The Buonamico Award is a yearly award-giving ceremony held under the patronage of H.E. The President of Malta, which distinguishes individuals whose actions and achievements benefited our biodiversity and the environment.
INSPIRED BY
Giovanni Francesco Buonamico
(1639-1680)
This award is inspired by Giovanni Francesco Buonamico, also known as Ġan Franġisk Bonamico. Buonamico was a 17th century Maltese traveller, poet, writer, doctor and naturalist, who also wrote the first Flora of the Maltese Islands.
As an intellectual he is best renowned as the author of the second oldest poem in Maltese, Mejju ġie bil-ward u ż-żahar, but has also written various accounts of his travel experiences. His varied intellectual interests resulted in the writing of at least four important manuscripts on natural history, which included the first flora of the Maltese Islands, the so-called “Brevis Notitia” manuscripts: two manuscripts written in 1670, and another two manuscripts on the Malta Fungus: “Dissertatio De Fuco Spicato Coccineo Melitensis” – these are undated, but the general consensus is that these go back to a date either earlier than or contemporary with the “Brevis Notitia”.
The manuscript on the Malta Fungus essentially describes this species for the first time, and the “Brevis Notitia” includes notes on the flora and agriculture in Malta, with information on cultivated and ornamental plants at the time, as well as a detailed species list of wild flora observed by him, with 244 entries – a major feat considering that no earlier studies of the sort seem to have been carried out.
Unfortunately, his naturalistic works were never published and survive only as manuscripts in the National Library of Malta in Valletta. Due to this, such pioneering works remained mostly unassessed, despite their considerable importance, and thus underestimated, until studied recently by Darrin T. Stevens and Edwin Lanfranco. Buonamico is therefore considered as a good metaphor to show the importance of undervalued people, who still give valuable input to the academia and authorities in the environment field.
The awardees by year are the following:
2017 Buonamico Award
2018 Buonamico Award
2019 Buonamico Award
2020 Buonamico Award
2021 Buonamico Award
2022 Buonamico Award
2023 Buonamico Award
