Notable Ecologists, Environmentalists, & Conservationists Posters “M...-”
for science & social studies classrooms, home schoolers, offices.

Wangari Maathai
b. 4-1-1940; Ihithe village, Colony of Kenya
d. 9-25-2011; Nairobi, Kenya (ovarian cancer)

Environmental and political activist Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize for Peace for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1984.

Maathai earned a degree in biology at Mount St. Scholastica (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, and a Master of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh. After the job as a research assistant in Nairobi was given to someone else based on her gender and tribal affiliation, Maathai was offered another research position which lead to a doctorate in at the University of Munich and eventually to a professorship at the University of Nairobi.

Wangari Maathai quotes ~
• “In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.”
• “It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.”
• “We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.”
• “I have warned people against false beliefs and misinformation such as attributing this disease to a curse from God or believing that sleeping with a virgin cures the infection. These prevalent beliefs in my region have led to an upsurge in rape and violence against children. It is within this context, also complicated by the cultural and religious perspective, that I often speak. I have therefore been shocked by the ongoing debate generated by what I am purported to have said. It is therefore critical for me to state that I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive.”
• “Anybody can dig a hole and plant a tree. But make sure it survives. You have to nurture it, you have to water it, you have to keep at it until it becomes rooted so it can take care or itself. There are so many enemies of trees.”
• “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.”
• “To the young people I say, you are a gift to your communities and indeed the world. You are our hope and our future.”
• “Throughout Africa, women are the primary caretakers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families.”
• “The traditional ways were wrongly disowned by Christianity - in hindsight, medicine men were not demons but very important counsellors in the community.”
• “Using trees as a symbol of peace is in keeping with a widespread African tradition. For example, the elders of the Kikuyu carried a staff from the thigi tree that, when placed between two disputing sides, caused them to stop fighting and seek reconciliation. Many communities in Africa have these traditions.”

editor note ~ don't you think that it is interesting that the symbol of Christianity, the cross, is sometimes referred to as a “Tree”, and should be used as the Kikuyu elders did with the staff?

Benton MacKay
b. 3-6-1879; Stamford, CT
d. 12-11-1975

Benton MacKay was a co-founder of The Wilderness Society and was the originator of the Appalachain Trail, a hiking trail that which runs 2,179 miles between Georgia's Springer Mountain and Mount Katahdin in Maine.

George Perkins Marsh
b. 3-15-1801; Woodstock, VT
d. 7-23-1882; Vallombrosa, Italy

George Perkins Marsh is widely considered to be the father of the environmental movement. Marsh's 1847 speech on conservation set the tone for all future discussions on the matter of conservation or environmentalism.

FYI - Marsh, the longest-serving chief of mission in U.S. history, was appointed the first United States minister to the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, by Abraham Lincoln.

George Perkins Marsh quotes ~
• “Sight is a faculty; seeing, an art.”
• “The great question, whether man is of nature or above her.”
• “The improvement of forest trees is the work of centuries. So much more the reason for beginning now.”
• “Wherever modern Science has exploded a superstitious fable or even a picturesque error, she has replaced it with a grander and even more poetical truth.”
• “Man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords.”
• “The equation of animal and vegetable life is too complicated a problem for human intelligence to solve, and we can never know how wide a circle of disturbance we produce in the harmonies of nature when we throw the smallest pebble into the ocean of organic life.”
• “So long as the fur of the beaver was extensively employed as a material for fine hats, it bore a very high price, and the chase of this quadruped was so keen that naturalists feared its speedy consideration. When a Parisian manufacturer invented the silk hat, which soon came into almost universal use, the demand for beavers' fur fell off, and this animal–whose habits, as we have seen, are an important agency in the formation of bogs and other modifications of forest nature–immediately began to increase, reappeared in haunts which we had long abandoned, and can no longer be regarded as rare enough to be in immediate danger of extirpation. Thus the convenience or the caprice of Parisian fashion has unconsciously exercised an influence which may sensibly affect the physical geography of a distant continent.”
• “The ravages committed by man subvert the relations and destroy the balance which nature had established between her organized and her inorganic creations; and she avenges herself upon the intruder, by letting loose upon her defaced provinces destructive energies hitherto kept in check by organic forces destined to be his best auxiliaries, but which he has unwisely dispersed and driven from the field of action. When the forest is gone, the great reservoir of moisture stored up in its vegetable mould is evaporated, and returns only in deluges of rain to wash away the parched dust into which that mould has been converted. The well-wooded and humid hills are turned to ridges of dry rock, which encumbers the low grounds and chokes the watercourses with its debris, and–except in countries favored with an equable distribution of rain through the seasons, and a moderate and regular inclination of surface–the whole earth, unless rescued by human art from the physical degradation to which it tends, becomes an assemblage of bald mountains, of barren, turfless hills, and of swampy and malarious plains. There are parts of Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, where the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon; and though, within that brief space of time which we call 'the historical period,' they are known to have been covered with luxuriant woods, verdant pastures, and fertile meadows, they are now too far deteriorated to be reclaimable by man, nor can they become again fitted for human use, except through great geological changes, or other mysterious influences or agencies of which we have no present knowledge, and over which we have no prospective control. The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant, and another era of equal human crime and human improvidence, and of like duration with that through which traces of that crime and that improvidence extend, would reduce it to such a condition of impoverished productiveness, of shattered surface, of climatic excess, as to threaten the depravation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the species. ”

