Abigail Alling

For the past 23 years, Ms. Alling has actively engaged in marine, environmental and closed system research and development projects. Presently, she is co-founder and CEO of Biosphere Foundation and its division, the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF), a non-profit corporation dedicated to the study of Earth's coral reef ecosystems. PCRF maintains a research base in Akumal, Mexico and a research ship, the RV Heraclitus, which is now on its second mission to study coral reefs worldwide, a decade long, (2000 – 2010) “Planetary Coral Reefs and Cultures Expedition.” For more information www.pcrf.org

As CEO of Biosphere Foundation, Ms. Alling heads up its design and development of a manned Mars Base Mission simulation project called "Mars on Earth."

From 1991-1993, Ms. Alling was one of the eight "biospherians" to live for two years inside Biosphere 2, a 3.15 acre Laboratory for Global Ecology. Inside Biosphere 2, she served as the Scientific Chief for over sixty research projects.

After the successful completion of the two year closure, she became the Assistant Vice-President for Biospheric Development. From 1986 to 1994, Ms. Alling was also the Director of Marine Ecological Systems at Biosphere 2, where she created and operated the largest artificial ecological marine system, a 1,000,000 gallon mangrove marsh and ocean coral reef.

Previously, Ms. Alling was the Expedition Chief on the RV Heraclitus for the “Circumnavigation of South America” Expedition, which included a six-week voyage to the Antarctic Peninsula to study humpback whale population genetics in collaboration with the National Cancer Research Institute. In 1985, she served as the marine biologist supervising the historic first successful release of two captive bottlenose dolphins back to the wild. Additionally, she has been the recipient of numerous grants to conduct cetacean research in the world’s oceans under the auspices of a variety of organizations, including: the World Wildlife Fund, United Nations, Tides Foundation, Institute of Ecotechnics and Marine Mammal Commission.

Ms. Alling is a Fellow of both the Linnean Society (UK) and Explorers Club. She also serves as a Committee Member of the Paris-based, Espace Mer.

Many documentaries have featured her work and have been broadcasted around the world. These include: Buddha and the Biosphere for Vis a Vis French Television and The Coral Dance for Asahi Japan and Canal + French Television. PCRF’s work on coral reefs aboard the RV Heraclitus will be featured in a forthcoming three part National Geographic Asia television program.

She graduated cum laude from Middlebury College where she received her B.A. degree in Biology, and also received an M.S. degree in Environmental Studies, cum laude from Yale University.

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

William (Seward) Burroughs born 5 February 1914, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Ira Cohen

Editor, filmmaker, photographer, and poet, Ira Cohen was born in 1935.
He is the founder of numerous ground-breaking movements and reviews such as the Akashic Record, the Starstreams Poetry Series (Kathmandu), and the Universal Mutant Repertory Company (when he became known as "The Father of Mylar Photography"): he has also worked as contributing editor of publications such as Ins and Outs (Amsterdam), Ignite (New York), the NY Black Book, and Nexus (Dayton, Ohio). Selected volumes of his poetry have been published in Holland (The Stauffenberg Cycle and Other Poems), in Oracle, Arizona ( On Feet of Gold, Synergetic Press ) and England (Media Shamans Ratio 3 with Gerard Malanga and Angus MacLise}, as well as countless audio and CD recordings of performances with diverse artistic collaborators including Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and Jack Smith. His photographs have been used on various record covers including Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Pharoah Sanders and other covers for Bill Laswell at Axiom Records.

In the realm of visual art, his portrait photography depicts subjects from North Africa to India and the Himalayas to Ethiopia. His work has been exhibited extensively at various institutions including ART (New York), the October Gallery (London), the Gallery of Photography (Dublin), and the TB Institute (Tokyo). Photographs have been published in The London Sunday Times, Avant Garde, LIFE magazine, Facade (Paris), to cite only a few.

