Tropical Forests and Planet Earth: A Macrosope View

The Harvard Forest, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, and the Salata Institute for Climate & Sustainability present the 2024 Charles Bullard Lectures featuring Yadvinder Malhi, Professor of Ecosystem Science, School of Geography and the Environment; Programme Leader, Ecosystems Group at the Environmental Change Institute, and the Director of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, University of Oxford.

The twin key environmental challenges of our times are to stabilise our climate system and reverse the decline of biodiversity. Tropical forests play an important role in addressing both these challenges. I explore what role tropical forests play in the Earth System and the interaction between tropical forests and climate change, highlighting some of my team’s recent research that combines detailed field data collection with satellite remote sensing. Field work and observations remain an essential component of understanding and stewarding our changing biosphere. 

The annual Charles Bullard Lectures were established by the Harvard Forest in 2022 to honor and learn from renowned scholars of forest ecology and conservation. The Lectures are supported by the Charles Bullard endowment and are closely associated with Harvard’s long-running Bullard Fellowship, a distinguished scholar-in-residence program for forest research.

For information and to register for the second of the 2024 Bullard Lectures, visit OCT 4 | Captured Sunshine: An Energetic View of Terrestrial Ecosystems