by DK
1865–1944
Also known as “Wild Goose Jack,” Miner moved with his family from the US to Canada in 1878. He was illiterate until the age of 33 but embarked on local conservation projects, such as building winter feeding stations for Bobwhites. He was one of the first people in North America to put aluminum bands on birds’ legs to track their movements. A duck banded by him, and later seen in South Carolina, was the first banding recovery made in North America. Miner is thought to have banded more than 90,000 wildfowl, helping establish a huge database of migration routes. See also: Citizen science
JAMES BERNARD HARKIN
1875–1955
Sometimes referred to as the “father of Canadian national parks,” Harkin had a passion for politics and conservation. In 1911, he was appointed the first commissioner of the Canadian National Parks Agency and oversaw the establishment of Point Pelee, Wood Buffalo, Kootenay, Elk Island, Georgian Bay Islands, and Cape Breton Highlands national parks. Harkin realized the commercial value of the parks, and his policy of encouraging road-building to attract tourists was not universally popular. He was a prime mover behind legislation to regulate the hunting of migrant birds in 1917.
See also: Endangered habitats • Deforestation
MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS
1890–1998
A formidable campaigner for the protection of the Florida Everglades, Douglas was also a successful journalist and author, suffragist, and campaigner for civil rights. Her 1947 book The Everglades: River of Grass was influential in building an appreciation of the Florida wetlands, and in 1969 she founded the Friends of the Everglades to defend the area from draining for development. Douglas remained active well into her second century, and at the age of 103 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
See also: Citizen science
BARBARA MCCLINTOCK
1902–1992
In 1983 McClintock became the first solo woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the first American woman to win any unshared Nobel Prize. The award recognized her discovery—more than 30 years before—of transposable genetic elements, or “jumping genes,” which sometimes create or reverse mutations. As a cytogeneticist concerned with how chromosomes relate to cell behavior, she also discovered the first genetic map for corn—linking physical traits with regions of the chromosome—and the mechanism by which chromosomes exchange information.
See also: The role of DNA
JACQUES COUSTEAU
1910–1997
French undersea explorer Cousteau was well known as the presenter of several documentaries on the aquatic world. After inventing underwater breathing apparatus called the Aqua-Lung in 1943, he worked with the French Navy to clear underwater mines after World War II. He later converted the Calypso, a former minesweeper, into a research vessel from which he explored the oceans, writing several books and making hours of television. The Calypso was badly damaged in 1996, but Cousteau died suddenly in 1997 before he could afford to replace it.
See also: A plastic wasteland
PIERRE DANSEREAU
1911–2011
Dansereau was a French Canadian plant ecologist who pioneered the study of forest dynamics and is considered one of the “fathers of ecology.” Born in Montreal, he gained his Ph.D. in plant taxonomy at the University of Geneva in 1939. He later helped set up the Montreal Botanical Garden and wrote numerous papers on botany, biogeography, and the interaction of humans and the environment. In 1988 he was appointed Professor Emeritus at the University of Montreal, a post he held until he retired, aged 93, in 2004.
See also: Biogeography
MARY LEAKEY
1913–1996
London-born Mary Leakey, one of the world’s foremost paleoanthropologists, experienced her first archeological excavation at the age of 17, when she was hired as an illustrator at a “dig” in Devon. In 1937 she married paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, and the couple moved to Africa to work in the Olduvai Gorge—a site rich in fossils—in what is now Tanzania. In 1948, Mary found the fossil skull of an 18-million-year-old ancestor of apes and humans, Proconsul africanus. More breakthroughs in understanding human ancestry followed, including the discovery in 1960 of Homo habilis, a 1.4–2.3-million-year-old hominid who used stone tools.
See also: Evolution by natural selection
MAX DAY
1915–2017
An ecologist and entomologist, Day developed an interest in wildlife, particularly insects, as a boy in Australia. He graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in botany and zoology in 1937, and then studied at Harvard University, earning a Ph.D. for his work on termites. After World War II, he returned to Australia, where he became the first head of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s Division of Forest Research in 1976. Particularly known for his work on myxomatosis and its use in controlling rabbit populations, Day published his first paper in 1938, and his last—on moths—74 years later.
See also: Thermoregulation in insects • Invasive species
JUDITH WRIGHT
1915–2000
Principally a poet, Wright was also renowned in her native Australia for campaigning on Aboriginal land rights and environmental issues. She was born in Armidale, New South Wales, and studied at the University of Sydney, before publishing her first book of poetry in 1946. Between 1967 and 1971, along with artist John Busst and environmentalist Len Webb, she built an alliance of conservation groups, trade unions, and concerned citizens to fight Queensland state government’s plans to open up the Great Barrier Reef to mining. The campaign, detailed in her book The Coral Battleground (1977), eventually succeeded.
