List of conservationists

List of conservationists

A

• Edward Abbey – writer and wilderness activist
• Ansel Adams – wilderness and landscape photographer
• Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury – former president of Sir David Attenborough's British Butterfly Conservation Society
• Damian Aspinall – chairman of The Aspinall Foundation
• David Attenborough – host of many BBC Natural History documentaries, naturalist, educator

  B

• Jeannie Baker – artist/author of children's picture books and film maker
• Roberto Ballon - Environmental advocate and politician who led local efforts in the Philippines to preserve mangrove forests and promote sustainable fishing practices
• Judi Bari - Labor leader and activist involved in direct action to preserve Northern Californian redwood forests in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Nena Baltazar – President of Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi, a Bolivian nongovernmental organization working in conservation and wildlife care
• S. Theodore Baskaran – wildlife conservationist
• Tom Bell – founder of the Wyoming Outdoor Council and decorated World War II veteran
• Michael Bengwayan - Environmental organization leader who promoted petroleum nut alternative fuel sources and tree protection
• Frances Beinecke – President of the Natural Resources Defense Council
• Bai Bibyaon Ligkayan Bigkay - prominent Lumad leader involved in protecting the Pantaron Mountain Range from destructive logging and preventing ethnocide
• Harvey Broome – wilderness activist
• David Brower – mid-20th century leader of the Sierra Club
• Tom Brown – naturalist
• David Bellamy – botanist and environmental campaigner

  C

• Arthur Carhart – U.S. Forest Service official who inspired wilderness protection in the United States
• Archie Carr – zoology professor and herpetologist, prominent sea turtle conservationist
• Rachel Carson – scientist who advanced the global environmental movement
• Jimmy Carter – signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980, which protected more land than any single piece of legislation ever passed by Congress
• Yvon Chouinard – environmentalist and outdoor industry businessman. Owner of the company Patagonia, known for its environmental focus.
• Frederic Edwin Church – American landscape painter, famous for Twilight in the Wilderness
• Eugenie Clark – conservationist of sharks
• Clem Coetzee – Zimbabwean conservationist. He developed new methods of big game conservation.
• Ernie Cooper – Canadian wildlife trade expert
• Jeff Corwin – Animal Planet host, herpetologist
• Adjany Costa – Angolan marine biologist
• Jacques Cousteau – oceanographer, marine biologist
• Cynthia Mbabazi – advocate, researcher
• Christine Jorgensen - Zoologist, ecologist and marine scientist. Professional speaker and science communicator for the conservation of wildlife and ecosystems in Far North Queensland, Australia. Founder of Wildlife Science Australia.

  D

• Marjory Stoneman Douglas – writer/conservationist who founded Friends of the Everglades
• William O. Douglas – U.S. Supreme Court Justice who was an ardent conservationist. William O. Douglas Wilderness is named after him
• Iain Douglas-Hamilton – founder of Save the Elephants, zoologist
• Gerald Durrell – naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, writer, television presenter, founder of the Jersey Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo

  E

• Dwight D. Eisenhower – the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge became a federally protected wilderness area during his administration
• Ralph Waldo Emerson – author, naturalist, wilderness adventurer, activist and development critic

  F

• Dian Fossey – primatologist known for studying gorillas, author, founder of the Digit Fund today known as the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, was murdered presumably by poachers because of her cause
• Bernard Frank – one of the founders of The Wilderness Society

  G

• Jane Goodall – primatologist known for studying chimpanzees, author, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute
• George Bird Grinnell – prominent early American conservationist
• Bernhard Grzimek – renowned German zoo director and animal conservationist in postwar West Germany.
• Madison Grant – American creator of wildlife management and co-founder of Save the Redwoods League

  H

• Maya Higa - American conservationist, falconer, wildlife rehabilitator, Twitch streamer, and YouTuber.
• Hubert Humphrey – U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1956 who presented the first draft of the Federal Wilderness Preservation System Bill to Congress
• Celia Hunter – former president of The Wilderness Society

  I

• Steve Irwin – Australian zookeeper, documentary film maker and activist

  K

• Greg King - Author, journalist, and environmental activist who led direct action to preserve Northern Californian redwood forests in the 1980s and 1990s

