Well-known en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Pro­fes­sor Ju­lian Stan­ley "Jake" Ken­ny died yes­ter­day af­ter a short ill­ness.He was 81.He died at his home at Pineap­ple Place, Hale­land Park, Mar­aval, around noon.A rel­a­tive said Ken­ny had two chil­dren and two grand­chil­dren.She re­fused to di­vulge more about his ill­ness and said fu­ner­al arrange­ments would be an­nounced at a lat­er date.Ken­ny was a re­tired pro­fes­sor of zo­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, and a for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor.He was al­so a colum­nist with the Trinidad Ex­press.His last col­umn was pub­lished on Tues­day.Ken­ny was in the spot­light a few months ago when he re­signed as chair­man of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty.He was ap­point­ed chair­man by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, a po­si­tion which he held for about six months.

Ken­ny said he had re­signed be­cause of the Gov­ern­ment's fail­ure to re­in­state the orig­i­nal Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance rules which gov­erned quar­ry­ing.He was award­ed the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) for en­vi­ron­ment con­ser­va­tion at last year's Na­tion­al Awards on In­de­pen­dence Day.He was born in 1930 in Wood­brook and ed­u­cat­ed at the Bel­mont In­ter­me­di­ate School and St Mary's Col­lege, Port-of-Spain.Af­ter re­tir­ing from the De­part­ment of Bi­o­log­i­cal Sci­ences at the UWI, Ken­ny served as chair­man of the Trustees of the Guardian Life Wildlife Fund.From 1995 to 2001, he served as an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor.He al­so wrote a book-Or­chids of Trinidad and To­ba­go-out of his love for or­chids.

Mooni­lal pays trib­ute­to Ex-EMA head

Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has said he was shocked when in­formed of the pass­ing away of for­mer chair­man of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) Pro­fes­sor Ju­lian Ken­ny.Ken­ny, a for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, died at his Mar­aval home yes­ter­day, af­ter a brief ill­ness. In his brief com­ments on Ken­ny's pass­ing yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said Ken­ny had "left and in­deli­ble mark on our so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal land­scape."Mooni­lal said Pro­fes­sor Ken­ny's "work and ad­vice will con­tin­ue to in­spire and guide us."