Ray C. Anderson Ray C. Anderson (1934-2011) was the CEO of Interface, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer. In 1994, at the height of his success with Interface – a company he had built with enormous dedication – he was challenged with a question that would define the rest of his life: “What is your…
Category: Individual
020. Joanna Macy: A wild love for the world
Joanna Macy Born in 1929, Joanna Macy is an environmental activist, author, and a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. In the mid-sixties, Joanna moved with her husband Francis to post-colonial India, where he ran the US Peace Corps. There, she cared for Tibetan refugees, joining the young, newly exiled Dalai Lama….
017. Iqbal Masih: Child activist against bonded labour
Iqbal Masih Iqbal Masih was born in 1983 in Muridke, near Lahore, Pakistan. His family was poor and had borrowed 600 Rupees (less than US$5) from a local owner of a carpet weaving business. Iqbal, just four, became a bonded labour and was required to work for the weaver until the debt was paid off….
016. Rachel Carson and ‘Silent Spring’: The launch of the environmental movement
Rachel Carson If you have any interest in environmental issues, you would have read or heard about Rachel Carson (1907-1964). Her book Silent Spring helped launch the environmental movement in the US and elsewhere. She was a marine scientist, ecologist, and also an extraordinary science writer. Researcher and writer Growing up in the rural river…
014. Abdul Kareem: The man who created a forest
Abdul Kareem A mad idea? The story began in Kasargode District, Kerala, India, in the early 1970s. Abdul Kareem spent his savings for a piece of wasteland on a rocky laterite hill. The barren region had hardly ever seen water and was barely habitable. His family and friends thought he was out of his mind….
012. Wangari Maathai: Nobel Prize for Nature Conservation
Wangari Maathai started a movement that planted 30 million trees in 20 countries. She campaigned for women’s rights and greater democracy in her country. She defied a corrupt regime, was vilified and forced to leave her country for some time and even assaulted by the police once. Green Belt Movement Wangari Maathai studied in the…
010. Sadako Sasaki and the thousand paper cranes
Two-year-old Sadako Sasaki was living in Hiroshima, Japan, when the atom bomb fell on the city. Her house, which was about a mile from the epicentre of the blast, was destroyed. Her brother Masahiro and their grandmother were injured but, miraculously, Sadako and her mother remained unharmed. They escaped from the collapsed house and fled…
009. The man who planted trees
I was then young and fond of travelling. Once I was walking in an area I had never visited. The land was dry and hot. I walked on for three days and I did not meet anyone. I did come across some villages, but these had been abandoned. The houses and even the temples were…
006. Peace Pilgrim: 28 years of walking for peace
For 28 years, Peace Pilgrim walked across the US and Canada, covering thousands of miles, carrying the message of peace. All through those years, she never used money. She wore the same navy blue slacks and shirt, tennis shoes and a self-designed navy blue tunic with pockets all around the bottom in which she carried…
004. Chico Mendes: Giving one’s life for the trees
The world knows him as a martyr, who died while preventing the destruction of the Amazon forests. Born in 1944 in the Brazilian Amazon, Chico Mendes earned his living as a rubber tapper. Besides extracting latex from rubber trees, the tappers also collected and sold minor forest produce like nuts, fruits and native medicines. As…