See also: The Green Movement
EILEEN WANI WINGFIELD
1920–2014
As a young Aboriginal woman in Australia, Wingfield herded cattle and sheep with her father and sister. In the early 1980s she lay down in front of bulldozers at Canegrass Swamp in opposition to construction of the Olympic Dam uranium mine. Later, Wingfield teamed up with Eileen Kampakuta Brown and other Aboriginal elders to campaign against the government’s proposals to dump nuclear waste in South Australia. The women toured the country, speaking at meetings to highlight the dangers of the dump, which they feared could grow as foreign governments and corporations saw an opportunity to dispose of their radioactive waste.
See also: Pollution
EUGENIE CLARK
1922–2015
Known as the “Shark Lady” for her research on shark behavior, Clark was a Japanese-American marine ecologist and a pioneer in the use of scuba diving for scientific research—she undertook many dives around Florida’s Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, where she worked alongside other female ecologists such as Sylvia Earle. Clark made several key discoveries about sharks and fish, and was a major advocate of marine conservation. In 1955, she founded the Mote Marine Laboratory, which works to protect shark species, preserve coral reefs, and found sustainable fisheries.
See also: Animal behavior
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
1926–
British naturalist and television producer Attenborough served as a controller for the BBC before stepping down to dedicate more time to writing and producing documentaries. He wrote and narrated a series of nature programs, notably the Life series, beginning with Life on Earth (1979). Attenborough’s work has been credited with renewing public interest in nature and conservation in Great Britain. See also: A plastic wasteland
PETER H. KLOPFER
1930–
Berlin-born Klopfer is an ecologist whose main area of interest is ethology, studying animal behavior in a natural environment. His influential 1967 book An Introduction to Animal Behavior: Ethology’s First Century acted as a survey and synthesis of past and present ethological theories. In 1968, he began teaching in the Department of Zoology at Duke University, North Carolina, where he was instrumental in starting its primate center.
See also: Animal behavior
DIAN FO
SSEY
1932–1985
Most of what is known about the lives and social structures of wild mountain gorillas in Africa derives from the work of primatologist and conservationist Fossey. The daughter of a San Francisco fashion model, she graduated and worked as an occupational therapist before visiting Africa, where she met, and was inspired by, Mary and Louis Leakey. In early 1967 Fossey founded the Karisoke Research Center in the Rwandan mountains, where she studied gorillas. Her best-selling 1983 book about her experiences—Gorillas in the Mist—was later adapted for the screen. Fossey was murdered at her camp in December 1985, probably because of her anti-poaching stance.
See also: Animal behavior
TOMOKO OHTA
1933–
Ohta is a Japanese population geneticist who in 1973 proposed the revolutionary Nearly Neutral Theory, which included the idea that mutations that are neither neutral nor harmful play an important part in evolution. After graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1956, Ohta worked on the cytogenetics (how chromosomes relate to cell behavior) of wheat and sugar beet, and now works at Japan’s National Institute of Genetics.
See also: The selfish gene
STANLEY C. WECKER
1933–2010
An American animal behaviorist, Wecker was an influential researcher into animal population and community ecology, especially the study of what determines where animals choose to live. His 1963 paper on habitat selection by prairie deer mice demonstrated that instinct and experience both play a role in how the mice select their habitat.
See also: Ecological niches
SYLVIA EARLE
1935–
An American marine biologist, author, and conservationist, Earle is an expert on the impact of oil spills. In 1991, she assessed the damage caused by the destruction of Kuwaiti oil wells during the Gulf War. Earle undertook similar work after the Exxon Valdez, Mega Borg, and Deepwater Horizon oil spills. In 2009, Earle launched Mission Blue, which, by 2018, had established nearly 100 marine protected areas around the world.
See also: Pollution
ROBERT E. SHAW
1936–
Shaw is an American pioneer of ecological psychology, which looks at how perception, action, communication, learning, and evolution in humans and animals are determined by the environment. In 1977 he coedited the book Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, which effectively launched this new area of study. In 1981 Shaw was the founding president of the International Society for Ecological Psychology and is now an emeritis professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut.
See also: Using animal models to understand human behavior
DAVID SUZUKI
1936–
Canadian scientist Suzuki earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and two years later became a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia. Since the mid-1970s, he has also been a TV and radio broadcaster and the author of books on nature and the environment. He cofounded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990 to investigate sustainable ways for people to live in harmony with the natural world.
