Global Diversity Foundation Director

In November 1999, the Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Gary J. Martin as Director of The Global Diversity Foundation. Under his direction, the Foundation has launched an international program of research, training and social action that focuses on the challenges facing agricultural, biological and cultural diversity. The Director develops the activities and operations of GDF in collaboration with the Board of Trustees, regional coordinators, advisory committees and partner institutions around the world. 

Gary J. Martin, Director of The Global Diversity Foundation since its inception in 1999, is responsible for establishing long-term ‘observatories’ of cultural and natural diversity at selected field sites in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In addition, he offers courses on Contemporary Issues in Ethnobiology and Ethnoecological Field Methods at various universities and field sites.

He has been involved in conservation and ethnobotanical work for over twenty-five years, starting with a gap year in 1980 in which he carried out fieldwork in Mexico. He holds a BS in botany from Michigan State University and a MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. He conducted his doctoral research on the comparative ethnobotany of Chinantec and Mixed peoples of the Sierra Norte, Oaxaca, Mexico.

From 1992 to 2000, he was a field coordinator for the People and Plants Inititive on ethnobotany and sustainable use of plant resources, a joint effort of WWF-UK, UNESCO and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

In 1999, he was appointed Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the University of Kent, where he teaches and supervises students in the Ethnobotany MSc and Ethnobiology MPhil/PhD programs.

He serves as a Director of Diversity Excursions Ltd., the trading subsidiary of The Global Diversity Foundation, which is dedicated to providing ecologically appropriate and scientifically informative travel to southern Morocco.

In addition to English (his mother tongue), he speaks French and Spanish fluently.