second Yale win in two years
F. Herbert Bormann, the Oastler Professor Emeritus of Forest Ecology, will receive the international environmental Blue Planet Prize from the Japanese Asahi Glass Foundation on Oct. 22 in Tokyo.
The prestigious prize is awarded annually to individuals or organizations that have made major contributions to the conservation of the global environment.
Bormann will share the prize with Gene Likens, president and director of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, who also has a faculty affiliation at Yale. The two men are being honored for "their roles in developing a comprehensive understanding of the human impact on ecosystems through long-term measurement of flows of water and chemical substances in watersheds."
The other Blue Planet Prize for 2003 will go to Vo Quy, a professor at the Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies at Vietnam National University in Hanoi, who has worked to restore Vietnam's war-damaged environment. Quy will receive an award of 50 million yen, and Bormann and Likens will split the other award of 50 million yen.
Likens and Bormann developed the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study, which revealed the relationship between fossil fuel use in North America and acid rain, and contributed critical data that Congress used to write the 1990 Clean Air Act.
The Blue Planet Prize citation observes that "the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study, now in its 40th year, has become a model for the study of whole, intact or experimentally manipulated ecosystems throughout the world. The model allows comprehensive study of the structure, function and temporal development of whole ecosystems and their connection with the larger biogeochemical cycles of the Earth."
Bormann said, "During this period of accelerated degradation and fragmentation of the Earth's natural resources, I am especially pleased that our four decades of research ... are being recognized to exemplify the goals of the Blue Planet Prize -- that is, 'we sincerely hope that people everywhere will work toward protecting our planet from a human-made demise, ensuring that the natural environment continues to exist for tomorrow's generations.'
"During the last 40 years," Bormann continued, "we developed and honed the small watershed approach for the quantitative study of forest and associated aquatic ecosystems, and in the process, produced the longest sustained comprehensive records of precipitation and stream-water chemistry in the world. These studies led to the discovery of acid rain in North America, quantified the linkages among air-land-water systems, and produced a deeper understanding of the dynamics of forest ecosystems that contributed to the development of sustainable forestry. We are extremely grateful to the Asahi Glass Foundation for recognizing our work with the Blue Planet Prize."
Bormann, who retired from Yale in 1992 after 26 years on the faculty, changed the approach to ecosystem ecology in 1960 when he conceived of a technique for studying small watersheds that allowed for the measurement of nutrient cycles in whole ecosystems. Until then, scientists used a less accurate method of piecing together ecosystem behavior from individual, unrelated measurements. For the next three decades, Bormann and Likens pioneered and developed whole ecosystem research and management based on the application of the small watershed technique to United States Forest Service watersheds at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire.
Likens, who has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1984, holds the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Chair in Ecology -- named in memory of the renowned Yale evolutionary ecologist -- at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Last June, he was awarded a National Medal of Science by President Bush.
This is the second year in a row that a member of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies faculty has won the Blue Planet Prize. Last year, Dean James Gustave Speth received the award for a career "devoted to creating and invigorating environmental institutions of extraordinary importance.
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