In the 1980s and 1990s John D. Liu worked as a television producer and cameraman with
CBS News, RAI and ZDF covering geo-political events including the rise of China from
poverty and isolation and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the mid-1990s the World Bank
asked John to document the rehabilitation of the Loess Plateau.
Since learning that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems John has
devoted his life to understanding and communicating about the potential and responsibility
to restore degraded landscapes on a planetary scale. Since 2009 John has worked with
Willem Ferwerda the Founder and CEO of the Commonland Foundation, which is catalyzing
privately invested large-scale restoration in many parts of the world. John is also the
founder of the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement that began in 2016 and has grown
to over 50 camps in 6 continents and continues to grow.
Studying ecology led John to receive a number of academic appointments. In 2003 John was
given a visiting Fellowship with the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the Faculty of the Built
Environment at the University of the West of England (UWE), in 2006 John was named the
Rothamsted International Fellow for the Communication of Science at the Rothamsted
Research Institute of the UK, from 2008 to 2012 Mr. Liu pursued graduate studies in Soil
science and ecology at Reading University, in 2009 Mr. Liu was appointed Assistant Research
Professor at George Mason University, from 2010 – 2013 he was a Senior Research Fellow
with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and in 2013-2014, Mr.
Liu was asked to collaborate with the Critical Zone Hydrology Group, Vrije University
Amsterdam. In 2014 Mr. Liu was named a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of
Ecology of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (NIOO/KNAW) and
continues to study.
John D Liu is currently Ecosystem Ambassador for the COMMONLAND FOUNDATION.