Photograph by Mark Moffett
Photograph by Mark Moffett
One of only a handful of people to earn a Ph.D. under the world’s most respected ecologist, E.O. Wilson, Mark Moffett has written or photographed more than two dozen articles for National Geographic. He is a modern-day explorer with more than a little luck on his side, having accidentally sat on the world’s deadliest snake, battled drug lords with dart guns, and scrambled up a tree to escape bull elephants. For him such risks are worth it, as part of his mission to find stories that make people fall in love with the unexpected: insects, frogs, and other of nature’s small wonders.
The Boston Globe described his book The High Frontier, about the rain forest canopy, as “a stunning mix of adventure photography and hard scientific inquiry that ranks with the best work of Jacques Cousteau.” An entertaining and irreverent presenter who uses humor to open people’s eyes to the natural world, Moffett is a popular guest on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Colbert Report.
When not on expedition, Moffett divides his time between research positions at the University of California at Berkeley and the Smithsonian Institution, for which he will curate an exhibit in 2009 based entirely on his personal research and photography.
Presentation Topics
Adventures in Fragile Lands: Learning to be a 21st-Century Explorer
Moffett describes how risk-taking, trust, and teamwork contribute to his success. Working with poisonous subjects, including the world’s most deadly organism—a rarely seen frog in a remote valley in Colombia (one touch can kill)—the term “risk-taking” carries more weight than usual. In this presentation he seeks to inspire the next generation of tropical explorers with the insights he has gained about the beauty, architecture, and conservation of these towering arboreal communities.
The High Frontier: Exploring the Forest Canopy
From Malaysia to the Amazon to the Congo, Moffett has worked in the crowns of the world’s tallest trees, where most of the world’s biodiversity lies, pursuing orangutans and canopy bears or finding rare orchids and insects—work that he details in his book, The High Frontier: Exploring the Tropical Rainforest Canopy (Harvard Press).
Insect Tales: High Drama in Small Places
Is conservation only about the big things, such as lions, tigers, and bears? Oh my … certainly not! Moffett’s goal is to inspire his audiences to care about the obscure creatures: romantically inclined Sri Lankan spiders or dancing Brazilian frogs, 100-foot-wide (30.5-meter-wide) swarms of bloodthirsty army ants of Ghana or the multicolored “Doctor Seuss” flies of New Guinea. No one else knows these stories firsthand or can convey them with Moffett’s enthusiasm.
Learn More About Mark:
National Geographic Photographer Profile
Smithsonian Magazine: The Hidden World of Ants (July 2009)
NPR Interview: The Savage, Beautiful World of Army Ants
Listen to Radio Interview With Mark Moffett
Boyd Matson Interviews Mark for NG Weekend Radio Show
Ecologist to appear in National Geographic Live speaker series, March 17.
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