Beattie,Mollie (1947 – 1996) American Forester and Conservationist

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Mollie Beattie (1947 – 1996)
American forester and conservationist

Mollie Hanna Beattie was trained as a forester, worked as a land manager and administrator, and ended her brief career as the first woman to serve as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . Beattie's bachelor's degree was in philosophy, followed by a master's degree in forestry from the University of Vermont in 1979. Later (in 1991), she used a Bullard Fellowship at Harvard University to add a master's degree in public administration.

Early in her career, Mollie Beattie served in several conservation administrative posts and land management positions at the state level. She was commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation (1985–1989), and deputy secretary of the state's Agency of Natural Resources (1989–1990). She also worked for private foundations and institutes: as program director and lands manager (1983–1985), for the Windham Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization concerned with critical issues facing Vermont, and later (1990–1993), as executive director of the Richard A. Snelling Center for Government in Vermont, a public policy institute.

Before becoming director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Beattie was perhaps most widely known (especially in New England) for the book she co-authored on managing woodlots in private ownership, an influential guide reissued in a second edition in 1993. As a reviewer noted about the first edition, for the decade it was in print "thousands of landowners and professional foresters [recommended the book] to others." Especially noteworthy is the book's emphasis on the responsibility of private landowners for effective stewardship of the land. This background was reflected in her thinking as Fish and Wildlife director by making the private lands program—conservation in partnership with private land-owners—central to the agency's conservation efforts.

As director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Beattie quickly became nationally known as a strong voice for conservation and as an advocate for thinking about land and wildlife management in ecosystem terms. One of her first actions as director was to announce that "the Service [will] shift to an ecosystem approach to managing our fish and wildlife resources." She emphasized that people use natural ecosystems for many purposes, and "if we do not take an ecosystem approach to conserving biodiversity , none of [those uses] will be long lived."

Her philosophy as a forester, conservationist, administrator, and land manager was summarized in her repeated insistence that people must start making better connections—between wildlife and habitat health and human health; between their own actions and "the destiny of the ecosystems on which both humans and wildlife depend;" and between the well-being of the environment and the well-being of the economy." She stressed "even if not a single job were created, wildlife must be conserved" and that the diversity of natural systems must remain integral and whole because "we humans are linked to those systems and it is in our immediate self interest to care" about them. She reiterated that in any frame greater than the short-term, the economy and the environment are "identical considerations."

Though Beattie's life was relatively short, and her tenure at the Fish and Wildlife Service cut short by illness, her ideas were well received in conservation circles and her influence continues after her death, helping to create what she called "preemptive conservation," anticipating crises before they appear and using that foresight to minimize conflict, to maintain biodiversity and sustainable economies, and to prevent extinctions.

[Gerald L. Young ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

Beattie, M., C. Thompson, and L. Levine. Working With Your Woodland: A Land-Owner's Guide. Rev. ed. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1993.

Beattie, M. "Biodiversity Policy and Ecosystem Management." In Biodiversity and the Law, edited by W. J. Snape III. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996.