Although Mittermeier had wanted to attend Harvard as an undergraduate, he landed at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, instead. The decision proved fortuitous, since Dartmouth had the best foreign language and overseas studies program in the country at the time. He spent considerable time engaged in field studies, which helped him develop the research and language skills he would need to eventually attend Harvard.
Gallery of Russell Mittermeier
Cambridge, MA, United States
Mittermeier's subsequent research on New World monkeys along with his summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors from Dartmouth gained him entry into graduate school at Harvard. In 1973 Mittermeier was awarded an M.A. in biological anthropology from the Massachusetts university, and in 1977 he completed his dissertation on the distribution, synecology, and conservation of Surinam monkeys.
Although Mittermeier had wanted to attend Harvard as an undergraduate, he landed at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, instead. The decision proved fortuitous, since Dartmouth had the best foreign language and overseas studies program in the country at the time. He spent considerable time engaged in field studies, which helped him develop the research and language skills he would need to eventually attend Harvard.
Mittermeier's subsequent research on New World monkeys along with his summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors from Dartmouth gained him entry into graduate school at Harvard. In 1973 Mittermeier was awarded an M.A. in biological anthropology from the Massachusetts university, and in 1977 he completed his dissertation on the distribution, synecology, and conservation of Surinam monkeys.
(The concept of "megadiverse countries" was put forward fo...)
The concept of "megadiverse countries" was put forward for the first time in 1988, at the Conference on Biodiversity held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The object of this concept is to identify the biologically wealthiest nations on Earth. Assembled for the first time, in a book that would become the first in a series on the earth sciences, are stunning photographs from the seventeen countries in which lie the greatest concentrations of that megadiversity. In total their territories are home to between 60 percent and 80 percent of life on earth.
Russell Alan Mittermeier is an American primatologist and herpetologist. He is now a Global Wildlife Conservation’s Chief Conservation Officer. In this role, he leverages his extensive experience and network to protect wildlife and wildlands - enormous reservoirs of biodiversity and key components in preventing runaway climate change - particularly in biodiversity hotspots and critical wilderness areas.
Background
Mittermeier was born on November 8, 1949, in New York City. He is the son of Francis Xavier, a stamp and cover dealer, and Bertha Mittermeier, a homemaker. Parents were German immigrants who settled in New York City.
While her husband tended to his stamp business, Bertha entertained her young son with stories of the jungle and frequent trips to the Bronx Zoo and the American Museum of Natural History. By the time Mittermeier was six, he had announced his intention to someday become an explorer. An ambitious child, Mittermeier had read all the works of adventure writer Edgar Rice Burroughs while he was still in grade school. Growing up on Long Island, the budding anthropologist entertained himself with pet turtles, snakes, and frogs. By the time he was sixteen, he had helped form a local conservation group and began writing articles for their journal.
Education
Although Mittermeier had wanted to attend Harvard as an undergraduate, he landed at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, instead. The decision proved fortuitous since Dartmouth had the best foreign language and overseas studies program in the country at the time. He spent considerable time engaged in field studies, which helped him develop the research and language skills he would need to eventually attend Harvard. A trimester each was devoted to studying in Costa Rica, France, and the University of Mainz in Germany. During these travels, Mittermeier studied with European herpetologists - scientists who study reptiles and amphibians - and South American primatologists, who study primates.
Dartmouth’s senior fellow program awarded grants that enabled the recipients to spend an entire year on a project of their choice. When Mittermeier was granted this award, he proposed a trip to Central America, but the review board was initially skeptical. They could not imagine the young student “camping out” in the wild by himself. However, his proposal was eventually accepted on the condition that he show some proof that he would not be putting himself in too much danger.
On his way to Costa Rica, Mittermeier stopped at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at Barro Colorado Island near the Panama Canal. His subsequent research on New World monkeys along with his summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors from Dartmouth gained him entry into graduate school at Harvard. In 1973 Mittermeier was awarded a Master of Arts in biological anthropology from Massachusetts University, and in 1977 he completed his dissertation on the distribution, synecology, and conservation of Surinam monkeys.
The New York Zoological Society recruited Mittermeier for the position of conservation associate in 1976. A series of high-profile positions followed in the next several years with such organizations as the World Wildlife Fund, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in Switzerland, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. In these positions, Mittermeier helped focus the attention of government officials and citizens alike to the problems of the environment. He further explained that poor economic conditions often coerce people in Third World countries to engage in environmentally dangerous practices in order to sustain themselves financially.
Mittermeier’s observation of South American monkeys landed him a position with the New York Zoological Society in 1976, where he began his efforts to understand the cultural factors that affect the environment. In 1989 he became president of Conservation International, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization concerned with maintaining biodiversity and conserving rain forest ecosystems.
Beginning in 1987 Mittermeier initiated the process of “debt swap” to combat these damaging practices. Debt swap was a policy in which countries with struggling economies were forgiven some overseas debts in exchange for protecting land which they might have otherwise been forced to clear for farming or other developments with negative environmental impact. Although the idea is credited to Thomas Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, it was Mittermeier and his colleagues at Conservation International who implemented the first deals with Mexico, Madagascar, and Guatemala.
Mittermeier took this idea further in his concept of the “mega diversity country,” described in detail in the first Conservation International Policy Paper in 1993. In this type of initiative, areas of the world containing a wealth of genetic material, which other countries have either lost or never had at all, would become protected areas. This would enable scientists to fill in the glaring gaps in their knowledge of primates and other species - simple facts regarding survival status and geographic distribution which Mittermeier has tried to gather during his travels. An example of science’s incomplete knowledge is Mittermeier’s 1992 discovery, along with Marco Schwarz and Jose Marcio Ayres, of a species of marmoset (a small variety of monkey) previously unknown in the scientific community.
Mittermeier’s popularity has not been confined to scientific circles. In 1989 he posed for a Gap jeans ad along with an “organ-grinder’s” monkey, a member of an endangered species. He has also given numerous interviews and speeches worldwide with mass-media organizations such as the BBC-TV network in England and People magazine. Through such means he has sought to broaden support for his mission, and in the process, he has been awarded numerous accolades, ranging from important research grants to a citation in Esquire magazine as one of the most influential people under forty who is changing the United States.
In addition to his work with policy and advocacy organizations, Mittermeier has served as an advisor to zoological societies around the world and has been an adjunct professor for the State University of New York at Stony Brook since 1977. The information Mittermeier has collected has been published in the various newsletters he has edited since 1981, including Neotropical Primates, Asian Primates, Primate Conservation and Lemur News. After successfully touring with two conservationist films, Monkey of the Clouds and Cry of the Muriqui, he began planning a series of tropical field guides in book and CD-ROM formats, patterned after the long-popular Peterson Guides.
Achievements
Mittermeier’s exploration of rain forest ecology in locations such as Costa Rica and Guatemala has provided much insight into the diversity and importance of preserving ecosystems. Through his field studies and writing, Mittermeier has sought to raise awareness among the general public on issues pertaining to biodiversity. His high profile positions have included tenures as vice president of science for the World Wildlife Fund and chairperson of the World Bank Task Force of Biological Diversity.
Mittermeier’s first marriage in 1985 to fellow biologist Isabel Constable produced a son, John. Following their divorce, Mittermeier married Christina Goettsch, who was affiliated with Conservation International, in 1991. The couple’s son, Michael, was born in April of 1992.
