For us, conservation work isn't just what we do. It's who we are. It's really defined us that this is what we've dedicated our lives to.
I weren't an actor, I'd be a wildlife biologist or forest ranger.
We need to pay our dues to live on this earth; we need to pay the rent, and I'm doing that with the work we are carrying out here in Patagonia.
The thing I learned is that the work is getting done by people who dig in and work on a particular project: the people who spend 20 years sustaining a theater for black teenagers in Chicago; the people who reintroduce sticklebacks into Strawberry Creek in Berkeley and then wait patiently for the first egrets to show up.
I'm not a poster boy for Conservation International. I'm a working member of the board.
The good news is that real-world hands-on conservation is alive and well and catching on across the America I travel.
I joined the Wildlife Conservation Society, working there, in 1995, but I started working with them as a student in 1991. I was appointed as a teaching assistant at my university because I accomplished with honor.
I have long been active in and supportive of conservation and historical preservation causes.
Steve Irwin did wonderful conservation work but I was uncomfortable about some of his stunts. Even if animals aren't aware that you are not treating them with respect, the viewers are.
I was never an ingenue. I've traveled the globe, I've backpacked through South America, I've done conservation work in Africa. I was never the girl who knew nothing of the world.
The enduring image I will keep of Jane Goodall is of her emotional goodbye to a chimp she had rescued and nurtured, on the day of the animal's release.
Teachers can go on cruises with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and anyone can spend the summer as a volunteer in a National Parks and even earn money doing it.
To green our country, regular people will have to put on hard hats and work boots, roll up their sleeves - and get to work.
Every time I set foot on that trail, I feel grateful for the PCTA for doing the work it does to protect and preserve it
I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work...More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.
