NEW YORK (Might 9, 2024) – On Wednesday the Nationwide Audubon Society celebrated the legacy of feminine management in conservation by presenting two ladies with the Rachel Carson Award on the twenty first Women in Conservation Luncheon. The distinguished Audubon award acknowledges visionary ladies whose dedication, expertise, and power have superior constructive environmental change domestically and on a worldwide scale. This yr’s occasion centered on forest conservation and honors two leaders within the motion: Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, professor emeritus on the College of Utah, and Fran Worth, International Forest Follow Chief at WWF Worldwide.
“Audubon is proud to honor these leaders in forest conservation with the 2024 Rachel Carson Award,” stated Elizabeth Grey, CEO of the Nationwide Audubon Society. “Dr. Nadkarni and Mrs. Worth embody the spirit of this award and the way forward for conservation with their necessary work defending forest ecosystems and creating revolutionary packages that handle the interconnected disaster of local weather change and biodiversity loss. Their work is invaluable to Audubon as we put the complete energy of our hemispheric group behind impactful local weather options to guard birds, folks, and the planet.”
The twenty first Girls in Conservation Luncheon was emceed by NBC Information’ Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent Anne Thompson and held at Bryant Park Grill in Manhattan.
“I really feel amazed and honored to be included with this group of girls whose considering and actions have so enhanced {our relationships} with nature,” stated Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, ecologist and professor emeritus on the College of Utah. “Within the midst of rising fear about our planet, this award celebrates – with pleasure and objective! – the numerous methods we are able to act collectively for conservation.”
“Rising up amidst the riparian forests in my yard in central New Jersey, forests have been central to my life since childhood. The solace and peace that my little piece of woods and stretch of stream offered profoundly formed my id,” stated Fran Worth, Chief, Forest Follow, WWF Worldwide. “Forests aren’t simply integral to my life. They lie on the core of humanity’s quest to search out stability on this treasured planet. They’re on the coronary heart of addressing the local weather disaster, the character disaster, and even the human well being disaster – from stopping pandemics to supporting psychological well being. There’s a number of work to do to develop financial and social techniques that allow and prioritize long-term planetary well-being, hold our forests resilient, and empower those that rely straight on our forests. This mission fuels my dedication to forest conservation. I firmly consider that collective motion can lead us to options that guarantee folks reside in concord with nature, safeguarding the legacy and advantages of forests for generations to come back.”
In regards to the Awardees
Dr. Nalini Nadkarni is called the “Queen of the Forest Cover.” 4 a long time in the past, she helped pioneer the usage of mountain-climbing strategies, development cranes, and scorching air balloons to discover life within the treetops of Costa Rica and the Pacific Northwest. Since then, supported by 40 grants from the Nationwide Science Basis, the Nationwide Geographic Society, and foundations, her long-term rainforest research in Costa Rica and the Pacific Northwest have led to over 150 scholarly publications and three books. Her educational awards embrace a Guggenheim Fellowship, the AAAS Award for Public Engagement, the Nationwide Science Basis Award for Public Service, the Archie Carr Medal for Conservation, The Leonardo Award for Interdisciplinary and Inventive Scholarship, and the William Julius Wilson Award for Achievement in Social Justice.
The pressing want to guard forests and different parts of nature impressed Dr. Nadkarni to forge revolutionary collaborations with folks in sectors far exterior academia, together with faith-based teams, artists, and companies. She initiated packages to convey science lectures, ecological restoration initiatives, and nature imagery to women and men in correctional establishments, offering methods for them to assist defend biodiversity. She innovated a science engagement coaching program to information rising scientists to have interaction the general public in group venues the place folks reside, work, recreate, and worship.
Dr. Nadkarni can also be a passionate nature communicator. Her media work contains two TED talks, tv packages (Invoice Nye the Science Man, CNN’s The NEXT LIST), Nationwide Public Radio (Wait Wait…Don’t Inform Me, RadioLab, Science Friday), podcasts, and common media (New York Instances, Nationwide Geographic, Ranger Rick, Playboy Journal). She suggested Mattel, Inc. on their 2021 line of “Explorer Barbies”, they usually created a one-of-a-kind “TreeTop Barbie” in her picture. In 2023, the Nationwide Geographic Society named her as considered one of their ten “Explorers at Massive.”
Fran Raymond Worth has spent her profession working to guard forests and enhance forestry across the globe. She joined WWF in June 2020 after 18 years at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the place she helped information the group’s adoption and promotion of accountable forest administration and certification.
Fran helped convey forest carbon finance to smaller forest house owners in the USA, most not too long ago by aiding the event and launch of the Household Forest Carbon Program. Her work has centered on the creation, enchancment, and proliferation of market-based incentives – such because the alignment of forest carbon funding and certification and strengthening of forest certification requirements — to guard forest eco-systems.
Fran has served on a number of boards and activity teams, together with the FSC Worldwide board (2013-2019) as Vice Chair from 2017 to 2019; FSC US board; the Tropical Forest Basis board; Excessive Conservation Worth Useful resource Community Steering Group; and WWF’s North American Forest and Commerce Community Advisory Group. She additionally serves on the boards of organizations close to her house, together with the New Jersey Conservation Basis and Sustainable Princeton. Fran additionally runs a small household basis centered totally on environmental points.
Earlier than becoming a member of TNC, Fran directed the Forest Monitoring Venture, hosted by the Izaak Walton League of America, the place she evaluated forest practices on trade lands all through the U.S. Previous to this she helped coordinate philanthropic investments in forests and renewable power on the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Fran holds a grasp’s diploma in forestry from the Yale Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Research, and a B.A. in Historical past and Authorities from Cornell College. She started her forestry profession as a Peace Corps group forestry volunteer within the Dominican Republic.
About Audubon Girls in Conservation
Established in 2003 in honor of Rachel Carson, creator and monumental determine of the trendy environmental motion, Audubon Girls in Conservation strives to acknowledge the feminine environmental leaders who change our world and encourage the following technology of younger ladies who will be part of them in environmental careers and activism. Proceeds from the Audubon Girls in Conservation luncheon assist Audubon’s efforts, together with our Lengthy Island Sound and Coastal Stewardship Program and the Audubon Girls in Conservation Internship. For extra data, go to events.audubon.org/WIC.
About Audubon
The Nationwide Audubon Society is a nonprofit conservation group that protects birds and the locations they want as we speak and tomorrow. We work all through the Americas in the direction of a future the place birds thrive as a result of Audubon is a robust, numerous, and ever-growing drive for conservation. Audubon has greater than 700 workers working throughout the hemisphere and greater than 1.5 million energetic supporters. North America has misplaced three billion birds since 1970, and greater than 500 fowl species are susceptible to extinction throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Birds act as early warning techniques concerning the well being of the environment, they usually inform us that birds – and our planet – are in disaster. Collectively as one Audubon, we’re working to change the course of local weather change and habitat loss, resulting in more healthy fowl populations and reversing present tendencies in biodiversity loss. We do that by implementing on-the-ground conservation, partnering with native communities, influencing public and company coverage, and constructing group. Study extra at www.audubon.org and on Fb, Twitter and Instagram @audubonsociety.
Media Contact:
Megan Moriarty, megan.moriarty@audubon.org