Friends of the Rainforest has suffered a great loss in the passing of advisory board member Dr. Thomas Lovejoy.
Dr. Lovejoy was instrumental in the birth of our organization as a close contact of our founder Rachel Crandell. He helped with fundraising by giving a talk in St. Louis that we sponsored. Dr. Lovejoy coined the term biological diversity and was key to the establishment of conservation biology as a field of study, both of which are integral to the appreciation of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest in Costa Rica. Perhaps most important was his work on edge effects as a feature of forest fragmentation. This made it clear that preserving the largest possible tracts of the rainforest with a high ratio of interior to edge is crucial to preventing species extinction. Maximizing that ratio to minimize edge effects informs every purchase of land added to the Children’s Eternal Rainforest and is the reason that reserve is so incredibly valuable to biodiversity and conservation of rainforest species in Central America. He will be missed.
- Maggie Eisenberger, Chair of the Friends of the Rainforest Board