James Joseph Tarrant

James J. Tarrant, whose interest from an early age in the global ecology movement led him to become a leading expert on environmental policy in Indonesia and elsewhere in the developing world, died on Jan. 30 after a long illness. He was 72. In his first overseas posting in the early 1980s, Jim set up environmental education centers at a number of Indonesian universities, aimed at preserving and sustaining the country’s watersheds and rainforests, one of the world’s largest. He reported to Indonesia’s late pioneering environment minister, Emil Salim. He then did extensive field studies on the traditional methods West Java farmers used to manage upland watersheds which became the basis of his Ph.D at the University of Sussex in England. Jim then embarked on a series of assignments from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on environmental and energy projects in Egypt, Cypress, Eastern Europe, Russia and Southeast Asia. He returned to Indonesia in 1998 during a tumultuous period when the strongman ruler Suharto was toppled from power to continue his work on Indonesia’s rainforest management under another USAID program. This was a foundational initiative that built a robust cadre of Indonesian experts and model field programs that continues to inspire efforts to this day. Over 30 million Indonesians depend on Indonesia’s expansive tropical forests for their livelihoods. The program, partnered with the Indonesian government, and worked with civil society groups, and private businesses to help reduce threats to forest conservation, promote biodiversity protection, and cut greenhouse gas emissions from unsustainable land use, particularly in Indonesian Borneo provinces that are home to carbon-rich peatlands and biologically diverse tropical forests that provide habitat for orangutans, rhinos, elephants, and tigers. As a boy, Jim received a gift of a spinning globe, which fascinated him. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s appeal to idealistic youth, Jim decided he would join the Peace Corps, which he did in 1972 after graduating from Allegheny College. He was sent to Ethiopia, where he taught English in a mountainous village school and helped set up water infrastructure. He sent home dozens of long, handwritten letters on tissue-thin airmail paper that read like National Geographic articles. His letters at that time and over the years were often accompanied by humorous drawings. Jim is survived by his widow Cynthia Mackie; their two children Kevin and Melati Tarrant; his mother, Kathleen Tarrant; two brothers, Bill and David; two sisters, Peg and Mary Sue; five nieces, Tavleen and Jasleen Tarrant; Narkeez Carlton, Natalie Tarrant and Meredith Bendl; and four nephews, James Carlton, Jackson Tarrant, Steven DeGrace, and James Joseph O’Leary.