Antonio Nobre’s research and synthetic thinking about the way tropical forest canopies interact with the atmosphere has been instrumental in the development of the Global Canopy Programme. One of the world’s leading eco-physiologitsts, Dr. Nobre was one of the early group of researchers in the Brazilian-led Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Assessment (LBA) to place flux towers in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil. Bristling with instruments, these towers measure the movement of gasses, such as CO2 and Oxygen, as well as water vapour in and out of the forest canopy. The LBA project has provided science with a clearer picture of the vital importance of the Amazon forest ‘utility’ in maintaining the local to global climatic conditions on earth. Antonio’s site at ZF2 in Cuerias Reserve just north of Manaus, is also the site where the GCP-inspired ‘Forests Now Declaration’ began its journey across the tropics to be presented two months later at the UNFCCC COP in Bali. Dr. Nobre leads our collaboration in Brazil to develop a Brazilian and pan-tropical network for canopy science, the centrepiece of which will be two ‘Whole Forest Observatories’, one in the Amazon and another in the coastal forests of Brazil. Other WFOs are planned for Ghana, Madagascar, India, Malaysia and China.