Animals and the Environment
Contributing Authors
Dr L. A. Kemmerer Internationally acclaimed for her work in animal ethics, professor emeritus Dr. Lisa Kemmerer is the founder of Tapestry on behalf of nonhuman animals, the environment, and disempowered human beings. With a BA in International Studies from Reed College, a Master of Theological Studies in Comparative Religions from Harvard, and a PhD in philosophy (specializing in animal ethics) from Glasgow University in Scotland, Kemmerer taught for 20 years at the university level and has written and edited more than 100 articles/anthology chapters and 10 books. For more information, see lisakemmerer.com.
Nathan Baillet is a MBA student at the University of Montana who holds a BS in business administration and a BA in history with a minor in philosophy. He grew up in the mountains of Montana where he developed a strong connection with nature and the environment and, as a vegan, has developed a strong desire to be a voice to the voiceless. His goal is to meld the two disciplines into a career in community-based activism. He is currently serving as a trustee on the board for the Laurel Public Library, always looking for ways to improve and expand access to education.
Haida Bolton was born and raised in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, obtained her Bachelor of Science from the University of British Columbia in 1990, then headed off to explore thirty countries throughout Africa, Asia, Australia, North America, and Europe. Her travels enhanced her appreciation of the earth’s vast beauty. In 2006 she founded Camp Uganda (www.campuganda.org), a registered charity. Bolton remained the president of Camp Uganda Conservation Education Society until 2011, which aims to “empower youth to save endangered chimpanzees” in Uganda. Bolton, a proud advocate of children’s camps, worked in Canadian children’s camps for ten years before founding Camp Uganda.
Valerie J. Chalcraft is an experimental psychologist with an MA and a PhD from the University of Nevada, Reno where she studied chimpanzees who communicate with American Sign Language. Chalcraft is an independent researcher who is interested in applying the principles of behavior to improve the welfare and rights of humans and nonhumans. Currently, she practices applied animal behavior in Chicago, Illinois and is a professor at the Animal Behavior Institute.
Cara Chamberlain attended the University of Utah and Purdue University. She has published fiction and poetry in numerous journals. The Devil’s Party, her novella about genetically modified organisms, was a 2004 finalist in the Low Fidelity Novella Contest, and her poetry collection, Hidden Things, was produced by FootHills Publishing in 2009. Another poetry collection, The Divine Botany, is forthcoming from WordTech Communications. She has volunteered with The Nature Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management to survey scrub jays, gopher tortoises, eagles, and sage grouse. A member of Montana Conservation Voters, she teaches at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.
Although trained as an evolutionary ecologist, Chris Darimont has developed strong personal, scholarly, and practical interests in animal welfare. As Science Director for the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Assistant Professor in the Geography Department at the University of Victoria, Canada, his research focuses on sensitive carnivores, like wolves and bears, who endure severe suffering because of humans, both through persecution and competition (for land and “huntable” species). Chris has received fellowships from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and several animal welfare awards, including a Compassion in Science Award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a Christine Stevens Wildlife Award from the Animal Welfare Institute, and an Earth Day Canada Finalist Award.
Josephine Donovan co-edited (with Carol J. Adams) The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics (2007), which contains her articles “Animal Rights and Feminist Theory,” “Attention to Suffering,” “Caring to Dialogue,” and Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (1995). She is also the author of Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions (4th ed., 2012) and numerous other works, a complete list of which is available on her website: www.english.umaine.edu/faculty/josephine. donovan. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Maine.
Bethany Dopp holds a Bachelor of Arts in environmental studies from Montana State University–Billings. Born in a small town in Northeastern Montana, she advocates for social justice with special enthusiasm for animal and earth liberation. Dopp works at a Billings college library, and enjoys hiking, bird-watching, bicycling, writing, tie-dying, gardening, and music in her spare time. Her passion is writing fiction, and she ultimately hopes to put this interest to work for social justice.
Debra Erenberg is an organizer and activist for the environment, animal rights, human rights, and social justice in general. Erenberg is Director of State Affairs for Justice at Stake, and previously served as Midwest Regional Director for Amnesty International USA, Organizing Director for Rainforest Action Network, and as Director of Affiliate Development at NARAL Pro-Choice America. Erenberg has also worked with In Defense of Animals, the Great Ape Project, and is currently on the advisory board for the Food Empowerment Project. She received her Master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctorate from the George Washington University National Law Center.
