| TrusteesProfessor Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, D.Phil., FLS (UK), Chair |
Dr John Hemming, CMG, D.Litt., FSA. (United Kingdom) John Hemming was educated at Eton College, McGill University and Oxford University, where he received a PhD in Modern History. He was Director and Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), London, from 1975 to 1996, a time of great expansion in the Society's range of activities, membership and finance. The RGS was particularly concerned with environmental issues in its many conferences and lectures, in papers in its three learned journals, and in its sponsored and supported field research. Dr. Hemming was active in launching and organising the Society's multi-disciplinary research projects at Mulu, Sarawak; Karakoram, Pakistan; Kora, Kenya; Wahibah, Oman; Kimberley, Australia; Mkomazi, Tanzania; and Temburong, Brunei. Dr. Hemming was co-chairman of the RGS’s Badia Research and Development Programme in Jordan, and he personally led the Maracá Rainforest Project in northern Brazil. This grew to be the largest research project ever organised in the Amazon basin by any European country, with some 150 scientists and 50 scientific technicians working from 1987 onwards, and an output of fifteen books, hundreds of papers and extensive collections and scientific discoveries. Dr. Hemming has also been on many expeditions in Peru and Brazil, including the first exploration and mapping of the upper Iriri River. He has visited or lived with over forty tribes, four of them at the time of first contact. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including The Conquest of the Incas, Red Gold, Amazon Frontier, Die If You Must: Brazilian Indians In The Twentieth Century, The Search for El Dorado, Change in the Amazon Basin, and The Golden Age of Discovery. He was active in many charitable organisations, including serving as Trustee of The British Council, Chairman of the Anglo-Peruvian Society, President of the Rainforest Club, and Founder Trustee of Survival. He is currently a Trustee of Earthwatch UK, Hakluyt Society, Cusichaca Trust and Pro-Natura International, among other organisations. He has received numerous awards, including the CMG (Companion of St Michael and St George) from the British government, Orden al Mérito (Peru) and Ordem do Cruzeiro do Sul (Brazil); medals and awards from Royal Geographical Society, Boston Museum of Science, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Explorers Club (New York), Instituto Nacional de Cultura (Peru), Andean Explorers Club; and literary prizes such as the Pitman Prize and The Christopher Medal (New York). He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Warwick and Stirling as was named Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is currently chairman of Hemming Group Ltd. and of various publishing and exhibition-organising companies. | |
Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño (United Kingdom/France) Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño is an internationally renowned hotelier with longstanding relationships in the entertainment, social, cultural, and business communities of London, Paris, Hollywood, and Mexico. Born in Paris, Ms. Goldsmith-Patiño is the daughter of the late British financier Sir James Goldsmith and the granddaughter of “Bolivian Tin King” Don Antenor Patiño, who developed Las Hadas in Manzanillo where the movie “10” with Bo Derek was filmed. In 1990, Ms. Goldsmith-Patiño created Las Alamandas, a luxurious beachfront resort located midway between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo in the fabled “Costalegre” region of Mexico’s Pacific Coast. This world famous, six-villa hideaway is situated within a 1,500-acre private paradise of lush tropical gardens, exotic wildlife and seemingly endless beaches in their most natural and pristine state. Las Alamandas has become the getaway for many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, and the backdrop for many of the fashion world’s most glamorous pictorials. Ms. Goldsmith-Patiño has long been involved with a variety of philanthropic endeavors, many of which focus on the environment. Most recently, she has spearheaded various projects to protect and preserve the Mexican coastline. She became a Trustee of the Global Diversity Foundation in March 2006. | |
Dr Michel Pimbert PhD (France/UK) Dr. Michel Pimbert is currently Director of the Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and Livelihoods Program at the UK based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). After doing his first degree in Ecology at the University of Liverpool, Michel obtained his Doctorate of Sciences at the University Francois Rabelais of Tours (France). Dr Pimbert began his career as an agro-ecologist doing research and training on ecological pest management in small farming systems. After first holding a lecturers’ position at the University Francois Rabelais de Tours, he worked as Principal Staff at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India. Michel then moved into policy research when he became head of the Biodiversity Program of the International Secretariat of the World Wide Fund for Nature in 1992. Michel was a member of the College of Directors of WWF Switzerland before joining IIIED in 1999. Over the last 20 years Dr. Pimbert has authored and edited several books, journal articles, technical and policy papers on sustainable agriculture, the political ecology of biodiversity and natural resource management, participatory action research, and deliberative democratic processes. His latest co-edited books include Social Change and Conservation (Earthscan), The Life Industry (Intermediate Technology Publications), and Sharing Power. Learning by doing in the co-management of natural resources throughout the World (IUCN and IIED). |
