Dr. Thomas Gorneau

Roles: Special Guest

Dr. Goreau discussed Angel Azul.

Tom Goreau, President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, a non-profit organization for coral reef protection and sustainable management, and Coordinator of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Partnership in New Technologies for Small Island Developing States, has dived longer and in more coral reefs around the world than any coral scientist. He was previously Senior Scientific Affairs Officer at the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development, in charge of global climate change and biodiversity issues. He has published around 200 papers in coral reef ecology and biogeochemistry, global climate change sensitivity, the global carbon cycle, stabilization of atmospheric CO2, changes in global ocean circulation, tropical deforestation and reforestation, microbiology, marine diseases, soil science, atmospheric chemistry, community-based coastal zone management, mathematical modeling of climate records, visualizing turbulent flow around marine organisms, scientific photography, and other fields. He developed the method to predict the location, timing, and severity of coral bleaching from satellite data with Ray Hayes. With the late Wolf Hilbertz he invented and developed new methods for preserving coral reefs from global warming and pollution, restoring marine ecosystems, shore protection, mariculture. In 1998 he and Wolf Hilbertz were awarded the Theodore M. Sperry Award for Pioneers and Innovators, the top award of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Dr. Goreau led developing country NGO efforts in marine and climate issues at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), the UN Summits on Development of Small Island Developing States (Barbados, 1994, Mauritius, 2005), the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002), the UN Convention on Climate Change (Bali, 2007 and Copenhagen, 2009), and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio de Janeiro, 2012), where an organization he helped found, Yayasan Karang Lestari in Pemuteran, Bali, was awarded the 2012 UNDP Special Award for Marine and Coastal Zone Management and the 2012 Equator Award for Community-Based Development. Dr. Goreau works with tropical fishing communities and organizations around the world to restore their coral reefs and fisheries, especially the Kuna Indians of Panama. He is also a hereditary leader of the Yolngu Dhuwa Aboriginal clan of Arnhem Land, Australia, who preserve the oldest creation myth in the world. He was educated in Jamaican primary and secondary schools, at MIT (B.Sc in Planetary Physics), Caltech (M.Sc in Planetary Astronomy), Yale, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Harvard (Ph.D. in Biogeochemistry), and is a trained nuisance crocodile remover who would rather not.