Guyana mourns passing of Former Honorary Consul, Berend Ter Welle

Jan 22, 2019 News

Long-serving former Honorary Consul for Germany and Austria to Guyana, Berend Ter Welle, CCH, has died.
President David Granger, in expressing sadness, disclosed that the official died on Sunday, January 20, 2019.
His family said that he died in his home in The Netherlands after a short period of illness.
Ter Welle was well known and popular in Guyana, living here for years. He even received a national award.
In addition to serving as Honorary Consul, Ter Welle was also, at one time, the president of the Guyana Heritage Society.

Ben Ter Welle, CCH, (left) meeting with Minister of State, Joseph Harmon (right) last year with Ambassador Jacob Frederiks (centre), the new Non-Resident Ambassador of the Netherlands to Guyana.

“President Granger expresses sympathy to his wife, Mrs. Nirmala Ramroop Ter Welle, children and other relatives.”
He was instrumental in making funds available from Germany for the development of the Kaieteur National Park.
Born in 1946 in the countryside of The Netherlands, close to the border with Germany, Ter Welle received his training in Tropical Agriculture and a subsequent obligatory service of two years in the Military, according to the Karanambu Trust & Eco-tourist Lodge website.
He moved to the Utrecht University and became a lecturer at the Institute for Systematic Botany within the Faculty of Biology.
In 1981, he visited Guyana for the first time. In 1982, during a botanical exploration in the South Rupununi, he met wilderness explorer Diane McTurk, a world-renowned expert on giant otters.
From 1982 to 1997 Ben was the executive secretary of the International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA), a scientific organization of wood anatomists all over the world.
In 1989, he became coordinator for the Tropenbos Project in Guyana.
Subsequently, with funding from the European Union, and with Father Rodrigues as the first partner of the University of Guyana, Ben was involved in the creation of the Environmental Studies Unit.
His career and life took a turn in 1997 with the appointment as team leader for the Natural Resources Management Project in Guyana, funded by the Government of Germany.
Major activities in this project, which ended in December 2004, were the introduction of GIS Technology to the Guyanese agencies involved in natural resources and the introduction of (regional) land use planning.
In February 2006, the Guyana Protected Areas System (GPAS) started – again with funding from Germany. Ter Welle was on a part-time basis as the team leader. He reportedly retired last year.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News