Olaus Murie once said "There is growing awareness of the beauty of country ... a sincere desire to keep some of it for all time. People are beginning to value highly the fact that a river runs unimpeded for a distance... They are beginning to obtain deep satisfaction from the fact that a herd of elk may be observed in back country, on ancestral ranges, where the Indians once hunted them. They are beginning to seek the healing relaxation that is possible in wild country. In short, they want it."� 

Olaus Murie was a renowned biologist and one of the country's great champions of wildlife and wilderness. Scientist, visionary, and former governing council member and president of The Wilderness Society, Olaus Murie's vision helped establish the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and shaped a new way of thinking about predators and ecosystems. 

Olaus Murie began his career as a wildlife biologist in Alaska, where he studied caribou herds in northern Alaska's Brooks Range and found his lifetime companion, Mardy. The Muries moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to study the local elk herd and it became their lifelong home. Olaus became an early, staunch defender of predators and their crucial role in ecosystems. 

In 1937, Murie joined the governing council of the young Wilderness Society. He helped convince President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to add surrounding rain forests to Olympic National Monument. He also worked to establish Jackson Hole National Monument in the valley below the Teton Range. 

In 1950, The Wilderness Society named Murie its president. The Muries log cabin in Moose, Wyoming became an unofficial Wilderness Society headquarters. As president, Murie lobbied successfully to prevent large federal dam projects within Glacier National Park and Dinosaur National Monument. 

Murie's greatest quest became protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. In 1956, Mardy, Olaus, and a few others spent several weeks on an Arctic expedition. Armed with their evidence, they returned to the lower 48 and spent four years campaigning tirelessly to protect the place so dear to them. In 1960, President Eisenhower set aside 8 million acres as the Arctic National Wildlife Range, which later became part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

 

One important environmentalist is Chico Mendes. Mendes was born in Xapuri, Brazil in December 15, 1944, and he died only 44 years later, on December 22, 1988 he was murdered by  Darly Alves da Silva. He lived in Xapuri, and worked as a rubber tree tapper. A rubber tree tapper is a person in the amazon extracting latex sap from rubber trees. His most important achievement was his work on protecting the amazon, and his work has turned out useful. Now the government has set aside 7.5 million acres of land for tapping trees. A quote from him was, “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rain-forest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.” In conclusion I believe that Chico Mendes was a very important environmentalist.