International Conservation & Development

The Breakthrough Institute is proud to announce Steven Pinker, Ariane de Bremond, Sarah Evanega, and Julio Friedmann as our 2018 Senior Fellows. This is the tenth year that Breakthrough has conferred Senior Fellowships to leading scholars who have shaped our research and vision. This class of Senior Fellows will join the ranks of the 45 prominent experts who have joined our network of global thought leaders committed to building a future that is good for both humans and nature. We are grateful to be able to count upon their expertise, counsel, and inspiration.

In 2008, it was folly to imagine India creating new technological solutions to address the climate crisis. For decades India had called itself a victim of climate change and thus incapable of acting to reduce emissions; what’s more, 400 million Indians had no access to electricity at all. Ten years later, all of that has changed, and now India is a leader in renewable energy deployment while the United States is retreating from its commitments on climate. The story of how India transformed its energy technology outlook—and its relationship with the United States—to address climate change shows what may be possible in the future, writes Fellow Kartikeya Singh.

For years, timber barons in Peru have sent lumber to the US by the shipload. But many of the groves they harvested were pure fiction.

When thousands of animals die during mass migrations, ecosystems accommodate the corpses and new cycles are set in motion. Fellow Amanda Subalusky and her colleagues have been studying the mass drownings of wildebeest in Kenya and their impact on the Mara River.

Reducing the complexity of research on ocean ecosystems does not mean dumbing down your science, it means delivering science in a series of short chapters. If you can get the readers hooked, and don’t confuse them, you can tell a complex story. But that takes work and training that many scientists don’t have, writes Fellow Linwood Pendleton.

How did 24 diverse countries, including Russia, China, and the United States, come to agree to protect 1.55 million km2 of the Southern Ocean, more than 70% of which will be closed to commercial fishing? How did the US and Russia find common ground in the Southern Ocean, when it has been so difficult in other diplomatic arenas? Fellow Cassandra Brooks has an interesting answer.