1. Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III was an American ecologist who was President of the Amazon Biodiversity Center, a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and a university professor in the Environmental Science and Policy department at George Mason University.
Thomas Lovejoy introduced the term biological diversity to the scientific community in 1980.
Thomas Lovejoy was a past chair of the Scientific Technical Advisory Panel for the Global Environment Facility, the multibillion-dollar funding mechanism for developing countries in support of their obligations under international environmental conventions.
Thomas Lovejoy attended Millbrook School, where he worked at The Trevor Zoo, under zoo founder Frank Trevor and his wife Janet.
Thomas Lovejoy was senior adviser to the president of the United Nations Foundation, chair of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, and was past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, past chairman of the United States Man and Biosphere Program, and past president of the Society for Conservation Biology.
Thomas Lovejoy developed the debt-for-nature swaps, in which environmental groups purchase shaky foreign debt on the secondary market at the market rate, which is considerably discounted, and then convert this debt at its face value into the local currency to purchase biologically sensitive tracts of land in the debtor nation for purposes of environmental protection.
Thomas Lovejoy supported the Forests Now Declaration, which calls for new market-based mechanisms to protect tropical forests.
Thomas Lovejoy founded the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project near Manaus, Brazil, in 1979 to understand the effects of the fragmentation on tropical rainforests on ecosystems and wildlife.
Thomas Lovejoy served on many scientific and conservation boards and advisory groups, and was the author of numerous articles and books.
In 1996, Thomas Lovejoy was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Thomas Lovejoy was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1999.
In 2001, Thomas Lovejoy was the recipient of the University of Southern California's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.
In 2001, Lovejoy received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Peter H Raven.
Thomas Lovejoy served continuously on the board of directors, from 2000, of the Amazon Conservation Team, which works in partnership with indigenous people of tropical South America in conserving the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest, as well as the culture and land of its indigenous people.
Thomas Lovejoy served on the board of directors from 2009 for the Amazon Conservation Association, whose mission is to conserve the biological diversity of the Amazon.
Thomas Lovejoy was an emeritus member of the board of directors for Population Action International and served on the Scientific Board of SavingSpecies, a conservation organization featured in a Nature magazine article about Thomas Lovejoy's scientific accomplishments.
In 2018, Thomas Lovejoy co-founded the Amazon Biodiversity Center to support the work of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project.
Thomas Lovejoy died from pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor on December 25,2021, in McLean, Virginia, at the age of 80.