Michael E. Soule

Michael Soulé is a Zen Buddhist and "is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. He was born, raised, and educated in California. After spending much of his youth in the canyons, deserts, and intertidal of San Diego and Baja California, and after graduating from San Diego State, he went to Stanford to study population biology and evolution under Paul Ehrlich."

"Upon receiving his Ph.D. at Stanford, Michael went to Africa to help found the first university in Malawi. He has also taught in Samoa, the Universities of California at both San Diego and Santa Cruz, and the University of Michigan. He has done field work on insects, lizards, birds, and mammals in Africa, Mexico, the Adriatic, the West Indies, and in California and Colorado.

"Michael was a founder of the Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlands Project and has been the president of both. He has written and edited 9 books on biology, conservation biology, and the social and policy context of conservation. He has published more than 170 articles on population and evolutionary biology, fluctuating asymmetry, population genetics, island biogeography, environmental studies, biodiversity policy, nature conservation, and ethics. He continues to do research on ecosystem regulation by highly interactive species. He is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, is the sixth recipient of the Archie Carr Medal, was named by Audubon Magazine in 1998 as one of the 100 Champions of Conservation of the 20th Century, is a recipient of the National Wildlife Federation’s National Conservation Achievement Award for science, and the recipient of the Conservation Medal for 2007 from the Zoological Society of San Diego.

"Now living in Colorado, Michael speaks and writes on morality, conservation, serves on the boards of several conservation organizations, including the Wildlands Project, and consults internationally on nature protection. He is also co-chair of the Science Council for Australia’s WildCountry Project and is completing a book about conservation and human nature and practical means of saving the world."


 * Earthwatch Institute: International Advisory Council
 * Senior Fellow, Rewilding Institute

Publications

 * 1969. Paul R. Ehrlich, Richard W. Holm, and M. E. Soulé. Introductory Biology. McGraw-Hill, New York.
 * 1980. Soulé, M. E. and B. M. Wilcox (eds.). Conservation Biology : An Ecological-Evolutionary Perspective, Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
 * 1981. Frankel, O. H. and M. E. Soulé. Conservation and Evolution. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge and New York.
 * 1986. Soulé, M. E. (ed.). Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity. Sinauer Assoc. Sunderland, Mass.
 * 1987. Soulé, M. E. (ed.). Viable Populations for Conservation. Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge and New York.
 * 1989. Soulé, M. E. and K. A. Kohm (eds.) Research Priorities in Conservation Biology. Island Press. Washington, D. C. and Covelo, CA.
 * 1995. Soulé, M. E. and Gary Lease (eds.) Reinventing nature: responses to postmodern deconstruction. Island Press. Washington, D. C. and Covelo, CA.
 * 1999. Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations for Regional Conservation Networks. Michael Soulé and John Terborgh (editors). 1998. Island Press. Washington, D. C. and Covelo, CA.
 * 2001. Conservation Biology: Research Priorities for The Next Decade. Co-edited with Gordon Orians. Island Press. Washington, D. C. and Covelo, CA.

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Marine Conservation Biology Institute
 * Sanjayan Muttulingam