Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility

Thomas E. Lovejoy is currently Biodiversity Chair and he was formerly President of The Heinz Center since May 2002. Before coming to The Heinz Center, he was the World Bank’s Chief Biodiversity Advisor and Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean and Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation. Dr. Lovejoy has been Assistant Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary at the Smithsonian Institution, Science Advisor to the Secretary of the Interior, U.S., and Executive Vice President of the World Wildlife Fund–U.S. He conceived the idea for the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project (a joint project between the Smithsonian and Brazil's INPA), originated the concept of debt-for-nature swaps, and is the founder of the public television series Nature. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Dr. Lovejoy served on science and environmental councils or committees under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. He received his B. S. and Ph.D. (biology) degrees from Yale University.

Dr Lovejoy is the author of over 240 papers and 8 books and is an authority on biodiversity and sustainable forest management and on climate change and its impacts on living systems.  He is particularly well-known for his extensively published work on Amazonian ecology, and he currently advises more than 100 international, governmental and non-governmental organizations and is the recipient of many awards and honors.

Meryl J. Williams
Vice-Chairperson

Appointed December 2007

Dr Meryl Williams has, over 30 years, established a leading reputation in the GEF focus area of International Waters. In addition, she has strong grounding in Biological Diversity, specifically marine biodiversity and agrobiodiversity. For the past 20 years, she has also held eminent research management and leadership responsibilities in fisheries, aquaculture, natural resource management, conservation and development assistance at global, regional, national and state level.  As Director General, Dr Williams led, managed and grew the research and development program of the WorldFish Center for 10 years (1994-2004), with operations in Asia, Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean, global information services and productive partnerships with over 300 research and non-research institutions. She also held senior responsibilities on behalf of all 15 Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Centers and in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research System.

From 2004 Dr Williams has been involved with the governance of the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) as Chair of the Board of Management and President of the Policy Advisory Council.  The ACIAR is an Australian aid funding agency for agricultural research that operates a successful leveraged partnership model.  Dr Williams has held many other leadership and advisory positions with international bodies, including DIVERSITAS, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, FAO, PEMSEA (which grew out of an earlier research program of the WorldFish Center) and the Census of Marine Life. Dr Williams is familiar with the key inter-governmental processes and the prep-coms and scientific advisory mechanisms of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the IPCC, FAO councils, and many regional fisheries management organizations and actions towards international marine environment conservation

Dr Williams has authored 50 scientific publications covering agriculture and marine science, including fisheries, aquaculture, and coastal and marine ecosystem management; she promoted the development of information systems such as FishBase and ReefBase – both now path-breaking global databases and has written comprehensively and in depth on sustainable aquatic resources, their management and uses, including in markets and food security.

N.H. Ravindranath is Chairman, Centre for Sustainable Technologies, and an Associate Faculty member, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Since 1996 Professor Ravindranath has been a Lead and Convening Lead Author for eight chapters or publications of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), most recently in the IPCC-4 as Lead Author for the Climate Change Synthesis Report and for the the Forestry chapter of the Mitigation volume.  He is a Member of the Panel of Experts for UNFCCC, and was selected to review the Greenhouse Gas Inventory of Annex-I countries (Industrialized Countries) as well as for reviewing the Kyoto Protocol System.  He also developed Guidelines for preparing GHG Inventory in the Forest Sector for UNFCCC, and participated in the UNFCCC review of Greenhouse gas Inventory submitted by Annex-I countries to the UNFCCC, during 2005, 2006 and 2007. 

Holding a PhD, MSc and BSc degrees, Professor Ravindranath leads research in two main areas: climate change and forests and on sustainable biomass production for bioenergy and has published extensively in both areas of work.

As Professor and Senior Principal Researcher at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, working in the area of community and ecosystems ecology, Professor Díaz has made significant contributions to the understanding of the role that biodiversity plays in the benefits that humankind derives from ecosystems. Professor Díaz has contributed 18 peer reviewed book chapters and 78 peer reviewed scientific papers on functional biodiversity and global change which are widely cited; several papers have received prestigious awards. An Associate Foreign Member of the USA National Academy of Sciences, Professor Díaz has been an active member of IPCC since 1994, acting as a main author and convening main author, most recently as review editor of the Chapter on Ecosystems and their Services and of the Synthesis Report. Professor Díaz was also a Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Convening Lead Author of the Chapter of Biodiversity Regulation of Ecosystem Services, and then author of the Biodiversity Synthesis (MA contribution to the CBD), and additionally a member of the ad-hoc UNESCO-UNU-ICSU Millennium-Follow-Up Report Group. As a member of the Scientific Steering Committees of DIVERSITAS, the Global Land Project of IPCC, the ICSU Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, and director of one of the Collaborative Research Networks of the Inter American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), Professor Díaz is well qualified to advise the GEF regarding contemporary challenges focusing on biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainability.

For his Ph.D he was a Medical Research Council bursar, working on the levels and dynamics of DDT, as used in malaria control, in humans, fish, birds and the environment. He started his career as a Medical/Senior Medical Researcher at the MRC (Environmental Diseases 1988-1990), Senior Lecturer (PU vir CHO, 1990-1995), Assistant Director and Specialist Scientist, Agricultural Research Council,
1996-1999), and Professor (PU vir CHO, 2000-current). He has published 48 refereed papers in scientific journals, and is involved in a number of projects, both as leader / co-ordinator, or as collaborator or advisor, with local and international research organizations (e.g. United Nations Environment Programme / Global Environment Facility, SIDA, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and ARC). He has travelled extensively overseas.

His work concentrates mainly on the ecology of birds and the so called Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). He has acted as advisor to the Government on POPs and has also been an accredited member of the South African team in international negotiation fora. Other aspects of his work relates to endocrine disruptors and the effects of pollutants on earthworms and birds. In 2000 he was appointed by the NWU as Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences and Development, and his research is conducted in the research focus area: Environmental Science and Management. His current teaching includes evolutionary theory, zoogeography and animal behaviour at the pre-graduate level, and various aspects of pollution and impact on the post-graduate level. He is currently leader and a co-leader for more than 10 M.Sc and Ph.D students on various aspects of pollution, POPs and birds.

Most recently he served his second term as a project evaluator for the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) of the Global Environment Facility with the responsibility of evaluating national and international applications for GEF sponsored projects.