1994 Tyler Laureate
Arturo Gomez-Pompa
Arturo Gomez-Pompa, Professor of Botany and Plant Sciences at the University
of California, Riverside, was honored as one of the first voices to draw
attention to the problem of rain forest destruction, both in his native
Mexico and around the world. As a tropical botanist, he has contributed
significantly to the world's scientific knowledge regarding the plant life
of tropical forests.
As Mexico's most prominent voice for forest conservation, Dr. Gomez-Pompa has helped to develop an agenda for reasoned debate on the most effective ways to protect tropical ecosystems; and, as a political adviser, he is credited with leading his governnent toward preserving Mexico's biological heritage.
His insightful work with indigenous forest peoples - in learning from their knowledge of the lands they inhabit and in focusing attention on the need to involve them in efforts to preserve their environment - is a model for ecologists and agrarian economists worldwide.
As an educator, organizer and institution builder, he has founded a series of institutions that have contributed to basic and applied research, to scientific education, and to public education in tropical botany and biology in general.
At the young age of 24, he was appointed director of a special government commission. The commission, in consultation with the pharmaceutical industry, was set up to survey resources of certain medicinal plants. Expanding the commission's scope, Dr. Gomez-Pompa presided over a full-scale ecological survey of the Mexican rain forest.
In the late 1960s, when computers were less powerful and more difficult to use than today, Dr. Gomez-Pompa created a botanical database to record information about the plants of Mexico's Veracruz state. As computers have improved, he has continued to take advantage of their growing capabilities. For example, he recently added images to his botanical database, both as an aid in plant identification and as a way to bring basic information from museums in northern countries back to the developing countries where the botanical specimens originated.
Much of his early research in forest ecology was conducted at one of the institutions he founded - the United Autonomous University of Mexico's biological station at Los Tuxtlas, in Veracruz state, which has served as a research base for a generation of Mexican and international specialists in tropical forests. Research there provided the raw material for "The Tropical Rain Forest: A Nonrenewable Resource," an article that Gomez-Pompa and two of his students wrote for the journal Science in 1972. The article has become a heavily cited reference and has served as a catalyst for discussion and research around the globe.
Another institution founded by Dr. Gomez-Pompa is Mexico's influential National Institute of Biotic Resources. INIREB (from its name in Spanish) has helped establish a new field of research - agroecology, analyzing agricultural techniques used by peoples inhabitiqg the rain forests. The work at INIREB demonstrated that local methods are often based on a profound knowledge of local ecosystems and, in fact, are often better adapted to local conditions than imported techniques. The studies also cast doubt on proposals to use what were called "limitless" tropical resources of sun and soil to grow ill-adapted imported crops.
Based on these ideas, Dr. Gomez-Pompa organized a pilot project, the Maya Sustainability Project, funded by the John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, leading directly to several efforts in the Mayan regions of southern Mexico. This research has persuaded him that managers of tropical wildermess areas should take into account the knowledge and experience of the region's indigenous people. He and a colleague first proposed seeking the local people's advice in defining conservation goals for their region and enlisting their cooperation in implementing those goals.
Gomez-Pompa was effective first as a credible critic of government policies. Later, as his message was heeded, he has actively helped to mold governmental policy. During the administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, his advice led to such government actions as a halt to dam-building activity on the Usumacinta River, the creation of a special conservation district for a threatened porpoise, and the creation of a national biodiversity commission.
Dr. Gomez-Pompa and colleagues organized another nongovernmental organization, the PROAFT A.C., to develop a sustainable-yield forest plan for economically depressed areas of the tropics. The plan, known as PAFT-Mexico, stresses local participation and planning to promote sustainable uses of natural resources and thus improve the quality of life for people who live there.
Now Gomez-Pompa is founding FUNDAREB A.C., an organization to promote the creation of ecological reserves privately owned by local Mexican farmers, individuals, research institutions and corporations. He recently set a personal example by establishing - with his own resources and contributions from friends, relatives and colleagues - a protected area, called El Eden, for research in conservation biology.
Outside of Mexico, he has been influential not solely through his publications and research, but also through his work with the United Nations, including UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere program, which he chaired. Also he has served on the boards of several international conservancy organizations, including the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
"He is without question one of the world's leading botanists, conservation biologists and champions of the tropical forests," wrote Thomas E. Lovejoy, the Smithsonian Institution's assistant secretary for environmental and external affairs.
"It is a rare gift that someone with the academic credentials of Dr. Gomez-Pompa has the political and diplomatic skills to put basic ecology into pragmatic resource management programs," wrote Jean-Michel Cousteau.
Dr. Gomez-Pompa, now a professor of botany and plant sciences at the University of California,Riverside, studied at the Instituto Mexico, the Centro Universitario Mexico, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he earned a Ph.D. in biology.