Heroes
Everybody needs heroes - people with a clear sense of purpose and the courage of their convictions: men and women with vision and commitment to help us create a better world for all to live in.
The author Cathy Graham identified seven lessons on leadership and team-building inspired by the legendary Polar Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton that are worth pondering:
Honesty / Diverse Team / Be Decisive / Inclusion / Delegate / Improvise /Keep the Faith
Graham believes “Leadership is all about having undying faith that you can overcome any obstacle.”, while David Foster Wallace once wrote that leaders are “people who help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things that we can get ourselves to do on our own.”
So what kind of person offers hope for our ability to reconnect to nature in ways that will help ensure we protect our environment rather than simply exploiting it with little regard to creating a sustainable future for life on earth?
Here are our first Sacred Nature Initiative Heroes—both individuals and organizations:
Professor Wangari Maathai
(1940-2011)
Founder of the Green Belt Movement and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Professor Wangari Muta Maathai was internationally acknowledged for her struggle for democracy, human rights, and environmental conservation. She was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace.”
"There comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness . . . that time is now."
Dr George B Schaller
Wildlife Conservation Society, considered the world's foremost field biologist and senior statesman of wildlife conservation.
Schaller Is considered the world's foremost field biologist and a senior statesman of wildlife conservation. He is senior conservationist at the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society, vice president of Panthera Corporation and chairman of their Cat Advisory Council. His studies of wildlife have taken him throughout Africa, Asia and South America and resulted in the protection of large stretches of area in the Amazon, Brazil, the Hindu Kush in Pakistan, and forests in Southeast Asia.
"You can do the best science in the world but unless emotion is involved it's not really very relevant. Conservation is based on emotion. It comes from the heart and one should never forget that."
Colobus Conservation
Colobus Conservation is a not-for-profit conservation organisation designed to promote the conservation, preservation and protection of primates like the nationally threatened Angolan Colobus monkey (Colobus angolensis palliatus) and its coastal forest habitat in south eastern Kenya. The organisation was established in 1997 in response to an outcry from local residents about the high number of deaths of colobus monkeys on the Diani Beach road.
Dr Laurie Marker
Co-founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF)
Before becoming Executive Director of Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in 1990, Dr. Laurie Marker began her career working with cheetahs in 1974 at Wildlife Safari, a wildlife park in the United States. During her 16 years there she helped to establish the most successful captive cheetah-breeding program in North America and develop the international captive breeding program for cheetahs (cheetah studbooks).
"The problem isn’t with predators. The problem is with us humans. We have to change the way we think and behave."
Mara Predator Conservation Programme
In early 2018 two flagship predator conservation projects (focusing on lion and cheetah), came together into one long-term conservation commitment – the Mara Predator Conservation Programme.
Our vision is a world–class conservation programme, providing evidence–based, practical management recommendations, solutions and ideas. Supporting local communities by identifying and implementing ways to reduce conflict with wildlife is a priority.
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