About the Event

Jörg Ganzhorn is Professor at the University of Hamburg, Department Animal Ecology and Conservation. He has served as Chairman for the Madagascar section of the IUCN/SSC/Primate Specialist Group for 15 years. A zoologist by training, he has over 30 years of experience conducting field work in Madagascar on forest and vertebrate ecology. His approach is to find ways on how to combine an understanding of species needs, ecosystem functioning and biodiversity conservation with economic development and secure livelihoods for the people in order to come to sustainable forms of land utilization and conservation in Madagascar.

Pr. Kaoru Kitajima is a forest ecologist, with over 30 years of research experience, especially in tropical America and Asia. She has held faculty positions Kyoto University, Japan (2013-current) and University of Florida (1997-2013), and a research associate position at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. As council member of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (2006-2017, President in 2016), she has fostered networking of tropical forest scientists across disciplines. She received B.S. from the University of Tokyo, and M.S. and Ph.D from the University of Illinois. Her research interests encompass seedling regeneration ecology of tropical trees, ecophysiology and functional traits of woody species, forest tree responses to climate and other environmental factors, plant-soil interactions in ecosystem cycling of mineral nutrients. Although she has worked mostly in tropical forests in Latin America and Asia, she is happy to start a project in Ankarafantsika National Park in Madagascar this year. She is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for International Forest Research (CIFOR) and a lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Climate and Land.

Bill Laurance is a Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University. He has written eight books and more than 600 scientific and popular articles. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and former President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. His professional honours include the Heineken Environment Prize, the BBVA Frontiers in Conservation Biology Award, a Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Conservation Biology, and the Zoological Society of London’s Outstanding Conservation Achievement Prize. He founded and directs ALERT—the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers—a science-advocacy group that reaches 1-2 million readers weekly. He is a four-time winner of Australia’s Best Science Writing Award.

Professor Jonah Ratsimbazafy - President of the Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar (GERP) and a Malagasy scientist in the scientific community at both the national or international levels. His efforts in environmental protection and conservationin Madagascar were internationally recognized. In parallel to his position as the President of GERP, an organization that advocates for the protection of Malagasy lemur species, he is also a Professor in the Mention of Anthropology and Durable Development, University of Antananarivo, and has been a mentor for many young Malagasy anthropologists. Pr. Jonah Ratsimbazafy holds a Master’s Degree from the Anthropology Department of the University of Antananarivo and a Ph.D. in Anthropology (focus in Primatology) from Stony Brook University, New York. He is a very active researcher and has produced numerous scientific publications in the field of anthropology. He also has been an active member of different national and international conservation organizations. He is the current Vice-Chair of Primate Specialist Group – Madagascar section of the UICN/SCC, and also serves on the editorial boards of /International Journal of Primatology/ and /Madagascar Conservation and Development/.

Dr. Vriesendorp directs the Andes-Amazon program in the Keller Science Action Center at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. A field biologist with deep experience with the flora and vegetation of the remotest corners of the Western Amazon, Corine works closely with South American partners to bring science to bear on conservation and the quality of life of local people. Over the last 16 years, Corine and her team have provided social and biological science to support the creation of 18 new conservation areas in South America.

For more than three decades, Steve has been actively involved in different scientific projects on Madagascar and neighboring western Indian Ocean islands, including aspects on the ecology, biogeography and systematics of birds and mammals. These different studies focus on questions in evolutionary biology and applying different analyses to the regional advancement of conservation. He has been active in publishing scientific papers, books, and monographs on these topics. Another important focus of his work in the Malagasy national university system, where he is Docteur Honoris Causa, is the advancement of national graduate students working in the domains of ecology, conservation, and biogeography. He is MacArthur Field Biologist at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and Vice President and Scientific Counselor of Association Vahatra in Antananarivo, the city where he makes his home.