Eric K. Noji nominated Director of Global Biodiversity Protection USA, Washington, D.C.
Dr Eric K. Noji, the legendary humanitarian visionary, medical doctor, noted author and iconic figure in the disaster relief community has been appointed director of the Global Biodiversity Protection Office in Washington, D.C. He will be responsible for assisting the President of GBP and other senior staff to develop an overall vision, goals and objectives to protect and sustain “the remarkable diversity of life on this planet”, especially as it relates to global health, sustainable economic development, and education. Eric will play a importent role in the success of the organisation, and it is a great privilege for GBP to serve as the instrument to extend his remarkable influence beyond all borders.
Iveta Seidlova
President of Global Biodiversity Protection
Dear friends, colleagues and visitors to our webpage,
Eric K. Noji, M.D. at Gombe Stream Research Center, Gombe Stream Game Reserve in Tanzania My name is Eric Noji. Although a medical doctor by training, I have also spent a great part of my life in fields where I studied the wonderful diversity of life on this planet as a marine and wildlife biologist, as an ornithologist studying bird migration in Europe and North America, and as a scientist studying chimpanzee behavior in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream Research Center and assisting on pioneering gorilla safety monitoring programs and long-term behavioral research studies in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. For over 15 years, I volunteered on numerous occasions to work in Africa as Ranger, game warden and consultant to national Park police responsible for rescuing chimpanzees and mountain gorillas and protecting them against poachers who were illegally hunting them in the national parks.
This was dangerous work, our adversaries were quite violent but I came from a law enforcement background, having worked full-time as a park policeman and ranger naturalist in the US National Park Service between my university studies in medical school. Protecting and sustaining the remarkable diversity of life on this planet is certainly the very foundation of life, health, sustainable economic development, education, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. And even more fundamentally, biodiversity shapes all of us as organisms on this small rock in the middle of the solar system. I always tell people, that I am the very personification of “micro” biodiversity, being born in a place like Hawaii which is a melting pot of every ethnic group found in Wikipedia.
For example, I am 27.5% native Hawaiian, 9% Portuguese , 7.25% Dutch , 39% Japanese, 8.25% Greek, 7.25% Scottish, and 1.5% unidentifiable (I assume human genetic material). Hawaii, an isolated island chain that together with the Galapegos Islands are the places where the scientific foundation of evolution were first elucidated by Darwin, the fundamental nature of biodiversity, and unfortunately, are some of our earliest examples of the fragility of nature to external threats that may undo millions of years of development in a matter of months.
Eric K. Noji, M.D. at Gombe Stream Research Center, Gombe Stream Game Reserve in Tanzania
I know my impressive ethnic mixture and growing up in a place where theories explaining how this planet became populated by such an amazing variety of life, explains much of my personality, my beliefs, my philosophy of life, the type of work I do, and last but not least, why I am so passionate about what this organization does to both raise awareness and to take direct action in protecting global biodiversity. Biodiversity systems are areas throughout the world where the major life forms that sustain our global ‘biology’ are found. It is in these areas where the large majority of the crucial 1,500 vascular plant species, and at least 70% of original vertebrates, reside and define the foundation for sustaining the ‘public health’ of the planet. The resources focused in these unique biodiversity areas of the world must be recognized as “global resources,” not a commodity that can be owned by any one nation-state. The nation-states in which they reside are their protectorates and have a duty to ensure their lasting viability. I hope the information contained in this website conveys a small sense of what awaits to be discovered and inspires you to join us in unlocking that potential.
Best wishes,
Eric K.Noji
On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked and three weeks later, a national crisis was provoked by the intentional release of weaponized anthrax in the U.S. postal system. Dr. Noji was assigned by Secretary of Health & Human Services, Tommy Thompson to the newly established White House Office of Homeland Security located in the Executive Office of the President as an expert in the treatment of biological, chemical, nuclear and blast terrorism. Shown here briefing President George W Bush at the White House “war room”.
