TRAILBLAZER, SCHOLAR, teacher, leader, mentor are among the descriptors for Prof John Agard who died recently at the age of 71. However, while his passing marked the end of an extraordin­ary career, it has not marked the end of his influ­ence.

As con­dol­ences con­tinue to pour in, Jamaican stake­hold­ers in the cli­mate change and envir­on­ment space acknow­ledge him as a lead­ing Carib­bean sci­ent­ist, one who was gen­er­ous with his time and know­ledge and who made sci­ence speak, influ­en­cing count­less young pro­fes­sion­als whose careers he helped to shape, instilling con­fid­ence and inspir­ing best efforts that have served the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment interest of the region.

“Prof Agard left an out­stand­ing leg­acy. He cer­tainly imprin­ted his super­ior intel­lect, and, I think, the rig­or­ous applic­a­tion of sci­ence to enhan­cing the qual­ity of life through envir­on­mental invest­ig­a­tion, pro­tec­tion and man­age­ment. He believed in improv­ing planet Earth, leav­ing it a bet­ter place, and he worked to make that hap­pen,” said Eleanor Jones, head of the con­sultancy firm, Envir­on­mental Solu­tions Lim­ited, who served with him in vari­ous Uni­versity of the West Indies (UWI) fora and on regional pan­els.

“Here is a Carib­bean man who has out­done him­self and has left us with an amaz­ing sen

se of true schol­ar­ship and com­mit­ment to the human con­di­tion,” she added.

A pro­fessor of trop­ical island eco­logy, Agard, a Trin­id­a­dian, had research interest in sus­tain­ab­il­ity sci­ence that involved main­stream­ing envir­on­mental con­sid­er­a­tions such as pol­lu­tion, biod­iversity and eco­sys­tem ser­vices con­ser­va­tion, as well as cli­mate change impacts and adapt­a­tion into the core of policy and national decision-mak­ing.

He was a lead author of the UN Inter-gov­ern­mental Panel on Cli­mate Change 4th and 5th assess­ments and served as an inde­pend­ent advisor on envir­on­ment and sus­tain­ab­il­ity policy to the Board of the Inter-Amer­ican Devel­op­ment Bank in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

He also served as a mem­ber of the CARICOM Cli­mate Change Task Force and chair­man of the Envir­on­mental Man­age­ment Author­ity of Trin­idad and Tobago, over­see­ing the devel­op­ment of the National Envir­on­mental Policy and sev­eral pieces of sub­si­di­ary legis­la­tion, includ­ing the Cer­ti­fic­ate of Envir­on­mental Clear­ance, the Water Pol­lu­tion Rules, and the Noise Pol­lu­tion Rules.

Agard was, too, a mem­ber of the CARICOM advis­ory group on the Samoa Path­way for SIDS, was a coordin­at­ing lead author of the Inter­gov­ern­mental (Sci­en­ce­Pol­icy) Panel on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices, and was on the Sci­entific Advis­ory Panel of UNEP for the Global Envir­on­mental Out­look 6.

“I am deeply, deeply saddened to hear that he has passed. He has played a pivotal role in cli­mate change advocacy and action in the region and, over­all, for envir­on­mental con­ser­va­tion. I have always admired his calm demean­our and his patient style of impart­ing inform­a­tion. Whatever sci­entific stud­ies were done, he took his time to explain it in simple ways for the aver­age per­son to under­stand. He was a very caring, approach­able per­son. The region has suffered a sig­ni­fic­ant loss with his passing,” said Indi Mcly­mont-lafay­ette, a com­mu­nic­a­tions pro­fes­sional who has been involved in cli­mate change and the envir­on­ment advocacy.

“I am thank­ful for the body of work that he has left. I would say his leg­acy is to let the sci­ence speak. He was a part of the pion­eer­ing sci­ent­ists who took on the chal­lenge of build­ing cli­mate mod­els, and stud­ies in the region when nobody else was pay­ing it any atten­tion. He, along with Prof Michael Taylor, put Carib­bean cli­mate change sci­ence on the map and he put in the ground­work to ensure that that sci­ence was respec­ted inter­na­tion­ally,” she added.

For Prof Taylor, him­self a cel­eb­rated cli­mate sci­ent­ist and with his own earned repu­ta­tion of enabling sci­ence to speak, Agard was a “won­der­ful human being, bril­liant mind, regional asset, and UWI man”.

“It would be fair to say that Prof Agard has laid a stand­ard for what to expect from Carib­bean sci­ent­ists provid­ing lead­er­ship at the global level. The expect­a­tion is for lead­er­ship marked by com­pet­ency, insight­ful­ness, effect­ive del­eg­a­tion, an abil­ity to com­mu­nic­ate, and, import­antly, inclus­iv­ity,” he shared with The Gleaner.

As for his schol­ar­ship, Taylor said it has been “found­a­tional and instru­mental for the study of trop­ical eco­logy”, provid­ing a “solid plat­form for the study of small island eco­logy, the blue eco­nomy, and the value of eco­sys­tem ser­vices”.

“Import­antly, he has not only put regional sci­ence on the map through his own work, but he has been a strong advoc­ate for the inclu­sion of regional sci­ence issues in the global sci­entific land­scape. It is in part his advocacy, along with col­leagues, that has seen the ambi­tions of small island states reflec­ted in future global warm­ing tar­gets, for example, 1.5 to Stay Alive,” he said.

Photo caption: Prof. John Agard