Earth Summit Experts Available For Comment

8/6/2002

From: Kerry Green Zobor, 202-778-9509 or Jennifer Seeger, 202-778-9742, both of the World Wildlife Fund

News Advisory:

At the Earth Summit to be held in Johannesburg, August 26 to September 4, world leaders will be grappling with a variety of environmental issues aimed at making concrete commitments to help the world achieve sustainability. Energy, water, climate change, toxics, marine, fisheries, funding and trade will have a major portion of the agenda at this largest of environmental meetings since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

In addition to the contingent from WWF who will be attending this year's Earth Summit, WWF has a team of experts who can provide background and comment on these several major areas of discussion at the Summit.

Attending the Earth Summit and available for comment from now until the end of the Summit will be:

-- Brooks B. Yeager, vice president for World Wildlife Fund's Global Threats Program.

Yeager will lead WWF's contingent of experts at this year's Summit. At WWF, Yeager supervises the efforts of five campaign teams working to conserve global forests and ocean resources, to avert damage to the global environment from climate change and toxic pollution, and to assure that world commerce is environmentally sustainable.

Before joining WWF, Yeager was the deputy assistant secretary for environment and development at the U.S. State Department. At State, Yeager was responsible for the development and negotiation of U.S. Government policy in a wide variety of global environmental discussions. Yeager was the United States' lead negotiator for the recently concluded UNEP Global Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

-- Clifton Curtis, director, World Wildlife Fund's Toxics Program.

Curtis directs WWF's priority work on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). Those efforts seek to reduce and eliminate threats posed to wildlife and humans by toxic chemicals in agriculture and industry, and to identify and promote environmentally safe, effective and affordable alternatives. He will be part of WWF's delegation to the Earth Summit.

-- Jennifer Morgan, director, Climate Change Program.

Previously, Morgan was coordinator of the U.S. Climate Action Network, based in Washington, D.C. She has been a campaign coordinator for the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives in Freiburg, Germany, and worked as a fellow at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety as well as the European Business Council for Sustainable Energy Future, in Bonn, Germany. Morgan will also be a member of the WWF delegation to the Earth Summit.

Available for comment on issues covered at the Earth Summit from now until the end of the Summit:

-- David Sandalow, executive vice president of World Wildlife Fund.

Sandalow is currently responsible for management of WWF's conservation, advocacy and research programs. Prior to his current position, he served as assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science. In this capacity he helped manage U.S. diplomacy on a broad range of environment, science and technology issues. Prior to his State Department post, Sandalow advised the President and Vice President on global environmental issues, while serving jointly as senior director for environmental affairs, National Security Council and associate director for the global environment, White House Council on Environment

-- Robin Abell, freshwater conservation biologist for WWF's Conservation Science Program.

Abell currently oversees a similar assessment of Africa's freshwater ecoregions; works on global-scale mapping of freshwater ecoregions; and helps to develop ecoregion-based conservation strategies for a number of high-priority areas, including the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong River systems, Southeast rivers and streams of the United States, and the Chihuahuan Desert.

-- Scott Burns, director of the Marine Conservation Program.

Burns also directs WWF International's Endangered Seas Campaign. Before joining WWF, Burns was a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law. In addition, he has been affiliated with a variety of other conservation organizations, and worked as a commercial fisherman on the Chesapeake Bay.

-- Stephen Kelleher, deputy director of the Global Forest Program.

Kelleher leads WWF's efforts on issues related to forests and climate and serves on the advisory group for forest landscape restoration. Kelleher has over 13 years of experience working in tropical forestry and conservation in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. His technical experience in forestry, environment and biodiversity conservation includes field-level project implementation, grant and contract management, and national level environmental policy planning.

-- Claudia Saladin, director of WWF's Sustainable Commerce Program.

Saladin heads up WWF's program which focuses on elimination of environmentally harmful fishing subsidies, forests and trade in the western hemisphere, and sustainability of trade agreements.