www.iracohen.org

Author's Titles:
On Feet of Gold

Johnny Dolphin (aka John Allen)
Johnny Dolphin Allen- explorer, author, poet, playwright, scientist, inventor and co-founder of the Biosphere 2 project - the world’s largest laboratory for global ecology, in 1963 gave up his New York international project development career to make a two year journey around the world living with the legendary avant-garde and Berber scene in Tangiers, Morocco, then continued dressed as an Arab hiking and hitch-hiking across N. Africa to the Pyramids and Karnak to study the origins of civilization. Deciding to move toward the tribal areas and explore the area of the origins of humanity, he traveled up the Nile, with tribal chiefs and shaman from the South Sudan to Lake Victoria, then journeyed on through Uganda, Kenya, to the sacred Zambezi, then returned north to stay in Swahili Mombasa before taking third class passage with refugees to the Rann of Kutch. From there he wandered through the physical and metaphysical realms of Hindu Karma yogins and Tibetan Lamas.

Then he encountered America again working as a stringer to a foreign correspondent and in a hospital on the Ho Chi Minh trail and SE Asia. Though he had published some poetry before, he emerged as an accomplished author with the first book of his authoritative Novel of the Sixties, "Thirty-Nine Blows on a Gone Trumpet". Since then, he has chronicled a personal and social history of the essence of the places he has been through novels, poetry, short stories and plays.

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Author's Titles:
Trilogy of the 60's
1) 39 Blows on a Gone Trumpet (1987)
2) Journey Around an Extraordinary Planet (1990)
3) Liberated Space (2000)

The Book of American Wisdom, Edited by John Allen

My Many Kisses & Other Short Stories (1998)
Off The Road (Poetry 1989-2000)
Wild (Poetry, Aphorisms & Short Stories) (1992)
The Dream And Drink of Freedom (Poetry 1946-1986)
Collected Works of the Caravan of Dreams Vol 1 and Vol 2

Ernest J. Eitel

Ernest J. Eitel, a missionary who worked in China, learned firsthand about the oral tradition of feng-shui and its philosophical roots, which span a range of thought from Taoism and Buddhism to ancient rural magic.

Henry Field

Born in 1902, American anthropologist Henry Field studied in England, graduating from Oxford University in 1925. He worked as Assistant Curator of Physical Anthropology in the Field Museum of Natural History, and held the position of Curator, 1934-41. Field participated in several of the Museum's Near East expeditions. Throughout his career, Field participated in archaeological expeditions in Europe, Africa, Mongolia and southwest Asia. He also led expeditions to Europe, the North Arabian Desert, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He was a member of the University of California African Expedition (1947-48), and the Peabody Museum- Harvard Expedition to the Near East and Pakistan.Henry Field received many honors and awards during his career as an Anthropologist. He was a research fellow in the physical anthropology department at Harvard from 1950-1969 and was also an honorary member of the Glasgow Archaeological Society. He also joined several foreign scientific societies and organizations in the Untied States and many other countries. Henry Field died in 1986 in Miami, Florida.

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

Born in Austria , he studied anthropology at the University of Vienna and University of London. In India he began his field research with a study of the Naga tribes and extended his studies to the tribal populations of Hyderabad state, Orissa and Arunachal Pradesh. He served with the Indian Government of India in the North East Frontier Agency from 1944 to 1945. In 1951, as Chair of Asian Anthropology at the University of London, he established the Department of Anthropology in the School of Oriental and African Studies. He concentrated on the study of the hill people of Nepal from 1953 to 1983 and laid the foundation for the anthropological exploration of Nepal with his book The Sherpas of Nepal, Caste and Kin in Nepal, India and Ceylon and Himalayan Traders. Since his retirement in 1976, he has continued his studies of tribal groups of India and Nepal, and authored numerous articles and books including The Sherpas Transformed and The Renaissance of Tibetan Civilization which documents the rebuilding of Tibetan culture in India and Nepal since the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959.

Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna

Born in Florencia, in the Colombian Amazon region. A Guggenheim fellow and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. With Pablo Amaringo established the internationally recognized USKO-AYAR Amazonian School of apinting in Pucallpa, Peru. 1994-1998, Professor in Anthropology in Brazil. Currently a Senior Lecturer at the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki, and since 1986, an Associate of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University.

