Dr Chipper WICHMAN

President, National Tropical Botanical Garden

Chipper is the President of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) a Congressionally Chartered nonprofit organization headquartered on the island of Kauai in the State of Hawaii. NTBG manages four botanical garden and five preserves in Hawaii and a botanical garden in Coconut Grove, Florida. Chipper began work at NTBG in 1976 conducting botanical surveys where he discovered many new species of plants and helped to pioneer methods of rappelling down cliffs to hand pollinate species threatened with extinction. Under his leadership, NTBG has developed three strategic plans which have charted a course for increased global leadership to address the grand challenges the world is facing in the 21st century. NTBG is now a recognized leader in biodiscovery in the Pacific, it is leading the effort to Red List species with the IUCN and is a leader in the international effort to implement the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.