North American Actors International Actors
Dave ForemanSince 1971, Foreman has studied conservation for wilderness. He has worked with The Wilderness Society, Wilderness Affairs in Washington D.C., New Mexico Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club and of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance . He was editor of the Earth First! and Journal Wild Earth. In addition to, he published four books one named Rewilding North America. In 1991, Foreman founded the Wildlands Project. Foreman has received the Paul Petzoldt Award for Excellence in Wilderness Education and was also recently named by Audubon Magazine as one of the 100 Champions of Conservation of the 20th Century. Currently, Foreman is the Director and Senior Fellow of The Rewilding Institute. The Rewilding Institute is a conservation “think tank” with the aim to advance ideas of continental conservation. Foreman tries to bring together environmental activists and conservation biologists in order to design and create connected areas of wilderness to support megafauna.
http://rewilding.org/rewildit/ Dustin R. Rubenstein
Dustin R. Rubenstein is a professor at Columbia University trained as a animal behaviorist and biologist. The goal of his research it to understand the evolution of complex breeding systems of vertebrates and invertebrates. Ultimately, his research shows how individual species contribute to the larger scale phenomenon like population dynamics. His work involves both wild and captive animals, and makes comparisons to closely related species and systems from the past and present. He has published over 40 scientific and public articles on animal behavior, evolution, ecology, and biology. Rubenstein does not support Pleistocene Rewilding because he believes North America will not return to the ecosystem of that era due to the lack of uncertainty of the Pleistocene habitats. He has acquired a group of scientist to support his view on rewilding. His allies include Paul Sherman (neurobiologist&animal behaviorist). Rubenstein's goal is to preserve and maintain the native ecosystems and organisms remaining.
http://www.columbia.edu/~dr2497/HOME.html http://www.columbia.edu/cu/e3b/faculty/drubenstein.html Paul S. Martin
Paul S. Martin is a Emeritus Professor of Geosciences. He taught and conducted research at the University of Arizona's Desert Laboratory since 1957. He was among scientists who first proposed the overkill theory. Martin has investigated Pleistocene biotic changes in arid regions for about 50 years. He has also studied the biogeography of eastern Mexico, the Pleistocene fossil pollen record of Arizona, and the potential for fossil packrat middens to reveal climatic changes. Martin has traveled to many countries in order to study the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna. His results led to the theory that humans are the main contributor to animal extinction of the past. He has published six books and eighteen articles about extinctions and the Pleistocene era. Martin's work supplies ethical reasons for Rewilding North America addition to an idea of the past habitats found on North America. Martin states that ecological communities currently in North America need megafauna to function appropriately. The absence of megafauna causes many plant and animal species to remain static, decreasing species evolution.
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/web/Martin/pm_cv.html Josh DonlanJosh Donlan is currently a professor at Cornell University trained as an ecologist and conservation biologist . He is also the founder and director of Advanced Conservation Strategies. The organization builds interdisciplinary teams to tackle environmental and sustainability challenges. He also played a pivotal role in building the multimillion dollar organization, NGO Island Conservation whose goal is to prevent species extinctions by removing invasive species from islands. Donlan was the Chief Scientist for Project Isabela in the Galápagos Islands; this projects was the world’s largest island restoration project. He has worked on environmental issues concerning management of invasive species, environmental restoration, and ecological history in many countries and islands. In addition to, he has developed financial and incentive instruments for conservation. Donlan has published more than 70 scientific and public articles on environmental conservation topics. In 2005, Donlan proposed using closely related species of Pleistocene megafauna to replace the extinct megafauna of North American. Donlan has brought together a team of about 10 allies to support the idea of Pleistocene Rewilding. His team includes Harry W. Greene (biologist), Martin Schlaepfer (biologist&ecologist), and Paul S. Martin. Donlan believes reintroducing megafauna would create key ecosystem processes thus increasing biodiversity. He supports using species closely related to species of the Pleistocene because Donlan believes during this era the megafauna were eradicated by the migration of people into North America.
http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/donlan/donlan/Home.html http://experiencelife.com/article/wise-investment/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_tIyyLVIOE Michael E. SouleMichael E. Soule is a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Soule is founder of the Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlands Project, and previously directed both organizations. He has written a total of nine books and over a 150 articles on biology, conservation, evolutionary biology, fluctuating asymmetry, population genetics, island biogeography, environmental studies, biodiversity policy, and ethics since the 1960's. Soule currently consults internationally on protecting nature. Soule is also known as the 'father of conservation' because he observed the significance of top carnivores. Top predators function to regulate the ecosystem. Soule realized that top carnivores regulate prey species and also smaller predators; a statement that is the major factor for Rewilding North America. Soule frequenty allies with John Terborgh (biologist) to coauthor papers.