John Michell

John Michell was born in 1933 and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. With The View Over Atlantis (1969) and City of Revelation (1972) he helped to change the attitudes of a whole generation toward the culture, wisdom and science of ancient and traditional societies. He lives in London.

Author's Titles:
Feng-Shui: The Science of Sacred Landscape in Old China

Mark Nelson
Dr. Mark Nelson was a founding director of the Institute of Ecotechnics and has worked for several decades in closed ecological system research, ecological engineering, the restoration of damaged ecosystems, desert agriculture and orchardry and wastewater recycling. He is Chairman and CEO of the Institute of Ecotechnics (www.ecotechnics.edu), a U.K. non-profit organization, which consults to several demonstration projects working in challenging biomes around the world; Vice Chairman of Global Ecotechnics Corp. and consults on wastewater reuse and recycling using Wastewater Gardens, subsurface flow constructed wetlands.

He served as Director of Space and Environmental Applications for Space Biospheres Ventures, which created and operated Biosphere 2, the 3.15 acre materially closed facility near Tucson, Arizona, the world’s first laboratory for global ecology (www.biospheres.com). Dr. Nelson was a member of the eight person “biospherian” crew for the first two year closure experiment, 1991-1993. His research inside included litterfall and decomposition in the tropical biomes, population dynamics and biomass increase, fodder production in the sustainable high-production agricultural system, and the constructed wetland sewage treatment system.

Beginning in the 1970s, Mark worked in the high desert grassland south of Santa Fe, New Mexico where he made hundreds of tons of compost, planted over a thousand fruit and windbreak trees, creating an oasis in previously overgrazed and eroding country. Since 1978 Mark has worked in the semi-arid tropical savannah of West Australia where he helped start Savannah Systems P/L a project centered on the pasture regeneration and enrichment of a 5000 acre property in the Kimberley region.

Publications include co-authoring “Life Under Glass” and “Space Biospheres”, editing “Biological Life Support Technologies: Commercial Opportunities” and numerous chapters in books on space life support systems. His research papers include ones on ecological hierarchy, wastewater recycling through the use of constructed wetlands, and applications of closed ecological systems. Dr. Nelson is a Contributing Editor of the journal, Life Support and Biosphere Science and a deputy organizer of the life science sessions on Closed Ecological Systems for COSPAR (the International Committee on Space Research of the ICSU).

Mark’s educational background includes a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Sciences from the University of Florida. His dissertation involved the creation of Wastewater Gardens® for protection of groundwater quality and coral reef health along the coast of Yucatan, Mexico. His M.S. was in the School of Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona; and his B.A. in Philosophy/Pre-Med Sciences was from Dartmouth College. Mark was a summa cum laude graduate from Dartmouth, Phi Beta Kappa and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, the honors engineering society. Mark was awarded the Yuri Gagarin Jubilee Medal, 1993 for outstanding service to international cooperation in space and the environment by the Russian Cosmonautics Federation; and elected a Fellow of the Explorers Club in 1994 and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 2001.

Dr. Ghillean T. Prance

Former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, UK, Dr.Prance is a leading figure in the ecology, taxonomy and ethnobotany of the Amazon Basin. From 1981 to 1988, he served as the Vice-President for Science at the New York Botanical Garden and as Founding-Director of the New York Botanical Garden's Institute of Economic Botany. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and the Explorers Club, a Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, and a Corresponding Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

Author's Titles:

Editor: White Gold: The Diary of a Rubber Cutter in the Amazon 1906-1916

Dr. Robert F. Raffauf FLS 1916-2002

Spent 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry concentrating on the search for novel medicinal agents from natural sources, which included several expeditions to Amazon with Dr. Schultes. A fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Research Associate of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University.

Rosé

Rosé was born deep in the Bronx in 1934. He began crafting his poetry attending a number of colleges during the 50's. After a stint in the army he bounced around working as a lifeguard, masseur and astrology writer. He saw his heaviest combat duty teaching High School in New York. In the early sixties he assiduously pursued Ancient Greek while dining on Mexican beaches, toping in European cafés and slumming in Moroccan dives. Between a stint of acting, including the movie "The Edge," he published a book of drawings and launched skin diving trips throughout the Yucatan and the Florida Keys. His "School of the Night" specialized in occult classes and his "Liquid Wedge Gallery" made media history with sculptor Tony Price's first "Atomic Art Show" in NYC in 1969.

