Mollie Beattie


Mollie H. Beattie was an American conservationist, and director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 2009, she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.

Life

She was born on April 27, 1947, in Glen Cove, New York.
She graduated from Marymount College, Tarrytown with bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1968, and from the University of Vermont with a master's degree in forestry in 1979, and from Harvard University with a master's degree in public administration in 1991.
From 1985 to 1989, she was Vermont commissioner of forests, parks and recreation; from 1989 to 1990, she was deputy secretary for Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources.
From 1993 to 1996, she served as the first woman director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
She oversaw the successful reintroduction of the gray wolf into northern Rocky Mountains. During her tenure as director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, she oversaw the addition of 15 new wildlife refuges, and established over 100 new habitat conservation plans. Mollie also fought fiercely in Washington D.C. to protect the wildlife refuges, to keep good science in the decision making, and against weakening the endangered Species Act.
She died on June 27, 1996, in Townshend, Vermont.

Family

She was married to Rick Schwolsky.

Honors

To commemorate Mollie Beattie's life and work, the 8 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Wilderness was renamed the Mollie Beattie Wilderness by the U.S. Congress in 1996. President William J. Clinton wrote, "Under this legislation, Mollie Beattie's name will be forever associated with one of the most wild and beautiful places on this planet, the Brooks Range of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is entirely appropriate that we honor Mollie in this way. She was a passionate defender of our 508 National Wildlife Refuges, the largest system of lands in the world dedicated to wildlife conservation. She saw them as places that must be appreciated and honored, as places where we could begin to fulfill our sacred trust as stewards of God's creation. Mollie worked tirelessly, even as her health was failing, to keep these places wild for the benefit of Americans today and for those who will follow us."

In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing.
If it's unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature.

-- Mollie Beattie

Works