2019 ATBC Honorary Fellows

Abstract

In 1963, the Council of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation established the election of Honorary Fellows as “persons of long distinguished service to tropical biology.” This is the highest award given by the Association: To date more than 80 Honorary Fellows from over 15 countries have been elected by the Council. This year, we are fortunate to have two outstanding Fellows. On behalf of The Honorary Fellow Nomination Committee, we present the 2019 Honorary Fellows as follows: Professor Jonah Ratsimbazafy is a renowned Malagasy primatologist who has made substantial contributions to the conservation of Madagascar’s imperiled biodiversity, especially saving iconic, evolutionary unique and endemic Malagasy primates from the brink of extinction, through his research, teaching and outreach activities. His efforts in environmental protection and conservation in Madagascar has been internationally recognized with prestigious awards like the Disney Conservation Hero Award. He has been invited to present seminars worldwide. Professor Ratsimbazafy earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from SUNY Stony Brook University, New York (2002), and is currently the President of GERP (Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar), an organization that advocates for the conservation of lemurs. He is also a Professor in the Department of Paleontology and Anthropology at the University of Antananarivo and has been a mentor for many young Malagasy anthropologists. He has been a very active researcher and has published more than 90 scientific papers. He has also been an active member of various national and international conservation organizations. He is currently serving as the Vice-Chair of IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group—Madagascar section, and as a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Primatology and the Madagascar Conservation and Development journal. He also served as Co-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for ATBC 2019 and was one of the keynote speakers (Figure 1). Dr. Goodman received his PhD from the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is a MacArthur Field Biologist on staff for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and has spent three decades documenting biodiversity in Madagascar as a conservation biologist in residence in collaboration with WWF. His research interests include inventories of poorly known forest areas, description of animals and their natural history in Madagascar. He has written and edited some of the most important books for natural history and biological conservation of fauna and flora in Madagascar, including Natural History of Madagascar (2003), Extinct Madagascar (2014) and most recently, a recent three volume set “Terrestrial Protected Areas of Madagascar” (2019). He has made critical contributions to education and capacity building for conservation biology in Madagascar. He is the founder of the Association Vahatra, a grassroots organization that promotes conservation of native fauna in Madagascar, while training the next generation of biologists and conservation scientists. For these activities, he has been recognized by many awards, including Conservation Leadership Award of WWF (2004), MacArthur Foundation Fellow (2005) and Leopold Prize of the American Society of Mammalogy (2018). He served as a key member of the Scientific Committee of ATBC Annual Meeting in 2019, gave a keynote presentation and was instrumental in securing funding to support the participation of Malagasy students (Figure 2).