Gilberto Câmara is a leading researcher in Geoinformatics, Geographical Information Science, and Land Use Change with Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). He has been recognised internationally for promoting free access and open source software for Earth observation data.

Under his guidance, as Director for Earth observation (2001-2005) and Director General (2006-2012), INPE made significant advances in land change monitoring using remote sensing, which contributed to Brazil achieving 80% decrease in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, supporting Brazil’s commitment made at the UNFCCC COP15. This achievement was hailed as “the biggest environmental success story in a decade” by the scientific journal Nature. In support of Brazil’s pledge to the 2015 Paris Agreement, Gilberto lead a team that projected Brazil’s future emissions from land use and agriculture.

Gilberto is a co-chair of the Belmont Forum, an international consortium of the funding agencies of global environmental change research. The Forum supports international transdisciplinary research, providing knowledge for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change.

Gilberto has been involved in GEO since its early days, and led the Brazilian delegations that helped initiate GEO and GEOSS.