Dr. Ian Player, Republic of South Africa

Dr. Ian Player is one of the 20th Century's foremost wilderness leaders and one of the best examples of the admonition to "Think globally and act locally." Locally, for Dr. Player, means the Republic of South Africa where he was born in 1927.

Dr. Player had done for the Republic of South Africa what his friend, Sigurd Olson, and others like him, have done for the United States, that is, raising the wilderness consciousness of the nation to the point where it has become an accepted value of our lives. But he has done more. As a young man back from the war, he committed himself to the preservation of parks, trails and game as a hands-on park ranger, eventually becoming Chief Conservator of Zululand. During this time he gained international recognition for saving the white rhino from extinction. He wrote a book about it (Saving the White Rhino, 1966) and received the Game Conservation International Award in San Antonio in 1969. He had already received the San Diego Zoological Society Gold Medal for Conservation in 1966.

And yet more. During the seventies, Player became the father of the international wilderness movement by founding the International Wilderness Foundation and the Wilderness Leadership School, and launching the World Wilderness Congresses, all of which have flourished ever since. He tells a charming story of how he was inspired by Zulu game warden and colleague Maqubu Nthombela who envisioned a world "indaba" or meeting of people who loved and respected the natural world and its inhabitants. He recently published his story in a new book, Zulu Wilderness: Shadow and Soul (1998). There have been six World Wilderness Congresses to date in South Africa, Australia, Scotland, Colorado, Norway and India, with a seventh scheduled for 2001 at a site yet to be decided. In a recent letter, Player wrote:

It is, of course, imperative that we look at Wilderness from an international perspective because it is only by joining forces that we stand a chance of saving what little is left worldwide.

We are honored and enormously pleased to have Dr. Player join the Listening Point Foundation International Board of Senior Advisors.