Jakob von Uexküll
| Jakob von Uexküll | |
|---|---|
Jakob von Uexkull
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| Member of the European Parliament for Germany |
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In office 1987–1989 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
19 August 1944 Uppsala, Sweden |
| Political party | German Green Party |
| Occupation | writer, lecturer, former Member of the European Parliament |
Carl Wolmar Jakob Baron von Uexküll (born 19 August 1944) is a writer, lecturer, philanthropist, activist and former politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament 1987–1989, representing the German Green Party. In 1980, Uexkull founded the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2006, he co-founded the World Future Council. Born in Sweden, he holds both Swedish and German citizenship, and is a resident of the United Kingdom.
The son of Gustav Adolf Gösta Baron von Uexküll and Ewa Lewerentz, Jakob von Uexküll was born in Uppsala, Sweden of a noble Baltic German family that left Estonia after World War I. After studying in Sweden and Germany, he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
His grandfather Jakob von Uexküll was a biologist and the founder of the study of biosemiotics. Uexküll is married and has three children. He lives with his family in London.
The Right Livelihood Award evolved from von Uexküll's opinion that the Nobel Prizes were relatively narrow in scope and usually recognised the work of citizens in industrialised countries. Uexküll first approached the Nobel Foundation with the suggestion that it establish two new awards, one for ecology and one relevant to the lives of the poor majority of the world's population. He offered to contribute financially but his proposal was turned down.
Uexküll then created the Right Livelihood Award and provided an initial endowment by selling his collection of postage stamps for US$1 million; the awards have subsequently attracted additional funding from private individuals enabling the donation of annual prizes worth 150.000 euro. In 1980, the first Right Livelihood Awards were bestowed in a rented hall. Five years later, the invitation to present them in the Swedish parliament in Stockholm followed. Since 2005 his nephew Ole von Uexküll has taken over the management of the Right Livelihood Award.
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