Norman Myers
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Norman Myers CMG (24 August 1934- ) is a British environmentalist and authority on biodiversity. He is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.
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[edit] Early life
Myers was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, and studied at Keble College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1958 with a B.A. in French and German. He spent two years as a District Officer in Kenya, and taught French and English at the Delamere School for Boys, Nairobi, between 1960 and 1965. During that time, he led a number of parties of boys from the school on ascents of Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya and at one point he held the record for the fastest ascent of the former.
Myers abandoned life as a schoolteacher in order to make his way as a professional photographer of African wildlife, and thence to an additional career as a freelance lecturer on the subject with an increasing interest in environmental matters. He went back to university and obtained a Ph.D from Berkeley in 1973.
[edit] Professional career
Myers is currently Professor and Visiting Fellow at Green College, Oxford University, and at the Said Business School. He is an Adjunct Professor at Duke University. He holds visiting professorships at Harvard, Cornell, Stanford and Berkeley.
Myers has been a senior advisor to organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the White House, scientific academies in a dozen countries, influential politicians (including six prime ministers and presidents) and business leaders worldwide. He has publicized his work in hundreds of scholarly papers and popular articles and 19 books (sales of these books, over one million copies).
Dr. Myers’ expertise in both the natural sciences and the social sciences has enabled him to contribute responses to a broad range of environmental issues, including: population pressures, developing country poverty, over-consumption, unsustainable agriculture, climate change, and environmental security.
One of the chief characteristics of Norman Myers’ research is his penchant for raising new questions as well as supplying new answers to established questions. He has pioneered more than 15 research issues.
Recently, Myers has given support to the Forests Now Declaration, which calls for new market based mechanisms to protect tropical forests.
[edit] Research projects
With funding from a number of bodies such as the World Wildlife Fund, the Royal Society, NASA, etc., Norman Myers began to probe areas such as the mass extinction of species and the problems of tropical deforestation, and eventually developed the concept of biodiversity hotspots. More recently, he has written about climate refugees; perverse subsidies; food and hunger in SubSaharan Africa; new consumers in developing and transition countries.
[edit] Selected awards
Dr. Myers has received a number of major scientific and achievement awards. He is one of only two persons worldwide to receive all three leading environmental prizes: Volvo Environment Prize, UNEP/Sasakawa Environment Prize and Blue Planet Prize. In 1997 he was appointed by Queen Elizabeth to The Order of St. Michael and St. George “For Services to The Global Environment.”
- Gold Medal, World Wildlife Fund, 1983
- Gold Medal of the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society), 1986
- Sasakawa Prize of the United Nations Environment Programme, 1995
- Blue Planet Prize, 2001
[edit] External links
- 2001 Blue Planet Prize recipient profile
- Conversation with Norman Myers at University of California Berkeley website
- The New Gaia Atlas of Planet Management
- Adjunct Professor Duke University
