role models - environment

Majora Carter
Majora Carter simultaneously addresses public health, poverty alleviation, and climate change as one of the nation’s pioneers in successful green-collar job training and placement systems. She founded Sustainable South Bronx to achieve environmental justice through economically sustainable projects informed by community needs. As President of the Majora Carter Group, LLC she advises cities, universities, businesses, and communities around the world on unlocking their green-collar economic potential to benefit everyone.

Majora is one of Abi's role models

Janine Benyus
Science writer Janine coined the term Biomimicry and set up the Biomimicry Institute, referring to a new science that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems in a path to a sustainable future. The core idea is that nature has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. After 3.8 billion years of research and development, ie evolution, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. Biomimicry means learning from nature rather than harvesting or extracting from it. Janine’s latest project, AskNature, is an online resource enabling anyone to search nature’s solutions.

Wangari Maahtai
The first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, a civil society and women's rights activist, and a parliamentarian. The Green Belt Movement is one of the most prominent women’s civil society organizations, based in Kenya, advocating for human rights and supporting good governance and peaceful democratic change through the protection of the environment. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Professor Maathai also taught veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi. She became chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor, the first woman to attain those positions in the region.

Dian Fossey
Dr. Dian Fossey, one of the world’s leading female scientists, devoted her life to protecting and studying the mountain gorillas of Africa, by living among them and gaining their trust through imitation of their behaviour and vocalisations. Although her life was cut short when she was killed in 1985, her work has resulted in the stabilization and growth of this most endangered of the great apes, and in many other related conservation efforts, as well as programs for people who live in areas near the gorillas.

Rosie Stancer
Rosie Stancer is a polar adventurer who has been part of the first all-female team to reach the North Pole and South Pole - both firsts for Great Britain. Hauling a sledge more than twice her body weight for over 1000 km, Rosie skied solo and without resupply to the South Pole. Reaching the Pole in 43 days 23 hours, she smashed all previous years’ speed records by 7 days. Rosie has since had her hopes of reaching the North Pole solo dashed, due to concern for the safety of her air support team in the horrendous conditions, but still achieved the furthest North solo by a woman. During her expeditions Rosie has gathered meteorological and physiological data.

facts

GUARDIAN: Men- not the only greens

70% of the world’s poor, who are far more vulnerable to environmental
damage, are women
Denton in Masika, Gender, Development and Climate Change, 2002

In a new poll of 3,000 consumers by Emap Advertising, women’s greener
attitudes were a consistent finding of the research. For example, 84% of women versus 68% of men said they are worried about climate change as an issue facing our society’s future. This survey found that women take more environmental action and encourage their male partners and families to do likewise. They are also 12% more likely than men to purchase green products and services and 10% more likely to pay attention to what companies say about their impact on the environment.
Emap Advertising, “The Inside…on the Environment” panel (Feb 2007)

70% of the world’s poor are women; these women are more likely to
suffer as a consequence of climate change
Denton in Masika, Gender, Development and Climate Change, 2002