| Russell Alan Mittermeier | |
| Birth Date: | November 8, 1949 |
| Birth Place: | Bronx, New York, United States |
| Nationality: | American |
| Field: | Anthropology |
| Work Institution: | Global Wildlife Conservation |
| Alma Mater: | Dartmouth College Harvard |
| Known For: | Biological Diversity and Ecosystem Conservation |
Russell Alan Mittermeier (born November 8, 1949) is a primatologist and herpetologist. He has written several books for both popular and scientist audiences, and has authored more than 300 scientific papers.
Russell A. Mittermeier is Chief Conservation Officer of Re:wild (formerly Global Wildlife Conservation). He served as President of Conservation International from 1989 to 2014, then Executive Vice-Chair from 2014 to 2017. He specialises in the fields of primatology, herpetology, biodiversity and conservation of tropical forests. He has undertaken research in more than 30 countries, including Amazonia (particularly Brazil and Suriname) and Madagascar.
Since 1977, Mittermeier has served as Chairman of the IUCN-World Conservation Union Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group, and he has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Species Survival Commission since 1982. Before working for Conservation International, he spent 11 years at the World Wildlife Fund in the United States, starting as Director of their Primate Program and ending up as Vice-President for Science. He also served as an IUCN-World Conservation Union Regional Councillor for the period 2004–2012, was elected as one of IUCN-World Conservation Union's four Vice-Presidents for the period 2009–2012, and then was elected a lifetime Honorary IUCN-World Conservation Union Member in 2012. He also chaired the first World Bank Task Force on Biodiversity in 1988, which was instrumental in introducing the term "biodiversity" to that institution.
He became an adjunct professor at the Stony Brook University in 1978, a research associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University for more than two decades, and has been President of the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation since 1996. More recently, he was instrumental in the creation of the 25 million Euro Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, a new species-focused fund based in Abu Dhabi, and serves as a member of its Advisory Committee.
In the late 1970s, Mittermeier undertook one of the first studies of the critically endangered northern muriqui woolly spider monkeys in what would become the Caratinga Biological Station. Mittermeier has been particularly interested in the discovery and description of species new to science. He has described a total of 14 new species (three turtles, four lemurs, an African monkey, and six Amazonian monkeys) and has eight species named in his honor (three frogs, a lizard, two lemurs, a monkey, and an ant). The most recent (2014) of these is Mittermeier's saki, Pithecia mittermeieri, a monkey from the Brazilian Amazon. The lizard, Anolis williamsmittermeierorum, is named in honor of Mittermeier and American herpetologist Ernest E. Williams.[1]
Mittermeier has also been a leader in promoting species-focused ecotourism, particularly primate-watching and primate life-listing, and more recently turtle-watching and turtle life-listing, following the very successful model of the bird-watching community. To facilitate this, he launched a Tropical Field Guide Series and a Pocket Guide Series focused heavily on primates, but including a number of other species groups as well. More recent publications include The Tropical Field Guide Series are Lemurs of Madagascar, Third Edition (2010) and Primates of West Africa (2011) with a French edition of the Lemurs of Madagascar released in 2014. His own primate life-list, now totaling more than 350 species, is among the largest in the world.
Mittermeier was born in New York City. He received his B.A.(summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Dartmouth college and Ph.D. from Harvard University in biological anthropology for a thesis entitled, "Distribution, Synecology, and Conservation of Suriname Monkeys" in 1977.
Mittermeier's awards and honors include:
Russell Mittermeier's writing includes 36 books and more than 700 scientific and popular articles. Among his books are The Trilogy Megadiversity (1997), Hotspots (2000) and Wilderness Areas (2002), Wildlife Spectacles (2003), Hotspots Revisited (2004), Transboundary Conservation (2005), Lemurs of Madagascar (1994; 2006; 2010), Pantanal: South America's Wetland Jewel (2005), A Climate for Life (2008), The Wealth of Nature: Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Human Well-Being (2009), Freshwater: The Essence of Life (2010), Oceans: Heart of our Blue Planet (2011) and The Handbook of the Mammals of the World (Vol. 3 Primates) (2013).