http://www.michaelsoule.com/ |
Frans VeraFrans Vera areas of expertise are management and restoration of natural processes especially those concerning large herbivores. He implements his ideas on Oostvaardersplassen, are area of 6,000 hectare in South Flevoland, Netherlands. Wild cattle, red deer, and wild horses create habitats for a wide range of species with little human intervention. Species, like the White Tailed Eagle, that were removed from the are have slowly returned due to the reintroduction of herbivores. Vera also developed the Plan Stork with five colleagues. The goal of the project is to restore the natural flooding of large rivers on the floodplains. He also challenges the theory that Europe's past environment was covered by canopy creating the wood pasture theory. The theory states competing influences of large herbivores and vegetation produces a cycle of succession from trees to shrub to grassland to trees again. This Vera cycle leads to a stable but dynamic equilibrium. Vera shows the positive effects of rewilding in practice and proves rewilding can be a successful environmental policy.
http://www.knepp.co.uk/pages/conservation/Advisory_group/wildland_advisory_group.asp Sergey A. ZimovSergey Zimov is the director of the Northeast Science Station in Cherskii, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Zimov established the station in 1980. His priorities include global carbon and methane budgets and Siberian animal extinctions from the Pleistocene Holocene event. In 1989, Zimov began the “Pleistocene Park” with the hope to restore past ecosystems of the Pleistocene era that supported populations of megafauna including mammoths, horses, reindeer, bison, and large predators. The park is 160-square-kilometers of meadow, larch forest, and willow shrubland. Zimov hopes to increase the density of large herbivores to influence the vegetation and soil in order to stabilize the grasslands.The predators will be used to regulate the population of herbivores. Even though Zimov's goal is to slow global warming by filling the empty Siberian grasslands with megafauna, the Pleistocene Park is a successful example of rewilding that other scientist can study and model.
http://www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/news Non-Scientific Actors
Ted Turner
Ted Turner is a very successful American business man. He inherited Turner Advertising, billboard company, the largest billboard company in the Southeast. Turner is also invested in radio stations and a television broadcasting station. He also owns old movies and TV shows rights. He purchased MGM's film library which included classics like Gone With the Wind and Casablanca. He also launched television networks Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies. Turner also bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. Turner is creator of 24-hour all-news channel called Cable Network News (CNN). With his money, he founded the Turner Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Captain Planet Foundation, and the Turner Endangered Species Fund. Turner is the second largest individual landholder in North America, owning two million acres of land. His lands support many environmental projects including water resource management, reforestation, and the reintroduction of animals. He manages over 55,000 bison across the Turner ranches. Turner’s ranches are also home to endangered Mexican gray wolves, black-footed ferrets, and aplomado falcons. Currently, the endangered bolson tortoise is being reintroduced into North America with Turner' s resources. To manage his ranches and institutions, Turner requires the skills many scientists. Ecologist Dr. Joe Truett directed and influenced the Turner Endangered Species Fund for nearly 13 years up until his death. The resources provided by philantropist like Turner, make Rewilding North America possible.
http://www.tedturner.com/home.asp http://tesf.org/ Charles BurrellSir Charles Burrell is a British national who studied agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College to begin a commercial dairy farm on the Knepp Castle Estate in the 1980s. But after 17 years of intensive dairy farming, Burrell hired a contractor to farm the land. This process required restoring the land around the estate. With the help of Frans Vera and others, Burrell harnessed the potential of his land by reintroducing large herbivores onto the property. To promote large megafauna introduction and educate the minds of of key people of the importance of herbivores, Burrell become an ambassador for the Large Herbivore Network (LHNet) group. He believes that large herbivores are the key to restoring large areas and drivers of habitat succession. He states large herbivores are “the movers and the shakers”. Burrell is implementing rewilding on his personal property because of his faith in the reintroduction of megafauna. He uses the advice and company of scientists ensure rewilding success.
http://www.lhnet.org/experts-vast-landscapes-and-wilderness-areas/ http://www.lhnet.org/ |