Prof. dr. Jan J. Boersema (1947) got his academic training as a biologist, major ethology, at the University of Groningen and lectured on biology and environmental sciences at the same University. He graduated in theology with a thesis titled The Torah and the Stoics on Mankind and Nature (English edition published with Brill, Leiden, 2001). In 1994 he became Reader in Environmental Science and Philosophy at Leiden University and at the same time Secretary General of the Council for the Environment at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. At the same ministry he became a cofounder and member of Forum a think-tank operating from 1999 - 2002. In 2002 he was appointed as special professor, and in 2005 as full professor, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam where he is based at IVM (Institute for Environmental Studies). His inaugural lecture entitled "Hoe Groen is het Goede Leven" (How Green is the Good Life) in which he developed a new theory on the ecological history of Easter Island was held in October 2002. His current research is focused on the relation between sustainability, nature, culture, worldviews and religion. His publications cover a wide range of subjects in the environmental field. With Wim Zweers he edited Ecology, Technology and Culture (White Horse Press, Cambridge 1994) and he is editor in chief of two textbooks on Environmental Science: Basisboek Milieukunde (Boom, Amsterdam 1984, 1992) and Principles of Environmental Sciences (Springer Publishers, 2009).