Matthew Shirts is editor-in-chief of National Geographic Brasil and coordinator of the Planeta Sustentável (Sustainable Planet) project, which boasts the participation of 38 magazines titles and sites published by Editora Abril as well as its own site. He writes a column for weekly magazine, VEJA São Paulo. He was a regular columnist for the daily, O Estado de São Paulo, for 17 years. US-born, Shirts was raised in California and came to Brazil for the first time as an exchange student in 1976. He obtained a degree in Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1981, studied History at the University of São Paulo, and went on to do graduate work at Stanford University in the early 1980s, where he was a student of the legendary historian Richard M. Morse. He is the author of the book O Jeitinho Americano (American Improv).

Environmental Policy, Aspen environment forum, Environment,