Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Jan Post obtained his masters degree in biology from Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is an avid diver and under water photographer and  spent a year in Curacao writing his thesis on coral reef ecology. In The Netherlands he was involved in the struggle to preserve the ecological integrity of  the country’s biggest estuary  to which his book “Oosterschelde” made a major contribution. He spent 2 years in the Negev desert in Israel on a project to reintroduce the original biblical desert fauna. He then became the first ecologist hired by a large Dutch International Engineering Firm in charge of the environmental impact of  projects in developing countries. After ten years he accepted an offer by the World Bank  to work in its newly established Environment Department. This assignment, like his previous job, sent him all over the world with an emphasis on  Western Indian Ocean countries, Central Asia and Latin America. He designed and managed several projects financed by the Global Environment Facility, a grant fund that is housed in the World Bank. In 2002 he won the World Bank’s “Innovation in the Marketplace” contest (open world wide) with the design of a project that protects the rainforest in Peru while at the same time providing a livelihood for the local population. The project became the subject of a T.V. film “Frogs of Gold” that has been shown all over the world.

Jan has traveled to Australia four times and is involved in conservation work in New Zealand, co-financing the  Brook Waimarama Sanctuary project. At home in the U.S.A, he keeps and breeds poison dart frogs in an in-house green house.