Conservation Leaders Share What Inspires Them to Act

At Audubon, we're lucky to have an amazing network of scientists, activists, and conservationists working around the clock and around the country to protect birds and their habitats. The latest issue of Origin magazine features four of Audubon's conservation leaders, explaining what motivates them day after day to do their best. 

Origin Editor-in-Chief Maranda Pleasant writes:

"[Rachel] Carson’s writing inspired generations of environmental activists, scientists, educators, and legislators who over the last half century have worked to scrub pollutants from the air, halt the extinctions of wildlife, and clean up the water flowing through our faucets and streams.

Still, many of the biggest environmental challenges lie ahead, and some of the people on the front lines of those battles will be women following in Carson’s footsteps. Working for the National Audubon Society, these four women are wading in the swamps to study water birds, fighting in the courts for protections for wild places, harnessing technology to map critical habitats, and inspiring the next generation with education programs that let kids plant a tree for the first time or hold a bird in their hands and set it free.

The four women featured—Iliana Peña, Director of Conservation for Audubon Texas; Beth Bardwell, Director of Conservation for Audubon New Mexico; Melanie A. Smith, Director of Conservation Science for Audubon Alaska; and Melanie Driscoll, Director of Bird Conservation for Gulf Coast Conservation of the Mississippi Flyway—embody the true spirit of a conservation hero. 

You can read the full piece and see what they have to say here.