Fabio Rubio Scarano was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he is Professor of Ecology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, since 1993, and Executive Director of the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS), since 2015. He has a degree in Forestry from the University of Brasília and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Fabio has worked for private companies in the forestry sector in Brazil, and for the Brazilian government he held positions in the Ministry of Education (2005-2011) and Ministry of Environment (2007-2009), when he was Science Director of the Botanical Gardens of Rio de Janeiro. He has also been a senior leader at the NGO Conservation International (CI; 2009-2015).
He has been a lead author in the latest reports of the United Nations’ panels on climate change (IPCC) and biodiversity (IPBES). Most of his scientific publications and books are related to climate change, sustainability science, science-policy interface, and biodiversity conservation. Some of his recent publications discuss the potential role of some plant species as regenerants of Gaia, the emergence of sustainability, and plausible sustainable futures. His current topic of interest is Earth, Gaia, as a holobiont, and the relationships between its components: the atmosphere, the biosphere, the technosphere and the noosphere.
