New chapter opens for Easter Island Marine Protection. Bertarelli Foundation calls for other countries to protect the ocean.

The final step to protect the unique waters around Easter Island through the establishment of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) was completed today, February 27th, 2018, when Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed the decree. The new Rapa Nui MPA covers 720,000 km2, an area of ocean about the size of France, and guards against industrial […]

More than Half the World’s Ocean is Industrially Fished

Research, supported by the Bertarelli Foundation and recently published by Prof. Barbara Block, Dr. Francesco Ferretti and Timothy White of Stanford University, has shed light on how the impact of industrial fishing is felt around the world.  Using innovative satellite tracking data from over 70,000 fishing vessels, the researchers were able to map fishing activity on […]

Stephanie Lacour to Direct EPFL’s Center for Neuroprosthetics

Professor Stephanie Lacour, the Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology, is today – the 1st of February 2018  – to succeed Professor Olaf Blanke as Director of EPFL’s Center for Neuroprosthetics. She will take over from Professor Olaf Blanke, who has led the Center since 2012 when it was founded. Professor Blanke, the Bertarelli Foundation […]

Tracking seabirds in the Indian Ocean

At the start of the new year, Peter Carr and Hannah Wood from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in collaboration with Exeter University and supported by the Bertarelli Foundation, arrived in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) to assess the importance of BIOT, and its MPA, for seabirds. An integral part of the Bertarelli […]

The Revillagigedo Archipelago is a biodiversity hotspot

Last month’s decision by the Mexican government to declare a fully protected marine reserve around the Revillagigedo Archipelago was truly historic.  Teeming with life found nowhere else on the planet, this biodiversity hotspot is now completely protected from fishing and other extractive activities. Here are just a selection of some of the incredible animals that can be found […]

North America’s largest MPA is created off the coast of Mexico

The Bertarelli Foundation congratulates the government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto who today designated an area 148,087 km2 around the Revillagigedo Archipelago as a fully protected Marine Protected Area (MPA).  This historic decision will safeguard a chain of four volcanic islands in the Pacific and their surrounding marine habitats, some 800 kilometers west of Manzanillo and […]

Bertarelli Foundation President’s Innovation Challenge Fund at Harvard Business School

The Bertarelli Foundation is pleased to announce that through its gift to Harvard University, the Bertarelli Foundation President’s Innovation Challenge Fund has been established at Harvard Business School. Ernesto Bertarelli commented: “We are delighted to support the President’s Innovation Challenge Fund, building once again on our existing relationship with Harvard.  Our aim is to help […]

Babson College Names William B. Gartner as Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship

Professorship endowed by the Bertarelli family’s Foundation will expand the College’s deep-rooted commitment to family entrepreneurs Babson College, ranked No. 1 for entrepreneurship, has announced the appointment of William B. Gartner as its first Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship— endowed by the Bertarelli Foundation through a substantial gift to the college. Building on […]

President Bachelet of Chile creates an MPA around Easter Island

President Bachelet of Chile today fulfilled a 2015 commitment to conserve the waters around  Easter Island. The MPA, one of the largest in the world, will protect an area about 740,000km2, roughly the size of Chile’s land area. Announced at the close of the Fourth International Marine Protected Area Congress (IMPAC4) in Chile, the MPA […]

Overwhelming support from the Rapa Nui to create an MPA around Easter Island

On the first day of IMPAC4 in La Serena, Chile’s Ministers for the Environment, Marcelo Mena, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Heraldo Muñoz, announced the results of a referendum held Sunday, 3rd September 2017 on Easter Island for the creation of a marine protected area. The vote, which had the largest turnout for a consultation ever held […]