The quote on the front piece of George P. Marsh's Man and Nature (1864) is from the Congregational minister Horace Bucknell, Sermon on the Power of an Endless Love, “Not all the winds, and storms, and earthquakes, and seas, and seasons of the world have done so much to revolutionize the earth as Man, the power of an endless life, has done sing the day he came orth upon it, and received dominion of it.” Horace Bushnell was instrumental in establishing the first public part in the US, Bushnell Park in Hartford, CT.

Robert “Bob” Marshall
b. 1-2-1901; NYC, NY
d. 11-11-1939; on midnight train from Washington, DC to NYC

Educated as a botanist Bob Marshall was one of the principal founders of The Wilderness Society, and served in several government agencies in the area of forestry. The Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana and Mount Marshall in the Adirondacks, are named in his honor.

Bill McKibben
b. 1960; California

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben has written extensively on the impact of global warming.

350.org - Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity. Learn more about 350 — what it means, where it came from, and how to get there.

Margaret Mead
b. 12-16-1901; Philadelphia, PA
d. 11-15-1978; NYC

Anthropologist Margaret Mead taught at Columbia University and Fordham University, as well as mentoring numerous students.

EARTH DAY CEREMONY
United Nations, March 20, 1977 - “It makes me feel very humble to be here today and to realize what this day means, because I have lived long enough to see us come to know that we have only one Earth and to come to know that all the people on this planet are one species.

This was a matter of hope and of faith before. Not until World War II, when we explored the whole Earth, its deepest valleys and its highest mountains and looked everywhere for the people that were there, did we know for certain that all of us on this planet were one species, human beings. And then as we began to go into space for the first time, to leave this planet for the first time, we came to know that not only were we the only people on this Earth, and all one people, but also that Earth was the only inhabited planet in the solar system - that we were all alone here, all alone to be the custodians of life on this Earth.

We used to call it, you know, “the Earth.” Now, we call it “Earth.” And we didn't speak of a “planet” when I was a child. Sometimes we talked of the “globe.” But then we referred to an artificial globe which human beings had made to represent this Earth for them.

So that only, in the last quarter of my life, have I, like all those here, come to know what it means to be the custodians of the future of Earth: To know that unless we take care, unless we check the rapacious exploitation of Earth, unless we protect our rivers and our lakes, our oceans and our skies, we are endangering the future of our children and our children's children.

We didn't know this, except in little pieces. People knew they had to take care of their own meadows, of their own forests or their own rivers. But it was not until we saw the picture of Earth from the moon that we realized how small and helpless this planet is, something that we must hold in our arms and care for.

Earth Day is to be the first completely international and universal holiday that the world has ever known. Every other holiday was tied to one place, or some political or special event. This Day is tied to Earth itself, and to the place of Earth in the whole solar system.

