International Science Roundtable for the Media

During Prepcom4 of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Bali, Indonesia

Prof. Daniel Murdiyarso
Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (START)

BIOGRAPHY

Soon after completing his first degree in Forestry he took Master degree in Natural Resources and Environmental management. Both degrees were obtained from Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia. His PhD degree was then obtained in 1985 from the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK.

Professor Murdiyarso heads the Hydrometeorology Laboratory has a full teaching responsibility at the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Bogor Agricultural Univesity on some courses including Hydrometeorology, Forest Climatology, and Modelling in Global Change Researches. He also supervises several Master and PhD students and numerous undergraduates doing research and practical attachment.

He also had the opportunity to direct a Regional Centre that had the task to build the capacity of the Southeast Asian scientists in assessing the impacts of global change on terrestrial ecosystems including agriculture, production forests, and nature reserves; and to support the planning of sustainable development in the changing environment. These objectives were obtained by organising training workshops, providing fellowship and equipment grants, and organising science-policy workshops, which provide fora for science-policy dialogues.

His research works are mainly associated with a worldwide initiative, the Alternatives to Slash-and Burn Programme supported by GEF with the main objectives to find out the sustainable agricultural systems offering the best-bet alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture. Large number of research results were published from this work in reviewed journals and book chapter.

Dr Murdiyarso is one of the Coordinating Lead Authors for the IPCC Third Assessment Report and IPCC Special Report on Land-use Land-use Change and Forestry. He is also a member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences. In the past two years he had the opportunity to serve the government as Deputy Minister of Environment and in this capacity he was also the National Focal Point to the UNFCCC and CBD.

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