World Wildlife Fund

March 13th, 2008, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
David S. Wilcove
David S. Wilcove, Ph.D.
Professor, Princeton University

David S. Wilcove is professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and public affairs at Princeton University. Prior to joining the faculty of Princeton University, he was senior ecologist at the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, DC, where he developed science-based strategies to protect endangered species. He is author of No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations (2007), The Condor's Shadow: The Loss and Recovery of Wildlife in America (1999), and numerous technical and popular articles in the fields of conservation biology, ornithology, and endangered species protection. He has served on the boards of directors of the Society for Conservation Biology, Rare, American Bird Conservancy, Natural Areas Association, and New Jersey Audubon Society, as well as the editorial boards of Conservation Biology and Ecological Applications. In 2001, Professor Wilcove received the Distinguished Service Award for the Society for Conservation Biology in recognition of his work on behalf of endangered species. In 1990, he was one of ten scientists awarded a Pew Scholarship in Conservation and the Environment. He received a Ph.D. in biology from Princeton University (1985) and a B.S. from Yale University (1980). He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, but wishes he was bird-watching in Bhutan.

Jan. 10th, 2008, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
Professor Peter J. Mumby
Marine Spatial Ecology Lab
University of Exeter, UK

"The resilience of coral reefs and its implications for reef management"

Nov. 8, 2007, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
Barb Block
Barbara A. Block, Ph.D.
Professor, Stanford University
Scientific Director, Tag-A-Giant Foundation

"Sushi and Satellites: Tracking Giant Bluefin Tunas in the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans"

Dr. Barbara A. Block holds the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Professor Chair in Marine Sciences at Stanford University. Her research is focused on how large pelagic fishes utilize the open ocean environment. Her team has helped to pioneer the successful development and deployment of electronic tags on tunas, billfishes and sharks. This has led to a rapid increase in the understanding of movement patterns, population structure, critical habitats, physiology and behaviors of pelagic fishes that are also commercially very important. Bluefin tunas especially are highly exploited in international fisheries, and effective management of existing biodiversity requires an understanding of their biology and population structure. Concerned about the real possibility of northern bluefin tuna becoming commercially extinct, and armed with the scientific data to improve management, she teamed with a dedicated group of recreational fishers and other scientists to found the Tag-A-Giant Foundation (TGF) in 2006.

Sept. 13, 2007, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
Dan Janzen

"Paz con la Naturaleza: Costa Rica goes for Phase II conservation "

Daniel Janzen is a DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Technical Advisor to Area de Conservación Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. Janzen's 1965-1986 research pioneered key parts of large and complex contemporary research areas in basic and applied tropical ecology (mutualisms among ants and plants, plant chemical ecology, evolution of microbial toxins, herbivore impact on community structure, and evolutionary anachronisms). From the early 1980's to the present, he has focused on inventory of tropical caterpillars, their parasites, and their microbial biodiversity, and the conservation of tropical biodiversity through its non-damaging development. Janzen's 400 publications encapsulate much of this information and its associated relevance for tropical science administration and conservation biology. Additionally, several thousand publications have strong roots in the hypotheses and information contained in this body of tropical animal-plant studies and conservation biology. Janzen planned and executed the original field biology courses of the Organization for Tropical Studies, co-designed INBio, Costa Rica's national biodiversity institute, with Dr. Rodrigo Gámez, and is the primary architect of Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). His current concerns are DNA barcoding of all species, and facilitating Paz con la Naturaleza (PN), Costa Rica's new plan to re-engineer itself as an environmentally friendly country.

Janzen received the first Crafoord Prize in biology by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences (1984), and the Kyoto Prize in Basic Biology (1997). Janzen's activities have had a very positive influence on society's awareness of the relevance and potential of tropical wildland biodiversity to global understanding, national sustainable development, and individual quality of life, both inside and outside of the tropics. These ideas have been incorporated in the Convention on Biological Diversity and its continued policy planning.

July 12, 2007, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
Jeremy Jackson

Brave New Ocean

Jeremy Jackson is the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama. He was Professor of Ecology at the Johns Hopkins University from 1971 to 1985. Dr. Jackson is the author of more than 100 scientific publications and five books. His current research includes the long-term impacts of human activities on the oceans, coral reef ecology, and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of the gradual formation of the Isthmus of Panama. Dr. Jackson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was awarded the Secretary's Gold Medal for Exceptional Service of the Smithsonian Institution in 1997, the UCSD Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering in 2002, and the International Award for Research in Ecology and Conservation Biology of the BBVA Foundation in 2007. Dr. Jackson's work on overfishing was chosen by Discover magazine as the outstanding environmental achievement of 2001. He has served on committees and boards of the World Wildlife Fund US, National Research Council, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Yale University Institute of Biospheric Sciences, and the Science Commission of the Smithsonian Institution.

May 9, 2007, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
Lisa Curran

Social, Economic and Political Drivers of Bornean Deforestation and Fires: Implications for Carbon Emissions, Biodiversity and Rural Livelihoods.

Lisa is a Professor of Tropical Resources and Director of the Tropical Resources Institute at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She has spent over 25 years in the South and Southeast Asian tropics conducting scientific research, training and policy studies. She earned a B.A. with honors from Harvard University, a Ph.D from Princeton University and awarded a Mercer Post-doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University. She has held a diversity of consultancy positions for several foundations, private sector, non-governmental conservation and rural development organizations, as well as multi-disciplinary teams for the US Agency for International Development, The World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Lisa served as a Visiting Research Fellow at the East-West Center's Ecosystem & Governance Program, Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and Marie Tharp Fellow at the Earth Institute of Columbia University. Currently, she is a MacArthur Fellow (2007-2012), External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute (2003-2009) and serves on NASA's Earth Science Advisory Board, as well as governing boards of the Tropical Forest Foundation, The Forest Dialogue and Forest Integrity Network under Transparency International's Corruption Watch Program.

Lisa's current interdisciplinary research programs examine the effects of land use change, climate, drought and fire on carbon dynamics and biodiversity; and the impact of multi-sectoral governmental policies and industrial practices on ecosystem goods and services and rural livelihoods in tropical frontiers.

March 8, 2007, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
John Terborgh
James B. Duke Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Duke University Center for Tropical Conservation

Why Tropical Parks are Failing

John Terborgh is James B. Duke Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Duke University Center for Tropical Conservation. For more than 30 years, he has operated a research station in Perú's Manu National Park where Peruvian and international scientists study a wide range of basic and applied problems. His current interests lie in the field of plant-animal interactions and the mechanisms that sustain the high diversity of tropical tree communities.

Professor Terborgh has published more than 200 research articles and 7 books. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. In 1992 he became a MacArthur Fellow and in 1996 he was awarded the Daniel Geraud Elliot Medal by the National Academy of Sciences. He has aided the cause of international conservation through service on numerous boards and panels. In 1999 he founded ParksWatch, an organization dedicated to monitoring and publicizing the status of parks in developing countries.

January 11, 2007, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow
Stuart Pimm
Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology
Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Duke University
and Extraordinary Professor, Conservation Ecology Research Unit University of Pretoria, South Africa

"Setting practical conservation priorities -- and sequestering carbon to pay for them."

Professor Stuart Pimm holds one of Duke University's most prestigious chairs (The Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology). He is an outstanding ecologist and the world's leading conservation scientist. Pimm's research on the loss of biological diversity and the management of endangered species and ecosystems has revolutionized the way in which ecologists view ecological change in the long term, over large scales, and across many species. He is also one of the most quoted ecologists. In the last decade, has Pimm published more than 200 papers, of which a quarter were in Nature, Science, and PNAS.