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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Ending Deforestation, Increasing Reforestation and Transforming Agriculture: What We’ve Done, What We Plan, What We Need Thursday, January 26

Recording >>

Slides [PDF]




Doug Boucher is a scientific advisor for the Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative. His expertise is in the preservation of tropical forests to curtail global warming emissions. Part of his work has included participating in United Nations international climate negotiations. Dr. Boucher has attended the negotiations since 2007, and his expertise has helped shape U.S. and UN policies. Dr. Boucher is the former director of UCS’s Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative, which works with governments, businesses, and consumers to reduce tropical deforestation and the global warming pollution associated with land use. Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Boucher was a biology professor at Hood College, the University of Quebec, and McGill University. As a professor, he conducted research and taught courses in Latin America, where he first traveled as a member of the Peace Corps in 1971. He has published about 100 articles in scientific journals and books, particularly on ecology, climate and natural resource issues. He also served as the Washington Office Director of Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and directed the Western Hemisphere Cooperation Program at the AAAS.
Dr. Boucher earned a B.A. in ecology and history from Yale University and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Michigan.

About the Talk

UCS, like many U.S. and international NGOs, focuses not on projects but rather on policies: how to encourage changes in land use, how to fund it, and how to know whether it’s successful. In the past several years we’ve done this by pushing businesses to commit to zero-deforestation throughout their supply chains, and to implement these commitments transparently. Reliable data on deforestation – and on reforestation – is key to this work. In this seminar I’ll explain how we use the data and what problems we have had with what’s currently available. I’ll also describe what additional information we’ll need as we move into promoting large-scale carbon sequestration through natural regeneration of forests in the U.S.

 

 


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