Thomas Lovejoy Pits Carbon Against Biodiversity
City Arts & Lectures - City Arts & Lectures
Kevin Welch in conversation with Thomas Lovejoy.Thomas Lovejoy is an innovative and accomplished conservation biologist who coined the term "biodiversity."Since 2002, he has served as President of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment based in Washington, DC. Before assuming this position, Lovejoy was the World Bank's Chief Biodiversity Advisor and Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation.Spanning the political spectrum, Lovejoy has served on science and environmental councils under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. At the core of his many influential positions are Lovejoy's seminal ideas, which have formed and strengthened the field of conservation biology.In the 1980s, he brought international attention to the world's tropical rainforests, and in particular, the Brazilian Amazon, where he has worked since 1965. Lovejoy also developed the now ubiquitous "debt-for-nature" swap programs and led the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project.He also founded the series Nature, the popular long-term series on public television. In 2001, Lovejoy was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement - City Arts & Lectures