D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A More than 450 attended, and more than $1 million was raised for research. The chairs were Katerina AlevizakiDracopoulos, Judy Berkowitz, Samantha Boardman Rosen, Patricia Rosenwald, and Lulu Wang. The founding chairs are Lydia Forbes, Isabel Furlaud, Nancy Kissinger, and Sydney Shuman. Among those attending: Claude Wasserstein, Blair Husain, Amy Falls Rogers, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Deeda Blair, Serena Boardman, Renee Rockefeller, Eliza Bolen, Amanda Cutter Brooks, Judith Carson, Celia Chou, Ide Dangoor, Edith de Montebello, Robin Chandler Duke, Shirin Fekkai, Olivia Flatto, Charlotte Ford, Lee White Galvis, Sally Gordon, Lorna de Wangen Graev, Corinne Greenberg, Shoshanna Gruss, Duane Hampton, Caroline Zapf, Ellen
Katz, Nancy Kissinger, Henry Kissinger, Pat Klingenstein, Alexandra Lebenthal, Gigi Mortimer, Robin Chemers Neustein, Pauline Pitt, Fernanda Niven, Ulla Parker, Shafi Roepers, Alexia Hamm, Ryan Jacqueline Sackler, Emilia SaintAmand Krimendahl, Daisy Soros, Denie Weil, Cynthia Matethews Whitehead, Caryn Zucker, Katherine Farley, Debbie Bancroft, Frances Hill Barlow, Jenna Lyons, Princess Firyal of Jordan, Marjorie Gubelmann, Cristina Greeven Cuomo, Liz Manocha, Alexandra Wernink, Danielle Ganek, and Kate Betts. On a rainy spring day at noon I went down to the Plaza where the National Audubon Society was holding its Women in Conservation 2010 Rachel Carson Awards. The honorees were: Suzanne Lewis, the superintendent
of Yellowstone National Park; Isabella Rossellini, actress, director, writer, and environmental activist; Dr. Beth Stevens, senior vice president of environmental affairs at Disney Worldwide Services; and Fernanda M. Kellogg, president of the Tiffany & Company Foundation. The emcee was Anne Thompson, NBC News’ chief environmental affairs correspondent. Allison Rockefeller is the founding chair of the Rachel Carson Awards Council, and is very active in Audubon’s Women in Conservation. I’ve known her for a number of years on a casual how-jado basis, but I got to know her better a few years ago as I learned of her interest in conservation. Conservation, to me, means saving what we have, preserving to continue to
support life, to support ourselves on the planet. Once upon a time, for most of us, those words were the stuff of poetry and song. Today they are nitty gritty words—more nitty gritty than most of us are aware of care to face. One night, I was looking at a photograph of the oil slick in the Gulf as it flowed into the grassy wetlands on the coast of Louisiana, covering everything with its black gunk and I recognized the grasses as grasses and the oil as oil. Everything, however, even the bubbles on the surface, was gunk. The message is clear: The End. The Rachel Carson Awards luncheon, which was heavily subscribed, is a very gentle reminder of very grim, harsh facts. One thing that is a point for optimism: there are a lot of women and men out there who are working to turn things
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