Rosé is the father of two daughters. He lives with his wife in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he performs his poetry at the drop of a hat.

Dr. Richard Evans Schultes FMLS 1915-2001

Known as the father of contemporary ethnobotany, he has carried out extensive field studies, particularly in the Amazon.
He received numerous awards including the Cross of Boyaca, Colombia's highest honor, and the annual Gold Medal of the World Wildlife Fund. In 1987 he received the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and in 1992 he was awarded the Linnean Gold Medal, the highest award a botanist can receive. Dr. Schultes was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Linnean Society of London, three Latin American Academies, the Academy of India, And Third World Academy of Sciences.

Sierra Silverstone

Born in London, England, Sally's fascination with traditional cultures has taken her to East Africa, remote parts of India and Puerto Rico. From 1983 to 1994, she worked with the Biosphere 2 team, serving as manager of the design studio and the coordinator of the Biospherian Training Program. in 1991 she entered Biosphere 2 as co-captain and food systems manager of the first crew to inhabit this unique research project. sally is currently the CFO of Biosphere Foundation and the Project Director of Tropic Ventures, a 1000 acre demonstration rainforest project that researches and practices sustainable forestry.
She lives in Santa Fe, NM.

Tambimuttu

Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu (universally known as Tambi) founded Poetry London in 1939, which was controversial from the start. Attracting both enthusiasm and fury, some of the publications were lavish productions which are admired to this day, using the talents of leading artists such as Henry Moore, Gerald Wilde and Graham Sutherland. In the thirties, forties and fifties 'Poetry London' was the leading forum for artists and poets such as T. S. Eliot, DylanThomas, Lawrence Durrell and George Orwell among its many contributors and supporters. In this volume, the last publication made by the magazine's founder and original editor Tambimuttu, is a collection of work from the new vanguard.

Vladimir Vernadsky

Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) was a Russian geochemist and mineralogist who is considered to be one of the founders of geochemistry and biogeochemistry. This complete translation of his ground-breaking work, The Biosphere, is essential reading for anyone looking to comprehend the nature of the Earth in its planetary, cosmic scale.

The term "biosphere" which is much used today was first introduced to scientific world in 1926 when Vernadsky published a monumental research paper entitled "The Biosphere" (first published in English in1984 by Synergetic Press). Vernadsky continued to work on theory of the biosphere till the end of his life.

This definitive edition of Vernadsky's 'The Biosphere", also includes the translation of his second major book written near the end of his life entitled "Essays in Geochemistry."

This combined publication offers the English-speaking reader the opportunity to gain a solid understanding of Vernadsky's comprehensive thinking.

Author's Titles:
The Biosphere and Essays on Geochemistry

Additional Articles about Vernadsky and Photographs

Steven F. White

Born in Abingdon, Pennsylvania. Has lived and worked in many Latin American countries, a bilingual editor, translator and poet. Since 1987, teaching at St. Lawrence University and is a co-founder of its Caribbean and Latin American Studies Program.

Gerald Wilde

Wilde was greatly admired by artists of his own generation such as Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, by artists of later generations such as Lucien Freud and Frank Auerbach and his patrons included Keneth Clark, Peter Watson and Tambimuttu.

Terry Wilson

Wilson, currently lives in London, England, and his books are an account of his apprenticeship under the tutelage of Brion Gysin, legendary "avant garde" maestro, peerless painter/writer/inventor/mentor and accomplished shaman. Perilous Passage finalises Wilson's Green Base Trilogy which commenced with Dreams of a Green Base and "D" Train.

John C. Yungjohann

Yungjohann wrote his diary at the turn of the century, and documented what some of the horrors and daily life of the rubber cutter were like at the height of the Amazon rubber boom. He was an adventurer and an artist. He died in 1930.

Author's Titles:
White Gold: The Diary of a Rubber Cutter in the Amazon 1906-1916
Edited by Ghillean Prance