it is limitless and therefore we needn't worry." He concludes with a call for a major "perceptual shift" in our relationship with nature and the wild. Mr. Suzuki's The Sacred Balance, a book first published in 1997 and later made into a five-hour mini-series on Canadian public television, was broadcast in 2002. Mr. Suzuki is now taking part in an advertisement campaign with the tagline "You have the power", promoting energy conservation through various household alternatives, such as the use of compact fluorescent lightbulbs. For the Discovery Channel, Mr. Suzuki also produced "Yellowstone to Yukon: The Wildlands Project" in 1997. The conservation-biology based documentary focused on Dave Foreman's Wildlands Project, which considers how to create corridors between and buffer zones around large wilderness reserves as a means to preserve biological diversity. In October 2022, Mr. Suzuki announced his retirement from The Nature of Things series in spring 2023. Mr. Suzuki is the author of more than 55 books. He holds 30 honorary degrees from universities around the world and is the recipient of numerous awards and honours among which are included the following: •Mr. Suzuki is an appointee to the Order of Canada, first as an Officer (1976), then upgraded to Companion status in (2006), the Order of British Columbia (1995), and is the recipient of UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science (1986) and a long list of Canadian and international honours. •Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977. •125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal in 1992. •Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. •Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. •In 2004, Mr. Suzuki was nominated as one of the top ten "Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the CBC. In the final vote he ranked fifth, making him the greatest living Canadian. •In 2006, Mr. Suzuki was the recipient of the Bradford Washburn Award presented at the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts. •In 2007, Mr. Suzuki was honoured by Global Exchange, with the International Human Rights Award. •In 2009, Mr. Suzuki was awarded the honourary Right Livelihood Award. •He was the subject of Sturla Gunnarsson's 2010 documentary film Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie. •On June 23, 2015, Mr. Suzuki was awarded the Freedom of the City by the Vancouver City Council, which entitled him to the title Freeman of the City of Vancouver. •In 2021, the BC Achievement in partnership with the Lieutenant Governor of BC awarded Mr. Suzuki the 2021 BC Reconciliation Award. A longtime activist to reverse global climate change, Mr. Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to work "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that does sustain us." The Foundation's priorities are: oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and Suzuki's Nature Challenge. The Foundation also works on ways to help protect the oceans from large oil spills such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Mr. Suzuki has also served as a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from 1982 to 1987. Our sincerest and warmest congratulations to Mr. Suzuki for using television and the broadcast medium as a tool to educate and empower citizenry around the globe to take action in their communities on the environmental challenges we collectively face and to conserve and protect the natural environment in order to create a sustainable world. The International Peace Festival | Festival International de la Paix is honoured to list Mr. Suzuki among its annual honourees as a testament to his perseverance and contributions in making this a better world for all.