Global Conservation Welcomes Dr. Gregory Asner to Senior Advisory Board

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Gregory Asner to Global Conservation's Senior Advisory Board. Dr. Asner is the director of Arizona State University's (ASU) Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. He serves on the faculty of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU.

As an ecologist, Dr. Asner is recognized for his exploratory and applied research on ecosystems and climate change at regional to global scales. His research spans the areas of spatial ecology and biodiversity, terrestrial carbon cycling, animal-habitat interactions, and climate change. He develops scientific approaches and technologies for investigation and conservation assessments of large ecoregions. Dr. Asner has published hundreds of scientific articles and has served in numerous national and international programs with NASA, the U.S. State Department, and the United Nations. He is a recipient of multiple scientific and sustainability awards and is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Asner runs the Asner Lab at ASU. The Asner Lab's mission is to make scientific discoveries, support conservation, and galvanize action to protect the environment at large geographic scales. They develop advanced Earth imaging technology, novel data analytics, and technical training of next generation scientists to bridge the gap between science, decision-making, and society for a more sustainable future. The lab has published 453 peer-reviewed scientific papers from 1113 projects. 

The Global Airborne Observatory. Image courtesy Asner Lab.

One of Dr. Asner's many achievements is developing the Global Airborne Observatory (GAO), a highly modified Dornier 228-202 aircraft that houses advanced Earth mapping technology. The GAO’s mission is to make scientific discoveries, support conservation, and galvanize action to protect the environment at large geographic scales, using what is widely regarded as the most advanced mapping technology operating in the civil sector today. The data collected using the GAO has contributed to significant discoveries, such as locating previously undetected illegal gold mining in the Amazon and the world’s tallest tropical tree (294 feet) in the Bornean rainforest. The maps derived from GAO data have directly shaped policy and conservation, such as efforts to track and contain a tree-killing fungus in Hawaii and plans for creating a new marine protected area in the Dominican Republic. The GAO has transformed our understanding of natural and managed ecosystems over large geographic scales to improve conservation, sustainable resource use, and environmental policy.

The work of Dr. Asner and his team has also been instrumental in several aspects of Global Conservation's efforts. Their LiDAR scanning program in particular has contributed greatly to the conservation of Mirador National Park as well as our Carbon for Forests initiative.

"We have been working for three years with Dr. Asner and his team at ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science to develop a global forest monitoring system based on the Planet satellite network," says Jeff Morgan, Executive Director of Global Conservation. "We are thrilled to have him join our Senior Advisory Board at this critical time when we will be deploying satellite monitoring for carbon offsets for GC projects around the world."

You can keep up with Dr. Asner on Twitter.