Professor Thomas Lovejoy delivered a lecture at the China Ecological Forum on October 11, 2018. The Forum was organized by the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network(CERN) secretariat, the National Ecosystem Research Network of China (CNERN) Synthesis Research Center, the Key Lab on Ecosystem Observation and Modeling of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and UNEP-IEMP.
Thomas Lovejoy is a professor at George Mason University and a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation. Lovejoy has served on science and environmental councils under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, and was also the World Bank’s chief biodiversity advisor. In the 1980s, he brought international attention to the world’s tropical rainforests, and in particular to the Brazilian Amazon, where he has worked since 1965. Lovejoy is a recipient of the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and in 2009 he was the winner of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category. Lovejoy holds a Bachelor of Science and a PhD in Biology from Yale University.
The lecture was moderated by Dr. Linxiu Zhang, the Director of UNEP-IEMP. Researchers and PhD students of UNEP-IEMP and the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) attended the lecture. In the lecture, Professor Lovejoy shared the key messages on ecosystem and climate interactions from his books “Avoiding the Climate Failsafe Point” (2018), “Biodiversity and Climate Change” (2005), and “Global Warming and Biological Diversity” (1992). He also responded to a number of questions raised by the participants related to biodiversity and climate adaptation, as well as to the findings from the recentIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) Report.
In addition to delivering the lecture, Professor Lovejoy also met with researchers from the Institute of Botany of CAS, the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and Renmin University of China and shared views and ideas with each other.
