Facilitator. Timothy J. Killeen, photographed in the field at Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. (© 1999 Fred Powledge.)
Missouri Botanical Garden's Web site is www.mobot.org/
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Timothy J. KilleenEnvironmental catalyst |
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term “biodiversity,” hardly uttered a decade ago, is enjoying a burst
in popularity. Scientists proudly proclaim their commitment to conserving
the biodiversity of the oceans, or of insect life, or of the wild relatives
of important food crops.
Policy makers
have appropriated the term into their buzzword vocabularies. Yet
the effort to protect Earth’s biological diversity
There is a parallel in the environment itself: Different species occupy different niches or habitats in the landscape, but if the landscape becomes fragmented, individual habitats and their occupants will suffer. In order for the system to operate smoothly, its components must work (or compete) together. Facilitator for environment. Timothy J. Killeen’s specialty is systematic biology, but his labors are far from specialized. Killeen, a staff member of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, lives in Bolivia and works all over South America in an occupation he defines as “facilitator.” He is a catalyst for biodiversity. Killeen’s job is a living example of international cooperation in the effort to discover, classify, and conserve biological diversity. As an assistant curator of the Missouri Botanical Garden, he works half a world away for biodiversity. This is consistent with the Garden’s objective of collecting information on plant species of “unique and important regions” and making that knowledge “available for further scientific study, economic development, education, and conservation planning.” Killeen’s efforts, based in the city of Santa Cruz, between the Andes and the Amazon, have produced enormous benefits — scientific, environmental, and economic — for a region whose biodiversity is among the richest on Earth but whose financial resources are severely limited. [To Killeen Page 2] |
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remains fragmented, with little communication or coordination as specialists
practice their specialties.