Carrie P. Freeman is a U.S. activist–scholar who studies the fundamental role that communication plays in creating a more just and sustainable world for all species. An Associate Professor of Communication at Georgia State University in Atlanta, she publishes on critical animal studies, environmental communication, and media ethics, with a specialty in vegan advocacy, which is the topic of her book Framing Farming: Communication Strategies for Animal Rights (Rodopi Press, 2014). A volunteer animal activist for two decades, Freeman led three grassroots animal rights organizations, and now co-hosts animal and environmental protection radio shows on indie station WRFG.org.
Xylem T. Galadhon has been active for animal rights, old-growth forests, Central American solidarity, the Obama 2008 campaign, and health care reform, and has campaigned against the Iraq invasion, globalization, mountain top removal coalmining, and the forces of climate change. As a physicist and astronomer he has analyzed data taken from particle physics colliders in two states, as well as images taken from telescopes both on Earth and in space.
Chris Genovali has served as Executive Director for the Raincoast Conservation Foundation for twelve years. His articles on Canadian wildlife and conservation have been printed by media throughout Canada and internationally (in Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times Colonist, The Ecologist, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Vancouver Province, Edmonton Journal, etc), as well as by online publications (Huffington Post, Common Dreams, Truthout, Counterpunch, The Tyee, etc.). Genovali has also appeared as a radio and television spokesperson with CBC’s As It Happens, CBC Newsworld, US National Public Radio, CKNW, CTV, Global TV, BBC radio, BBC television, Channel 4 UK, the Knowledge Network, and CBC News Vancouver.
Carol L. Glasser works professionally, academically, and at the grassroots for the liberation of human and nonhuman animals. Since 2009, she has focused on ending animal experimentation, and is a cofounder of and organizer with the antivivisection group Progress For Science (www.ProgressForScience.com). Glasser’s academic work addresses social movements and the intersections of nonhuman and human animal exploitation. She is currently an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, Mankato.
Randall Gloege began his writing life as a poet. Three of his poems may be found on the Pryors Coalition website (www.pryormountains.com). In the 1970s he became an activist in the wilderness movement. His work and that of many others led to the designation of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. As a college teacher, he focused on writing, American literature, philosophy, and environmental ethics. He understood himself as a work in progress. In retirement, he continued to study and work to protect wilderness and on behalf of other environmental causes. He died peacefully in his chair February 19, 2013.
Jennifer Gross is a community activist working at the intersection of feminism and animal liberation. She currently holds a BA in Environmental Studies and her goal is to teach nonviolence and compassion through diet. Gross has worked on a Montana ballot initiative for Trap-Free Public Lands and is currently working as a community organizer for a women’s health organization. She is motivated by love for the earth and all creatures.
John M. Halley grew up on a farm in a farming community in Ireland. He graduated as an electronics engineer from University College Dublin in 1983, then earned his MSc and PhD degrees from University College London in 1989. He travelled extensively in China, took a job in England, then Scotland, and finally settled in Greece, where he is currently associate professor of ecology at the University of Ioannina. Animals and the environment have always interested Halley, but his areas of scientific expertise are in the application of mathematics and statistics to biodiversity, climate change, and extinction.
Anja Heister, born and raised in Germany, holds a Masters in biology from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt, and is currently enrolled in an Interdisciplinary PhD program at the University of Montana in Missoula, where she is studying wildlife conservation and ethics. For five years Heister was Executive Director of Footloose Montana (www.footloosemontana.org), a nonprofit organization working to end recreational and commercial trapping on Montana’s public lands, and is currently Director of the Wild and Free – Habitats Campaign for In Defense of Animals (IDA).
Chris Hunt is the food program director for GRACE Communications Foundation, an organization that raises public awareness about environmental and public health issues created by our food, water, and energy systems. At GRACE, Hunt oversees Sustainable Table, Eat Well Guide, and The Meatrix, and writes for publications such as Civil Eats, Huffington Post, and Ecocentric. He earned a BA in environmental economics and peace studies from Colgate University and currently focuses on industrial livestock production, food waste, and urban agriculture. Hunt served two terms on the board of directors of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, and is proud to be a New York City Master Composter.
