Green Heroes

Lives that bent toward the land. Foresters, farmers, organizers, scientists, the people who answered with their hands.

Geographic atlas

Where the work happened

The profiles

Read their stories

№ 01

Abdul Kareem

India · 1950–present

Indian conservationist who single-handedly grew a 32-acre forest on barren laterite land in Kerala over more than 30 years.

№ 02

Akira Miyawaki

Japan · 1928–2021

Japanese botanist who developed the Miyawaki method for creating dense native forests in record time, planting over 1,700 forests across 15 countries.

№ 03

Chico Mendes

Brazil · 1944–1988

Brazilian rubber tapper and union leader who organized nonviolent resistance to protect the Amazon rainforest from deforestation.

№ 04

David Milarch

United States · 1949–present

Michigan nurseryman who pioneered techniques for cloning the world's largest and oldest trees to preserve their genetics and combat climate change.

№ 05

Felix Finkbeiner

Germany · 1997–present

German activist who started Plant-for-the-Planet at age 9, building a youth movement that has planted billions of trees worldwide.

№ 06

Geoff Lawton

Australia · 1954–present

Australian permaculture educator who proved that even the harshest degraded landscapes can be rebuilt into productive food forests.

№ 07

Jadav Payeng

India · 1959–present

Indian environmental activist who single-handedly planted a 1,360-acre forest on a barren sandbar in Assam over four decades.

№ 08

John D. Liu

United States · 1953–present

American-Chinese filmmaker who documented the Loess Plateau restoration and founded Ecosystem Restoration Camps worldwide.

№ 09

Julia Butterfly Hill

United States · 1974–present

American environmentalist who lived 738 days in a 1,500-year-old redwood named Luna to save it from logging.

№ 10

Marina Silva

Brazil · 1958–present

Brazilian environmentalist and politician from Acre who fought alongside Chico Mendes and became Minister of the Environment.

№ 11

Japanese farmer and philosopher who developed 'do-nothing farming,' a radical method of agriculture that works with nature rather than against it, and authored the landmark book The One-Straw Revolution.

№ 12

Richard St. Barbe Baker

United Kingdom · 1889–1982

British forester who founded Men of the Trees in 1922, one of the world's first international conservation organizations.

№ 13

Saalumarada Thimmakka

India · 1910–present

Illiterate Karnataka environmentalist who planted 384 banyans along a 4 km road and an estimated 8,000 trees overall, earning the name Saalumarada, row of banyans.

№ 14