  L

• Lyndon Baines Johnson – signed the Wilderness Act on September 3, 1964, which permanently guaranteed millions of acres of wild land for future generations of Americans
• Aldo Leopold – ecologist, forester and environmentalist; author of A Sand County Almanac
• A. Starker Leopold – son of Aldo Leopold, zoologist and ecologist, writer of the Leopold Report

  M

• Wangari Muta Maathai – Nobel Peace Prize recipient, founder of the Green Belt Movement, political activist
• Benton MacKaye – wilderness activist, founder of the Appalachian Trail
• Bob Marshall – principal founder of The Wilderness Society
• Louis B. Marshall – constitutional lawyer who was instrumental in passing "forever wild" legislation of N.Y.S. Constitution, which permanently protected wilderness in Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves
• Nigel Marven – wildlife presenter and producer
• Bill Mason – wilderness author and canoeist
• Stephen Mather – conservationist who was the first director of National Park Service, as a unified federal agency to oversee National Parks administration which he ran publicity campaign to established
• Malcolm McCallum – conservation biologist who publishes on biodiversity and extinction, and established the scholarly journal Herpetological Conservation and Biology.
• Ian McTaggart-Cowan – Canadian zoologist, conservationist and television presenter
• Rodrigo Medellín – Mexican ecologist and academic
• Betty Leslie-Melville – American born writer, who along with her husband Jock Leslie-Melvile, is known for authoring ten books on conservation topics, protecting the Rothschild's giraffe in Kenya, and founding the Giraffe Centre in Lang'ata, Kenya.
• Chico Mendes – Brazilian environmentalist
• Sergio Rossetti Morosini – Brazilian-American environmentalist
• Cynthia Moss – elephant behavioural specialist, ethologist, author
• John Muir – author and preservationist, founder of the Sierra Club
• Margaret Murie – "Grandmother of the conservation movement"
• Olaus Murie – wilderness activist
• Erni Suyanti Musabine, veterinarian involved in the conservation of Sumatran tigers
• Mike Pandey

  N

• Abi Kusno Nachran – Indonesian rain forest preservation activist
• Roderick Nash – author of "Wilderness and the American Mind"
• Lone Drøscher Nielsen – working with Borneo Orangutan Survival for conservation of Bornean orangutans and orangutan habitat
• Henri Nsanjama – Malawian conservationist
• Aletris Neils – carnivore conservationist and executive director of Conservation CATalyst

  O

• Ric O'Barry – former dolphin trainer for the TV show Flipper turned dolphin activist and conservationist, featured in the documentary The Cove
• Ernest Oberholtzer – one of the eight founders of The Wilderness Society
• Sigurd F. Olson – author, environmentalist, teacher, canoeist and advocate in the northern Midwest. Worked to establish Pt. Reyes, Arctic NWR, Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness

  P

• Deborah Parker – indigenous rights activist, conservationist, and environmentalist who has opposed various pipeline projects and who advocates for protecting coastal waters and salmon among the Northwest Natives
• Gifford Pinchot – conservationist, first Chief of the United States Forest Service
• Sharon Pincott – naturalist, wildlife conservationist, elephant behavioural specialist, author
• Ian Player – international conservationist
• Carl Pope – executive director of the Sierra Club

  R

• Alan Rabinowitz – President and CEO of Panthera Corporation, a conservation organization devoted to protecting the world's 36 cat species
• Phil Radford – environmental, clean energy, and democracy leader, director of Greenpeace
• Bradbury Robinson – medical doctor and conservationist who published warnings in the 1940s against the use of DDT in agricultural
• Theodore Roosevelt – set aside of federal land for national parks and nature preserves. He was also instrumental in establishing the United States Forest Service

  S

• Peter Scott – founder of the World Wildlife Fund and Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and the first conservationist to be knighted
• Charles Alexander Sheldon – the "Father of Denali National Park"
• Willie Smits – working, with Borneo Orangutan Survival for conservation of Bornean orangutans and orangutan habitat
• Michael Soulé – father of conservation biology; cofounder and first president of the Society for Conservation Biology
• Austin Stevens – naturalist, herpetologist, wildlife photographer, documentarian, television personality, and author
• Shania Bolen - Zoologist and Ecologist. Facilities manager of the Forever Reef Project. Coral conservation expert.