Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), a nonprofit ecological research group based in Portland, Maine, conducts innovative wildlife science worldwide.
BRI’s Center for Mercury Studies plays a lead scientific role in understanding the exposure and effects of mercury on wildlife in New England, North America, and around the world. The Center for Waterbird Studies is dedicated to assessing current and emerging threats to waterbirds. The programs in our Center for Ecology and Conservation Research aim to understand the workings of wildlife and their habitats while exploring how ecological stressors affect different species and ecosystems.
BRI's researchers are available to talk to journalists and provide expert information on both their work and the broader topics of their expertise.
To set up interviews, contact:
Deborah McKew, Communications Director
Portland, ME—Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), working as an executing agency for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), is now conducting Minamata Initial Assessment (MIA) activities in Cabo Verde, Chad, Guatemala, Nepal, Sao Tome and Principe, and Sri Lanka. MIAs are designed to assist countries in developing strategies to ratify and ultimately implement the Minamata Convention on Mercury.
“Mercury pollution is globally pervasive, but its toxic effects are most concerning in those places where people consume a diet high in seafood, such as in island or coastal states,” says David Evers, executive director of BRI and co-lead of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Mercury Air Transport and Fate Research Partnership. “That’s why it is imperative that not only these particular countries, but all nations around the world, ratify this Convention, which limits the use and spread of mercury in the environment.”
