Senior Scientist Daniel Nepstad To Become Chief Program Officer for the Environmental Conservation Programs of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

April 21, 2008

Daniel Nepstad, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, has accepted the position of Chief Program Officer for Environmental Conservation at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in San Francisco. He will join the Moore Foundation, which is based in San Francisco, in early summer.

According to John P. Holdren, director of the Center, “This is an exceptional opportunity for Dan to substantially expand and reshape global philanthropy in this crucial domain.”

Nepstad has been with the Center since 1990, where he coordinates the Amazon Program. A tropical forest ecologist, Nepstad has studied Amazon forests and strategies for their conservation for the last 24 years. His research explores the effect of climate change on Amazon forests, the “taming” of agroindustrial expansion in the tropics, and natural resource policy.  In 1995, he co-founded the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia. He has published more than 100 scientific articles and books on the Amazon. His most recent efforts have focused on the “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” (REDD), a bold new approach to rewarding tropical nations that reduce their deforestation, that is under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

 According to Nepstad, “As humanity’s influence over the climate, the sea, and the land grows, it is clear that our approach to environmental conservation is far too timid.  It is an honor for me to join the Moore Foundation to help them build a bolder strategy of environmental stewardship.”

Holdren adds, “While there is no understating the degree to which we will miss Dan's full-time leadership of the Center's Amazon and REDD efforts, our immensely talented and productive long-time staff members working in these domains, together with the impressive recent additions that Dan has been instrumental in helping to recruit, mean that we remain positioned to be the most effective and influential player at the intersection of environmental science, economics, and policy around the tropical-forest issue.  I have every confidence that our successes in this arena will continue to grow.”

The Woods Hole Research Center seeks to conserve and sustain forests, soils, water, and climate by demonstrating their value to human health and economic prosperity. The Center has initiatives in the Amazon, the Arctic, Africa, Russia, Asia, Boreal North America, the Mid-Atlantic, and New England. Center programs focus on the global carbon cycle, forest function, landcover/land use, water cycles and chemicals in the environment, working in collaboration with partners ranging from local organizations to national governments and the United Nations.