Lawrence Anthony
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lawrence Anthony (born 1950, Johannesburg) and raised in rural Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, is an international conservationist, environmentalist, explorer, and published author.
Anthony is the long standing head of conservation at the Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand South Africa and the Founder of The Earth Organization, a privately registered, independent, international conservation and environmental group with a strong scientific orientation. He is an international member of the esteemed Explorers Club of New York and a member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, South Africa’s oldest scientific association.
Anthony has a reputation for bold conservation initiatives, including the rescue of the Baghdad zoo at the height of the US lead Coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, and negotiations with the infamous Lord's Resistance Army rebel army in Southern Sudan, to raise awareness of the environment and protect endangered species, including the last of the Northern White Rhinoceros
Details of his conservation activities have appeared regularly in regional and international media and featured in magazine's and journals such as Readers Digest, the Smithsonian, the Explorers Journal, Africa Geographic, Shape magazine and others.
Anthony is married to Francoise and lives on the Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand. He has two sons and two grandsons.
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[edit] Baghdad Zoo
Baghdad Zoo was the biggest zoo in the Middle East; however, by 8 days after the 2003 invasion, when Anthony reached the zoo, out of the original 650 to 700 animals in the Baghdad Zoo only 35 survived owing to bombing of the zoo, looting of the animals for food, and starvation of the caged animals without food and water.[1] Anthony could not get to the zoo any earlier at the height of the war owing the safety, transport and bureaucracy issues.[1] The animals that survived tended to be the larger animals, including bears, lions and tigers.[1] In the chaos of the war, Anthony with some of the zoo keepers protected the Zoo and looked after the zoo animals, and fed the carnivores by buying donkeys.[1] Eventually, Bremer, supported the zoo and American engineers helped to reopen the zoo.[1] Anthony has written a book about the wartime rescue of the Baghdad Zoo,[2] and the movie rights have been acquired by a major Hollywood production company.
[edit] African conservation
Anthony has long been involved with programs to involve remote African tribes in conservation on their own traditional land, an activity he considers essential to the future well being of conservation in Africa. Anthony's private focus is the rehabilitation of traumatized African elephant. He has developed a unique relationship with a wild herd on the Thula Thula Reserve which has attracted international attention and seen him named in the media as The Elephant Whisperer. Anthony is busy writing his second book, The Herd, which tells the story of his working relationship with the African elephant.
Anthony has served on the National Transitional Executive Committee during the South African Governments transition from Apartheid on the panel for the electronic media which appointed the Board of Directors of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and on the committee which appointed the Film Board of South Africa.
[edit] Awards and Recognitions:
- The Global Nature Fund, Living Lakes Best Conservation Practice Award, for “A remarkable contribution to nature conservation and environmental protection.”
- The Earth Day medal presented at the United Nations by the Earth Society for his rescue of the Baghdad Zoo.
- The Earth Trustee Award.
- The US Army 3rd Infantry, Regimental medal for bravery in Iraq during the Coalition invasion of Baghdad.
- The IAS Freedom Medal.
- The Umhlatuzi Mayoral Award for Outstanding Community Service.
- International membership, The Explorers Club of New York.
[edit] Quotations:
"Our inability to think beyond our own species, or to be able to co-habit with other life forms in what is patently a massive collaborative quest for survival, is surely a malady that pervades the human soul"
"Workable solutions for Earth are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers, or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic."
"Man's traditional links to nature that used to be passed down, generation to generation, have become lost in a sea of 'civilization', bureaucracy and technology."
"It just got serious"
"The prophets of doom are already saying it is too late, that the crude and uninformed impact of man on the planet's life systems is just too great and that we don't have enough time to turn it all around. I don't happen to agree, but I do know that we are entering the end game. That unless there is a swift and marked change in our attitudes and actions, we could well be on our way to becoming an endangered species."
"This time around it may not be a natural phenomenon; it may be ignorance and neglect of the natural world will prove to be our undoing."
"Thankfully the Earth has an incredible capacity to sustain life, so perhaps something can still be done about it."
"'Ethics' is the key theme. Ethics are essential to establish a granite moral code as an environmental lodestone."
