Iowa Ag Connection - Leopold Recognized for Lifetime Achievements

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Leopold Recognized for Lifetime Achievements
Iowa Ag Connection - 07/29/2010

The 2010 International Cosmos Prize, an award claimed by renowned conservationists such as David Attenborough, Jared Diamond, and directors of some of the world's largest botanic gardens has been awarded to Estella Leopold, daughter of Wisconsin's famed conservationist Aldo Leopold. The objective of International Cosmos Prize is to honor those who further the "harmonious coexistence between nature and mankind."

"Dr. Estella Leopold has made tremendous achievements by continuing and further developing the Land Ethic, which was initiated by her father, Aldo Leopold, as well as by disseminating the idea to many places in the United States. She is still pursuing activities that weave the Land Ethic into the fabric of people's lives and society," the statement from the Prize Committee said.

The International Cosmos Prize carries a cash award of 40 million yen, nearly $500,000, and goes to just one individual or team each year, according to information from Japan's Expo '90 Foundation, sponsor of the prize. The prize, now in its 18th year, recognizes outstanding conservation leaders from around the world.

Leopold, 83, was born in Madison and graduated from the University of Wisconsin. Now living in Seattle, Leopold is a University of Washington professor emeritus of botany, forest resources and quaternary research, and has been teaching and conducting research for more than 60 years. She pioneered the use of fossilized pollen and spores in North America to understand how plants and ecosystems respond over eons to such things as climate change.

Most notably, she has dedicated herself to activities for the preservation of the Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado, providing the scientific basis, through pollen analysis, for the necessity of their preservation and protection. The Florissant Fossil Beds, which include fossilized trees, fish, birds, insects and many other living things, are now an internationally famous National Monument thanks to her leading role in the activities that saved these beds from development.

Furthermore, although Mount St. Helens, Washington, lost as much as 600 km2 of its neighboring forest due to an eruption, it was Dr. Leopold's distinguished leadership that galvanized a subsequent movement toward the creation of a national monument. This land provides one of the few laboratories for studying ecosystems after their living members have been decimated. In addition, she has conducted research into dam construction in the Grand Canyon, thereby helping approximately twenty non-profit organizations to work in concert with each other on environmental conservation activities.

It is safe to say that her contribution to the creation and preservation of these national parks and monuments is significant in leaving natural treasures within human society that can be handed down forever.

For the purpose of carrying on the family's work, Leopold contributed to the establishment of the Aldo Leopold Foundation, in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1982. She is still engaged in the management of the foundation as a director and the chairperson of Stewardship and Science Committee, while pushing to broaden its educational outreach program and weave the Land Ethic into the fabric of people's lives and society.

"This award brings great honor to Estella's contributions to science and to the Aldo Leopold Foundation's work as an extension of that legacy," said Buddy Huffaker, executive director of the foundation. "The prestige of the Cosmos Prize underscores the critical importance of advancing a Land Ethic on a global scale."

When asked about the future of conservation, Leopold observes the need for global outreach. In working for the Aldo Leopold Foundation, she said the foundation's programming is increasingly engaging audiences around the globe. China, for instance, is rich with a heritage of art showing a love of nature, but the ethic is colliding with population growth, poverty and politics, she says.

Leopold also acknowledges the importance of reaching children. "There's a subculture of birders, of people who love nature," she says, "and many of them probably grew up like myself. I was raised outdoors. You'd go out to play, get on your bike and just go everywhere - out all day. But kids now are more restricted. How are they going to learn to love nature and to protect it?"