Investing in Gold Is Causing Irreparable Harm to Earth’s Wild Places
As miners seek to profit on the high price of gold by dredging remote tributaries, rural communities struggle to preserve their forests and rivers.
Brian M. Griffiths
Brian Griffiths is a professor in the Earth Commons and a faculty fellow in the Center for Social Justice at Georgetown University, where he teaches about sustainability. He is a human ecologist that also engages with anthropology, ecology, and conservation biology, and prioritizes community-driven work. He is passionate about sustainable natural resource management and wildlife economies in the Peruvian Amazon. His recent projects include the ecology of natural Amazonian mineral licks and the influence of cultural practices on hunter behavior, each conducted in collaboration with the Indigenous Maijuna people of Peru. Griffiths has done consulting work with the Smithsonian and United Nations, among others, on topics ranging from environmental education to wildlife economics, and is a Species Survival Commissioner for the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Griffiths helps direct the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research and OnePlanet.