Maurice Strong

Canadian businessman and environmentalist Maurice Strong, who served as the founding executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, has died at the age of 86, During his long career Strong held a number of posts with the United Nations, where he presided over the 1972 Stockholm conference on the human environment and the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, both considered watershed moments in international environmental diplomacy. He also held a number of high-profile posts in Canada, both in the fields of international development and in the oil and gas sector, notably as the president of the Power Corporation of Canada in the 1960s, and later as chairman and CEO of Petro-Canada.