Photo credit: Global Environment Facility
On August 31, 2022, my friend and colleague Gustavo Fonseca, the Director of Programs at the Global Environment Facility, unexpectedly passed. In his honor, we have dedicated our main meeting room at the GEF offices in Washington, DC as the Gustavo Fonseca Conference Room.
Gustavo loved the GEF and firmly believed in the importance of international collaboration for the environment. He once described the GEF’s mission to me as “beautiful,” and he imparted that passion to his colleagues and collaborators. Much of the GEF’s success is a direct result of Gustavo’s vision and hard work. And his direct impact continues still, as many of the initiatives he spearheaded in his final year of life are now being operationalized.
Over my years at the GEF, Gustavo became my mentor, supporter, and friend. He told me once that I could always count on him – and he was true to his word. While we will never be able to fully convey what he meant to many of us, the GEF has sought to honor Gustavo in a number of ways since his passing. One of these is the dedication of the Gustavo Fonseca Conference Room. This space includes a series of tributes within it that were carefully chosen to reflect Gustavo’s life and legacy.
Gustavo was a Brazilian, through and through - we were never more certain of that than during the World Cup! The name plaque of the Conference Room is made from wood that was sustainably harvested from the Brazilian Amazon. The plaque was donated by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO), a Brazilian conservation organization that was founded in 1995 by a GEF grant and that became an implementing agency 20 years later.
The photo that accompanies his biography is that of a younger Gustavo with a monkey, in honor of his early work as a primatologist and biologist. Inside the conference room is a library corner with a selection of books that Gustavo had in his office, several of which he authored or co-authored. The fearsome caiman statue that used to grace his office now adorns the top of the bookshelf.
The central feature of the Gustavo Fonseca Conference Room is a semi-transparent mural that runs the full length of the conference room glass wall. This was designed and produced by Christian Hofer - a GEF colleague, artist, and friend of Gustavo’s. An abstract colorful portrait of Gustavo’s face lies at the center. Surrounding the portrait are scenes of the Brazilian Amazon, and alongside it there are two quotes from Gustavo that embody his vision.
“You can’t have effective action without informed policy, and you can’t have informed policy without solid science. It’s that simple.” Gustavo effectively straddled both science and policy throughout his career. He recognized that these two worlds were too-often seen as distinct rather than intersecting, and championed having the GEF operate at the heart of this nexus. As an academic, an intellectual, and a practitioner, Gustavo grounded us in science whilst simultaneously keeping politics and project management realities in view.
“The best way to predict the future is to build it and to construct it.” Gustavo aimed to chart a different future for action on the global environment. He believed that the GEF needed to play a significant role in reversing the trends of environmental degradation. Thanks to Gustavo, today’s GEF is increasingly characterized by a paradigm of integration, taking a holistic, coordinated approach to the underlying drivers of environmental change. This paradigm is now well established in the international scientific and political communities as one of the main routes through which the needed transformational changes will occur.
Since his passing, several new staff members have joined the Secretariat, many of whom did not have the chance to know Gustavo. The Gustavo Fonseca Conference Room helps us to tell his story, to these new colleagues as well as to the countless daily visitors to the GEF. Of course, there are many defining characteristics of Gustavo that are not captured, such as his passion for karaoke or his inexplicable love of Miller Lite - both of which were necessary conditions for him at every social GEF gathering! Notwithstanding, the Gustavo Fonseca Conference Room stands as a tangible tribute to many key elements of this giant of a man whom I loved and so dearly miss.
At the same time, the most significant and lasting tribute to Gustavo is in fact the intangible - the many people at the GEF and across the world whom he mentored, guided, invested in, and shaped during his life and his career. I was deeply privileged to be one of these people. May we always make him proud.
