by Wade Davis
Anthropologist Wade Davis is perhaps the most influential western advocate for the world’s indigenous cultures. His stunning photographs and evocative stories have captured the imaginations of millions. As a speaker, he parlays that sense of wonder into concern over the rate at which cultures and languages are disappearing–50% of the world’s 6,000 languages, he says, are no longer taught to children. The way Davis sees it, language isn’t just a collection of vocabulary and grammatical rules. Rather, “Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.”
He has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet, and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology, and a Ph.D., in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. He spent more than three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer in conjunction with the Harvard Botanical Museum, living among 15 indigenous groups in Latin America while making some 6,000 botanical collections. In recent years, his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Tibet, Vanuatu, and the high Arctic of Nunavut and Greenland, among others.
Davis has lectured at the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution, among others, as well as nearly 200 universities, including Harvard, Oxford and MIT. He has spoken at the Aspen Institute, Bohemian Grove, Young President’s Organization and the TED Conference. Mr. Davis is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the 2002 Lowell Thomas Medal awarded by the Explorers Club, which also made him, in 2004, one of just 20 honorary members in its hundred-year history.