Inspirational People
Mary Colwell
Mary Colwell is an author and champion for curlew recovery and nature education. In October 2022 she received an award from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), recognising her outstanding contribution to nature conservation.
A passionate advocate for nature, Mary has had a tireless commitment to raising awareness of the plight of the Eurasian curlew, a bird which is threatened with extinction in the UK and Ireland. Bristol-based Mary also led the successful campaign to secure a Natural History GCSE in schools across the UK.
In 2016, Mary walked the length of Ireland and the UK to share the story of the drastic loss of curlew across our countryside. Her resulting book, Curlew Moon, describes the journey she took in order to engage new audiences and raise awareness of the plight of the curlew.
She says: "The pressures on nature are huge, and we need short, medium and long-term strategies to tackle them. There are immediate conservation actions, such as protecting nests or planting wildlife gardens for example. There are the medium-term – restoring habitats like meadows, wetlands, farmland, saltmarsh, and encouraging the right tree in the right place. But there is also the long game – the large-scale societal changes that have to happen if any of these initiatives are to bed-in and become normalised."
Fr Sean McDonagh
A Columban priest and ecologist, Fr Sean McDonagh is an outspoken critic of the degradation of the environment, linking this to global poverty and the increased suffering of the poor. His understanding of environmental issues and the relationship between faith, justice and ecology was awakened during his work with the indigenous T'boli people on the Philippine island of Mindanao in the 1970s and 1980s. Now based in Ireland, he strongly urges the Catholic Church to undergo an 'ecological conversion' advocating that environmental justice must be a core Christian activity.
He is the author of numerous articles and nine books including Climate Change: The Challenge to All of Us; Greening the Christian Millennium; To Care for the Earth; and Dying for Water. His book on Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si', On Care for Our Common Home takes the encyclical’s full text and adds his reflections on its various themes: among them, climate change, biodiversity, water scarcity and threats to the oceans, and the food crisis. In addition, McDonagh recaps the development of Catholic theology on creation and offers ideas on how to transform Pope Francis' vision in Laudato Si' into meaningful action.
Jane Mellett
Jane Mellett is Laudato Si' Officer with Trócaire, the Irish bishops' overseas development agency. She also works with the Laudato Si' Movement, promoting Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' with grassroots faith communities in Ireland.
She participated in the 2018 Climate Pilgrimage, walking 1,000km from Italy to Poland for the UN Climate talks (COP24). Prior to that she worked as a parish pastoral worker in the Archdiocese of Dublin. She has many years of experience of working in religious education and pastoral ministry. She co-authored with Triona Doherty, 'The Deep End - A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Luke' (Messenger Publications 2021).
Sr Dorothy Stang (1931-2005)
The best-known photo of Sr Dorothy Stang pictures her among trees in the Amazon rainforest wearing a white tee-shirt carrying the words, 'The End of the Forest is the end of our lives'. But there is another photo too. This time she is lying face down on a muddy track, dead. This second photo was taken on 12 February 2005, the day 73-year-old Dorothy was intercepted on that forest path by two gunman who shot her six times.
Dorothy, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur from the United States, had worked for three decades in Brazil, particularly to preserve Brazil's rainforest and defend poor settlers' land rights against ranchers and loggers who were taking over land by force.
She valued the biodiversity of the rainforest, partly because of the livelihoods it provides. The peasants' love for her was shown at her funeral, where more than 2,000 poor Brazilian farmers walked to the remote jungle town of Anapu to bid farewell.
Wangari Maathai (1940 – 2011)
Wangari Maathai's ground-breaking Green Belt Movement was founded in 1977 and planted tens of millions of trees across Africa while also empowering women living there with new skills and employment opportunities.
Her fearless campaigns to stop politicians from seizing land in Kenya made her a national hero, while her Green Belt philosophy became particularly pertinent in areas such as the Congo Basin, where conflicts were closely connected with scarce natural resources. She speaks about her work in 'A Voice for the Trees'
In 2004, Maathai became the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