See also: Environmental ethics
DANIEL B. BOTKIN
1937–
Botkin, a prominent American author and environmentalist, earned his Ph.D. in plant ecology in 1968 at Rutgers University. He writes and speaks on all areas of the environment, from forest ecosystems to fish populations, and also advises agencies, corporations, and governments. After decades spent researching climate change, Botkin has questioned how far it is impacted by human activity. He is a research scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, near Boston, and is involved in environmental studies programs at several American universities.
See also: Halting climate change
EILEEN KAMPAKUTA BROWN
1938–
In the early 1990s, the Australian government revealed plans to build a nuclear waste dump near Woomera, in the South Australian desert. Together with Eileen Wani Wingfield, Brown, an Aboriginal elder, established a kungka tjuta (women’s council) in the town of Cooper Pedy to fight the plans. They were aware of the birth defects, cancer, and other health issues following the British military’s nuclear tests in the desert in the 1950s and 1960s, and feared that radiation could seep into the groundwater. The plans were abandoned and Brown and Wingfield won the 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize.
See also: Pollution
LYNN MARGULIS
1938–2011
American biologist Margulis attended Chicago University aged only 15 and gained her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965. The next year, at Boston University, she proposed that cells within nuclei had evolved as a result of the symbiotic merger of bacteria. This idea, although not generally accepted until the 1980s, transformed the understanding of cell evolution.
See also: The Gaia hypothesis
PAUL F. HOFFMAN
1941–
Canadian scientist Paul Hoffman’s discovery of “cap carbonates”—evidence for ancient glaciation in Precambrian sedimentary rocks in Namibia—revived the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis in climate change studies in 2000. The term was first used by American geologist Joseph Kirschvink in 1992, although there had been speculation since the late 19th century that Earth’s surface was almost entirely frozen more than 650 million years ago.
See also: Ancient ice ages
SIMON A. LEVIN
1941–
Levin, an American ecologist, specializes in the use of sophisticated mathematical modeling, alongside field and lab observation, to understand the workings of ecosystems. He also researches the relationships between ecology and economics. Levin earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1964 and taught at Cornell University from 1965 to 1992. After moving to Princeton, he was appointed director of the university’s Center for BioComplexity, which investigates the mechanisms that generate and maintain complexity in the living world.
See also: Predator–prey equations
JAMES A. YORKE
1941–
An American mathematician and physicist based at the University of Maryland, Yorke is best known for his work on chaos theory. In his 1975 paper “Period Three Implies Chaos,” written with Chinese mathematician Tien-Yien Li, he argued that above a certain rate of growth, population forecasts become totally unpredictable, a discovery with major ecological implications.
See also: Population viability analysis
IAN LOWE
1942–
Lowe, an Australian environmentalist who studied engineering and science at the University of New South Wales and earned his Ph.D. in physics at the University of York, advises the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is outspoken on the need for renewable energy, arguing that it is “quicker, less expensive, and less dangerous than nuclear power.” In 1996, Lowe chaired the expert group responsible for the first report on the state of Australia’s environment. Lowe is now Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Griffith University, Brisbane.
See also: Renewable energy • Halting climate change
AILA KETO
1943–
Keto spent much of her youth exploring the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding rain forests. She studied biochemistry and went on to work at the University of Queensland. In 1982, with her husband Keith, she founded the Australian Rain forest Conservation Society, which did much to save Australia’s Wet Tropics area.
See also: Biomes
BOB BROWN
1944–
After studying medicine at the University of Sydney, Brown practiced in Australia and the UK. He moved to Tasmania in 1972 and soon became involved in the environmental movement. In the early 1980s, he was one of the leaders of a successful campaign to prevent the building of the Franklin Dam, which would have destroyed key habitats. In 1996, Brown was elected to the Australian Senate as a Green Party representative. On retir
ement in 2012, he set up the Bob Brown Foundation to campaign for the protection of Australian habitats.
See also: The water crisis
BIRUTE GALDIKAS
1946–
German-born anthropologist and primatologist Galdikas has pioneered the study of orangutans in the wild. Along with Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, she was one of “The Trimates,” chosen by Louis Leakey to study great apes. Leakey persuaded her to support the establishment of an orangutan research station in Borneo, to which she moved in 1971. For more than 30 years, Galdikas studied the great apes, advocated protection for them and their rain forest habitat, and undertook the rehabilitation of orphaned orangutans.
See also: Animal behavior
BRIAN A. MAURER
1954–2018
Maurer’s 1989 paper “Macroecology: The Division of Food and Space Among Species on Continents”—written with James H. Brown—was the first clear articulation of the idea that there is value in studying ecological patterns and processes over large areas and long time frames. In his last years he researched the dynamics of the spread of exotic birds and species diversity among mountain-dwelling mammals in North America.