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Roger Stone

Roger D. Stone, guest editor for this special report, is director and president of the Sustainable Development Institute. He was formerly a correspondent and news bureau chief for Time magazine with three years' service in Brazil. He has also been a vice president of the Chase Manhattan Bank and of the World Wildlife Fund, and president of the Center for Inter-American Relations. He is the author of five published books including Dreams of Amazonia (Viking/Penguin, 1985).

Recent Articles

Restoring the Battered Commons

The degradation of coasts and oceans continues, but faint hopes for improvement are stirring.

Roger StoneNov 21, 2008

"Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest," writes Garrett Hardin in his famous 1968 essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons." As a principal example, he continues, "maritime nations still respond automatically to the shibboleth of the 'freedom of the seas.' Professing to believe in the 'inexhaustible resources of the oceans,' they bring species after species of fish and whales closer to extinction."

Water Wisdom

Roger StoneMay 23, 2008

Recently I visited water expert Peter Gleick at the Oakland, California, headquarters of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, where he is president and co-founder. A MacArthur Fellowship award winner for his work on water issues, Dr. Gleick has been a practitioner in the field for some 20 years. His institute's work can be found at www.pacinst.org and www.worldwater.org. Some highlights of our conversation:

The Search for Solutions

From indigenous people to carbon traders, concerned groups have stepped up the fight to save the Amazon.

Roger StoneAug 12, 2007

Brazil has a prodigious ability to spend billions of dollars on Amazonian projects of little benefit to Amazonian people, flora, and fauna. In 1997 the federal government launched SIVAM (System for the Vigilance of the Amazon), a $1.4 billion program to deploy a fleet of 33 airplanes, specially equipped with sensitive monitoring gear, along the nation's northern frontier. The principal purpose of this shield is to enhance national security by offering protection in an area almost entirely bereft of roads or people of any sort, let alone forked-tongued foreign devils.

Tomorrow's Amazonia

As farming, ranching, and logging shrink the globe's great rainforest, the planet heats up. A Prospect special report on the assaults on, and the efforts to protect, the Amazon.

Roger StoneAug 10, 2007

There's a brash, risky new Amazonia out there. Pioneer entrepreneurs are making fortunes from activities long considered not feasible in this vast and challenging place, gouging ever deeper into the rainforest in pursuit of wealth. The deeper they slash into the forest and burn it, the more greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere. The destruction of the Amazonian forest has become a leading cause of global warming, with profound climate implications and dangers within the region and far beyond it. Why all this matters so much, and what there is to be done about it, is the subject of this report.