At this moment, when I climb the steps and ring the Peace Bell, it will be the Equinox in every part of the world, and we can all celebrate it at once on behalf of every part of the world.

Donella Meadows
b. 3-13-1941; Elgin, Illinois
d. 2-20-2001; Hanover, NH

Environmental teacher and author Donella Meadows is best remembered for her work on the 1972 book The Limits to Growth, modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing world population and finite resource supplies. The study was commissioned by the Club of Rome, a global think tank that considers a variety of international political issues, founded in April 1968.

Donella Meadows quotes ~
• “Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm.”
• “A knowledgeable and courageous U.S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate.”
• “There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair.”
• “A vision should be judged by the clarity of its values, not the clarity of its implementation path.”
• “Calculating how much carbon is absorbed by which forest and farms is a tricky task, especially when politicians do it.”

Chico Mendes
b. 12-15-1944; Xapuri, Brazil
d. 12-22-1988

Labor and environmental activist Chico Mendes was gunned down for organizing resistance to the wholesale burning of the Amazon forest. He had convinced the government to take back land ranchers had stolen at gunpoint, or through graft, and then to transform it into “extractive reserves,” set aside for the sustainable production of rubber, nuts, and other goods harvested from the living forest.

• “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity.”

William Morris
b. 3-24-1833; Walthamstow, England
d. 10-3-1896; London

William Morris is best remembered as a writer, non-practicing architect, artist and leader in the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He was one of the first Victorians ask “What are the necessaries for a good citizen?”, and the consequences of human activity that is not “honourable and fitting work” resulting in poor housing, crowded space and lack of order and beauty.

“.... 1. Our houses must be well-built, clean and healthy. 2. There must be abundant garden space in our towns, and our towns must not eat up the fields and natural features of the country. Nay, I demand even that there be left waste places and wilds in it, or romance and poetry, that is Art, will die out among us. 3. Order and beauty means that not only our houses must be stoutly and properly built, but also that they be ornamented duly; that the fields be not only left for cultivation, but also that they be not spoilt by it any more than a garden is spoilt; no-one for instance to be allowed to cut down, for mere profit, trees whose loss would spoil a landscape; neither on any pretext should people be allowed to darken the daylight with smoke, to befoul rivers, or to degrade any spot of earth with squalid litter and brutal wasteful disorder.” “.... 1. Our houses must be well-built, clean and healthy. 2. There must be abundant garden space in our towns, and our towns must not eat up the fields and natural features of the country. Nay, I demand even that there be left waste places and wilds in it, or romance and poetry, that is Art, will die out among us. 3. Order and beauty means that not only our houses must be stoutly and properly built, but also that they be ornamented duly; that the fields be not only left for cultivation, but also that they be not spoilt by it any more than a garden is spoilt; no-one for instance to be allowed to cut down, for mere profit, trees whose loss would spoil a landscape; neither on any pretext should people be allowed to darken the daylight with smoke, to befoul rivers, or to degrade any spot of earth with squalid litter and brutal wasteful disorder.” Art and Socialism speech, Leicester, Jan 23, 1884

• News from Nowhere and Other Writings, William Morris
• Garden of Delight print

J. Sterling Morton: Pioneer Statesman; Founder of Arbor Day

J. Sterling Morton
b. 4-22-1832; Adams, NY
d. 4-27-1902; Lake Forest, IL

Julius Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day, was the Secretary of Agriculture for President Cleveland and also served as Secretary of Nebraska Territory and Acting Governor.

FYI - Morton's son Joy (Joy was his mother's family name) was the founder of the Morton Salt Company in Chicago.

Never Cry Wolf

Farley McGill Mowat
b. 5-12-1921; Ontario, Canada

Conservationist Farley Mowat is one of Canada's most widely-read authors.

John Muir
b. 4-21-1838; Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland
d. 12-24-1914; Los Angeles, CA

John Muir was the founder of the Sierra Club and his work helped save Yosemite Valley in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” -
John Muir, 1901

FYI ~ Muir is featured on the California State Quarter with the Half Dome monolith and the California Condor.

John Muir quotes ~
• “Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries.

• John Muir ecard