UF Gets $3 Million Gift To Create Institute For Biodiversity, Environment

November 7, 2002

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida has received a $3 million gift aimed at making it an international leader in the study of biodiversity and the environment, a field that will play an increasingly important role in agriculture and other areas as Earth becomes more crowded and people continue to deplete its natural resources.

The gift, from the Minnesota-based William W. McGuire and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation, will establish a new program to be named the McGuire Institute for Biodiversity and the Environment. Located within the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, the first-of-its-kind institute will focus on the ecological importance of biodiversity and keeping use of the natural environment in balance with human needs by establishing an endowment to support this field of study.

Research conducted at the institute may lead to the development of drought-resistant crops, which may be needed because of rain belt shifts caused by global warming, or to help save and allow the reintroduction of endangered plant and animal species. Some of these endangered species are considered important indicators of harmful environmental factors that may be causing their destruction.

“Biodiversity, the extraordinary array of plant and animal species that keeps every part of our world functioning, is being recognized as an extremely important issue through this gift,” said Thomas C. Emmel, a professor and director of UF’s Division of Lepidoptera Research who also directs the McGuire Center in which the institute will be located. “This new institute will marshal incredible resources and talents at UF to help lead us toward a more sustainable future regarding ecology and the environment, and help us solve some of the world’s most pressing problems before it is too late.”

Emmel said he hopes the institute also will be able to provide an environmental crisis assessment team that could develop peaceful and environmentally responsible solutions to problems that will benefit humanity, such as fish or animal population reductions caused by mining and its introduction of heavy metals into rivers.

Institute officials expect to bring together researchers from disciplines throughout UF, including the Genetics Institute and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Emmel said. The gift also establishes a fund to produce publications on biodiversity, the environment, ecology and Lepidoptera, as well as to support faculty, researchers and staff.

In 2000, the McGuire’s gift of $4.2 million established The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Environmental Research now under construction adjacent to the Florida Museum of Natural History. The biodiversity institute will be located in the new 46,000-square-foot center, to be named McGuire Hall, which will house one of the world’s largest collections of butterflies and moths and the associated research facilities for their study. It will contain a public education gallery and living rainforest exhibit. The center is projected to open next fall.

“The institute will bring together the great human and collection resources already located at the University of Florida into one unit that will focus on and foster a wide range of research and educational opportunities with biodiversity and environmental concerns,” said Dr. Bill McGuire. “It will help bring to the forefront of human concern the great need to preserve the Earth’s biodiversity, and address the environmental and human population issues that are adversely impacting the world around us in the 21st century.”

Bernard d’Abrera, a philosopher of science with the Natural History Museum in London, said this field is becoming increasingly important as more land is developed worldwide.

“An institute like this is so important because it is vital that we concentrate on preserving what we have left, so that we may have something to pass on to our children and their children,” d’Abrera said. “We only have between 20 and 30 percent of what was originally created on Earth, and my hope is that the institute will not concentrate on the United States alone, but also will focus on other areas of the world, especially the tropical rainforests.”

Emmel said the institute’s central interest is biodiversity across the world, and will include plants and animals of all species, as well as human impacts on the environment.

“Some of the areas we plan to focus on include Nepal in the Himalayas; West Africa, where 95 percent of the rainforest is gone; and Papua New Guinea, where foreign mining and timber companies are quickly depleting natural resources,” he said.

The McGuires, of Wayzata, Minn., have a long-time interest in Lepidoptera and environmental studies and have donated major collections to UF in the past. Both are graduates of the University of Texas at Austin, and Bill McGuire received his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He currently is chairman and chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group.