Willie Smits

Activist, Architect, Doctor, Educator/Teacher, Environmentalist, Idea generator, Inventor, Parent, Scientist

I am an Indonesian national but was born in The Netherlands. I studied tropical forestry and got my PhD in forestry and microbiology from Wageningen, The Netherlands. I live for about 30 years now in Indonesia and am married to the queen of the Tombulu tribe in North Sulawesi. We have three sons and two granddaughters. I work much in nature conservation (including orangutans and many other protected wildlife species for which I was knighted) and reforestation and am a lecturer at a number of universities. My latest project involves sugar palms for a true people planet profit win win solution.

I'm passionate about justice and fairness in our dealings with people and nature. I believe that there is no such thing as a conflict between the needs of people and preserving nature.On the contrary!

animal behavior, Forestry, Microbiology, Modeling and Simulations, Nature Conservation, remote sensing, Sugar Palms

I was recommended by both Richard Zimmerman of Orangutan Outreach and by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute to the TED organizing committee to be invited as a speaker for TED 2009. I had no idea what I was getting myself involved with, but after arriving in Long Beach and meeting Frans Lanting I quickly understood what a special group of people was gathered here. A group of people that wants to make a change for the world and have the power and means to do so. I truly enjoyed the experience of attending and getting so much feed back to my talk. Definitely hope to be back with a lot more worthwhile ideas!

designing buildings, facilities and landscaping.