Thomas Lovejoy

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Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III (August 22, 1941Template:SndDecember 25, 2021) was an American ecologist who was President of the Amazon Biodiversity Center, a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and a university professor in the Environmental Science and Policy department at George Mason University.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lovejoy was the World Bank's chief biodiversity advisor and the lead specialist for environment for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as senior advisor to the president of the United Nations Foundation. In 2008, he also was the first Biodiversity Chair of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> to 2013. Previously he served as president of the Heinz Center since May 2002. Lovejoy introduced the term biological diversity to the scientific community in 1980. He was a past chair of the Scientific Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) for the Global Environment Facility (GEF),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the multibillion-dollar funding mechanism for developing countries in support of their obligations under international environmental conventions.

Biography

Early life

Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III was born on August 22, 1941, in Manhattan, New York, to Jeanne (Gillette) and Thomas Eugene Lovejoy, Jr.<ref name="nytobit">Template:Cite news</ref> He attended Millbrook School, where he worked at The Trevor Zoo, under zoo founder Frank Trevor and his wife Janet. "The first three weeks were the key, and that's what flipped my switch in life and Biology. I was not prepared for the impact the Trevors would actually have on me in the classroom. And it was like my first three weeks and that was it. I'm going to be a biologist." He graduated from Millbrook in 1959.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Education

Lovejoy enrolled at Yale University, earning his bachelor's degree in biology in 1964 while working as a zoological assistant at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. He also received his Ph.D. in biology from Yale University.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Conservation work

As a tropical biologist and conservation biologist, Lovejoy worked in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil beginning in 1965.

From 1973 to 1987, Lovejoy directed the conservation program at the World Wildlife Fund-U.S.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> From 1987 to 1998 he served as assistant secretary for environmental and external affairs for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and in 1994 became counselor to the secretary for biodiversity and environmental affairs.

From 1999 to 2002, Lovejoy served as chief biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank. In 2010 and 2011, he served as chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Sustainability for the Inter-American Development Bank.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was senior adviser to the president of the United Nations Foundation, chair of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, and was past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, past chairman of the United States Man and Biosphere Program, and past president of the Society for Conservation Biology.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lovejoy developed the debt-for-nature swaps,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in which environmental groups purchase shaky foreign debt on the secondary market at the market rate, which is considerably discounted, and then convert this debt at its face value into the local currency to purchase biologically sensitive tracts of land in the debtor nation for purposes of environmental protection.

Critics of the 'debt-for-nature' schemes, such as National Center for Public Policy Research, which distributes a wide variety of materials consistently justifying corporate freedom and environmental deregulation, aver that plans deprive developing nations of the extractable raw resources that are currently essential to further economic development. Economic stagnation and local resentment of "Yankee imperialism" can result, they warn. In reality, no debt-for-nature swap occurs without the approval of the country in question.

Lovejoy also supported the Forests Now Declaration, which calls for new market-based mechanisms to protect tropical forests.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lovejoy played a central role in the establishment of conservation biology, by initiating the idea and planning with B. A. Wilcox in June 1978 for The First International Conference on Research in Conservation Biology, that was held in La Jolla, in September 1978. The proceedings,<ref>Soule, Michael E., Bruce A. Wilcox. 1980. Conservation Biology: An Evolutionary-Ecological Approach. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.</ref> introduced conservation biology to the scientific community.

Lovejoy founded the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) near Manaus, Brazil, in 1979 to understand the effects of the fragmentation on tropical rainforests on ecosystems and wildlife.

Lovejoy served on many scientific and conservation boards and advisory groups, and was the author of numerous articles and books. He is often misattributed as the founder of the PBS television series NATURE, for which he served as an advisor in the early days. He served in an official capacity in the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton administrations.

Lovejoy predicted in 1980 (see quote below), that 10–20 percent of all species on earth would have gone extinct by the year 2020.

Awards and recognitions

In 1996, Lovejoy was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lovejoy was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1999.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2001, Lovejoy was the recipient of the University of Southern California's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Lovejoy has been granted the 2008 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category (ex aequo with William F. Laurance).

In 2001, Lovejoy received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Peter H. Raven.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2004, a new wasp species that acts as a parasite on butterfly larvae was discovered on the Pacific slope of the Talamanca mountain range in Costa Rica by Ronald Zúñiga, a specialist in bees, wasps and ants at the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio). INBio named the species Polycyrtus lovejoyi in honor of Lovejoy for his contributions in the world of biodiversity and support for INBio.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On October 31, 2012, Lovejoy was awarded the Blue Planet Prize for being "the first scientist to academically clarify how humans are causing habitat fragmentation and pushing biological diversity towards crisis."

Lovejoy served continuously on the board of directors, from 2000, of the Amazon Conservation Team, which works in partnership with indigenous people of tropical South America in conserving the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest, as well as the culture and land of its indigenous people.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He served on the board of directors from 2009 for the Amazon Conservation Association, whose mission is to conserve the biological diversity of the Amazon.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also an emeritus member of the board of directors for Population Action International and served on the Scientific Board of SavingSpecies (elevated to SavingNature in 2019<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>), a conservation organization featured in a Nature magazine article about Thomas Lovejoy's scientific accomplishments.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 2016, he was selected as a U.S. Science Envoy by the United States State Department.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2018, Lovejoy co-founded the Amazon Biodiversity Center<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> to support the work of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project.

In 2021, he was elected member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences.<ref>Template:Cite web, entry in member directory:Template:Cite web</ref>

He died from pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor on December 25, 2021, in McLean, Virginia, at the age of 80.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nytobit"/>

References

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External links

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