Rutgers alumnus Peter Seligmann (AG’72), who earned a bachelor’s degree in wildlife ecology from the College of Agriculture (now School of Environmental and Biological Sciences), credits Rutgers with setting him on the path to almost 40 years of global environmental conservation. He went on to earn a master’s degree in forestry and environmental science from Yale University in 1974.
Seligmann founded Conservation International, a global environmental organization with the goal of protecting nature for the benefit of people in 1987. Through Conservation International, Seligmann has helped to protect more than 2 million square miles of land and sea across more than 70 countries, working with luminaries like actor Harrison Ford to protect oceans, forests and other living ecosystems.
“For conservation to work, it had to benefit communities,” says Seligmann. “It needs to be understood as enlightened self-interest of all people.”
Grant F. Walton, former alpine ecology professor at the College of Agriculture, who later became the second dean of then Cook College in 1975.
Seligmann grew up in Plainfield, NJ, virtually in the backyard of the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus. Originally enrolled as a sociology major, he made the fateful decision to transfer to the College of Agriculture after one year at Rutgers. As he describes it, then professor of alpine ecology, Grant Walton, opened up the door to his transfer, enabling him to “enter a different world” studying soils, ecology, wildlife, ag and animal husbandry. “That was the beginning, and that was Rutgers.” (Prof. Walton went on to become the second dean of Cook College, the successor to the College of Agriculture, in July 1975.)
He credits his Rutgers experience with setting him firmly on the path to becoming an influential leader of conservation, tracing his previous work with The Nature Conservancy as a land steward for the western region and as the Director of the California Nature Conservancy, as well as through the global impact of Conservation International, and later, Nia Tero, a global collaborative supporting the rights, livelihoods, and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, which he founded in 2017.
Seligmann was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 2003 by Rutgers for “distinguished service to science.”
This article was originally published by the SEBS/NJAES Newsroom.