The Legacy of Dr. Arturo Gómez-Pompa
Dr. Arturo Gómez-Pompa, a Distinguished Emertus Professor at the University of California, Riverside, has won respect from politicians, scientists, and Mesoamericans for championing indigenous peoples in discussions of ecology and rainforest management. His research focussed on the evaluation of protected areas and the conservation of biodiversity in the American tropics. Through research, speeches, and publications, he exhibited scientific excellence and succeeded in involving indigenous peoples in research and conservation of their environment. Recognized by agro-economists and ethnoecologists for tact and compassion, he thrived as an organizer, educator, and consensus builder on issues involving living things.
Dr. Gómez-Pompa was born in Mexico City and earned degrees from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. At age 24, he received an appointment from the Mexican government to direct a commission partnering with pharmaceutical companies to survey medicinal plants. This endeavor set his life's work studying the Mexican rainforest.
In 1966, Dr. Gómez-Pompa completed a Ph.D. in botany from his alma mater. In the late 1960s, he studied forest ecology at a biological station in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. It is there that he compiled a database of native plants in Veracruz. The project began an herbarium collection to aid in plant identification for the museums from which the botanical samples were collected.
In Mexico, Dr. Gómez-Pompa founded the National Institute of Biotic Resources (INIREB), the birthplace of modern agroecology, a new field of research into low-tech agricultural methods in rain forests. His conclusions highlighted local initiatives as the best way to preserve nature.
An endowment was created at UCR to continue to fund students studying ethnobotany and bring ethnobotanists to UCR to share their wealth of knowledge, experience, and perspectives in our biennial Gómez-Pompa seminar.
Excerpts from encyclopedia.com (full link below). To learn more about Dr. Gómez-Pompa's contributions to the world, please visit https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/gomez-pompa-arturo-1934