Ask Jonathan Lash
President of the World Resources Institute
The CEOs and Presidents
- Jonathan Lash
World Resources Institute - Claude Martin
WWF - Steve McCormick
The Nature Conservancy - Michael Rands
BirdLife International - Mark Rose
Flora & Fauna International - Steve Sanderson
Wildlife Conservation Society - Peter Seligmann
Conservation International - Achim Steiner
IUCN - The World Conservation Union
- If you had US$10 million to spend on a conservation project - what would you spend it on?
- How did you get to where you are now?
- What advice would you give to someone wanting to work for you?
If you had US$ 10 million to spend now on a conservation project – what would you spend it on?
I think the most important thing we can do is to change the process by which decisions are made. So I would use it to advance the process of getting people included in environmental governance, building environmental democracy.
Governments of the world agreed in Rio to provide people with information about environment, access to decisions and environmental justice. And we’re just now getting round to guaranteeing that. If we guarantee people that, the outcomes would be different all over the world.
Back to the top
How did you get involved in conservation? What path did you take?
At the start of my career I went to the Dominican Republic where I saw an unsustainable path of living that marked me for the rest of my days.
Later in life, I was a prosecuting lawyer in Washington DC trying criminals, and I was very interested in using my skills on behalf of the environment. I therefore became a lawyer for one of the “hard line” advocacy groups, the Natural Resources Defence Council.
Back to the top
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to work for your organisation?
We’re looking for people who are smart, analytical, passionate about the issues, and very effective at communicating.