Daniel Kirjner is a vegan–feminist activist and doctoral sociology student at University of Brasília, Brazil. His research focuses on links between the construction of masculinity and the glorification of violence against animals and women in contemporary capitalist societies. He continues to learn about, question, and deconstruct masculinity in his own life in order to heighten his own awareness of predatory male behavior in the hope of being himself part of bringing change to the world.
Charlotte Laws, PhD, a weekly NBC commentator, served four terms on the Greater Valley Glen Council in Southern California and was previously a Los Angeles city commissioner. She holds a doctorate in social ethics from USC and was the recipient of the 2006 LA Animal Humanitarian Award. Laws has authored Armed for Ideological Warfare (USC, 1999), and articles in Call to Compassion (Lantern, 2011) and Igniting a Revolution (AK Press, 2006). Additionally, she has appeared in dozens of television shows, including Larry King Live, The Late Show, and Fox News. She is the founder and president of the League for Earth and Animal Protection and the Los Angeles Directors of Animal Welfare.
Phaik Kee Lim has worked for Friends of the Earth Malaysia (Sahabat Alam Malaysia—SAM) for more than thirty years. She creates and distributes petitions, sends out action alerts, corresponds with the media, local authorities, and other NGOs on a range of issues on behalf of nonhuman animals and the environment, focusing on the exploitation and destruction of wildlife and species (via entertainment industries, laboratories, and the pet trade) and of domestic animals (factory farming, and mistreatment of “pets”).
Melanie J. Martin holds a Master of Arts in English from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, and is the author of “Myths of Loss, Myths of Power,” published in Of Mice and Men: Animals in Human Culture (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). Her Master’s thesis, “Why We Search for Animals,” explores the American fascination with finding the rarest of nonhuman animals. Martin’s work has been printed in publications as diverse as Alternatives Journal and Professional Artist. She writes essays and poetry exploring themes of environmental justice, cultural attitudes toward animals and nature, and what a liveable future might look like.
Paul Paquet is an internationally recognized authority on mammalian carnivores, especially wolves, with research experience in several regions of the world. He worked for many years as a biologist for the Canadian Wildlife Service. He now serves as Senior Scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, as an Adjunct Professor in the Geography Department at the University of Victoria, and as an international consultant and lecturer. Paquet was one of the architects of the World Wide Fund for Nature and the European Union’s Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe. He also holds positions at the Universities of Calgary, Manitoba, and New Brunswick, where his current research focuses on the effects of human activities on the survival of large carnivores, and the conservation of these highly endangered species.
Bernard Quetchenbach was born in Rochester, New York, on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Genesee River. He is a faculty member in the Department of English, Philosophy, and Modern Languages at Montana State University Billings, where his courses include Studies in Literature and the Environment. He has been involved in various writing and environmental organizations, and currently serves on the board of the Montana Wilderness Association’s Eastern Wildlands Chapter. His poetry, essays, and critical articles have appeared in books, anthologies, and periodicals.
Christina Service is a biologist with Raincoast Conservation Foundation and a graduate student in the Geography Department at the University of Victoria. Her academic interests include wildlife conservation and ethics in wildlife research. She has received the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Award, Canadian Millennium Excellence award, and the Tom Perry Award for Social Responsibility from the University of Victoria.
Deric Shannon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Oxford College of Emory University. He has co-written/edited a number of books, journal articles, and book chapters. His current research interests include political economy, crisis/ austerity, food justice, and sustainability.
Jon E. Swenson, professor of ecology and natural resource management at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås, Norway, leads the Scandinavian Brown Bear Research Project (www.bearproject.info). He received a Bachelor and Master of Science in fish and wildlife management at Montana State University. After working as a wildlife management biologist with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks for ten years, he earned a PhD from the University of Alberta. He has been awarded the International Bear Association President’s Award for “Outstanding Service to Bear Conservation” and several Norwegian awards for communicating research results to the public.