By Professor David Zilberman, Agricultural and Resource Economics
As the world is preparing for a big environmental summit in Copenhagen, knowing that an agreement is very unlikely, it’s become apparent how difficult it is to reach an environmental agreement that can stick and change the course of history. People that can bring about such agreement are really rare, and last week we lost one of them, Tom Graff.
Tom was an environmental lawyer who opened the west coast office of the Environmental Defense.
Water is the most precious resource of the west. The west was built by the diversion of water from wild lands to mine gold, build cities, and irrigate farmland. Some were cheering these activities that “make the desert bloom,” but in the meantime many regions, like Owens Valley, were ravaged. The legal establishment provided tools, like the prior appropriation doctrine, that enabled these diversions. This legal doctrine allowed diversions as long as the water provides “beneficial use,” was based on the principles of “first in time, first in right,” and “use it or lose it,” and restricted trading in water.
Continue reading "Tom Graff: A practical environmental visionary" »
Tom Graff, 65, died yesterday, November 11, 2009, after a two-and-a-half year battle with cancer.
In 1971, Tom opened the first California Office of the Environmental Defense Fund and went on to be one of the most influential environmentalists in California water policy during the proceeding 30 years.
In 2008, to honor Tom’s work, as well as a long-standing professional association and friendship, George A. Miller and his wife, Janet A. McKinley, funded the Thomas J. Graff Chair in the College of Natural Resources.
For more information on Tom and his life’s work please see:
Edward (Ned) Sylvester, professor emeritus of entomology at UC Berkeley, died on Saturday, July 25. He was 89.
Sylvester joined the Department of Entomology at UC Berkeley in 1944. As a teacher, researcher, department chair, dean and finally professor emeritus, Dr. Sylvester made significant contributions to both his field of entomology and to UC Berkeley, and received the Berkeley Citation in 1990.
Ned is survived by Marian, his wife of 67 years, daughter Kathryn Jarrett, son Stephen and grandson Eric.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the UC Berkeley Foundation for the Biosciences Library. Contact Kathryn Moriarty Baldwin at moriarty@nature.berkeley.edu for information on making a gift.
Donald Robert Kaplan, professor emeritus of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and an influential expert on the development of the diverse forms and shapes of plants, has died at the age of 69.
Continue reading "Donald Kaplan, expert on plant shapes and forms, dies at 69" »
On August 3, 2007, graduate student Nathaniel Gerhart died in a fatal accident while conducting fieldwork in Indonesia. He was 32.
An NSF Fellow in Indonesia, as well as a devoted naturalist, birdwatcher and frisbee player, Gerhart was researching rain forest conservation for his Ph.D. in ESPM.
Services and memorials have been held in Jakarta and in New York, with the New York memorial available via webcast here.
Friends and colleagues will host an on-campus memorial on Sept 23 at 2 p.m., at the Faculty Club.
Continue reading "Remembering Nathaniel Gerhart" »
