An Environmental Visionary
In 1995, when the UTNE Reader named 100 Visionaries, Teresa Heinz Kerry was included as someone who had left "the outdated dichotomy of environmental protection versus economic development in her wake." Later that year, the trustees of the Vira Heinz Endowment announced a $20 million grant (one of the largest environmental grants ever made), to create the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. The Heinz Center, based in Washington, is dedicated to improving the scientific and economic foundation for environmental policy through collaboration among industry, government, academic, and environmental organizations. This four-sector approach is unique to the Heinz Center.
In September 2002, the Heinz Center published the results of a long-awaited pioneering project assessing, on the basis of the objective data available, the state of America's ecosystems. (The State of the Nation's Ecosystems, Cambridge University Press, 2002) The study is the product of five years' work by nearly 150 individuals from environmental organizations, businesses, universities, and federal, state, and local governments. The distinguished journal Biodiversity noted that "the highly anticipated report…is a succinct and comprehensive ---yet unbiased and scientifically sound--- examination of the current state of the nation's lands, waters, and living resources." The volume has been hailed as invaluable not only for decision makers in government and environmental organizations, businesses, and trade associations; and for academics with a research or teaching interest in environmental issues; but also for a general public interested in the continued well-being of American ecosystems. The AEI Environmental Policy Outlook said the Heinz report "provides a road map for future research necessary for policymakers to set sensible priorities."
The Heinz Center's State of the Nation's Ecosystems project is ongoing, and the published report will be regularly updated; the next edition will appear in 2007.
Teresa Heinz Kerry is vice chairman of the Heinz Center's board and a longtime board member of Environmental Defense, one of the nation's leading environmental organizations. In 1992, she was one of ten representatives from non-governmental organizations attached to the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Brazil. (It was at this conference in Rio de Janiero that she first got to know another delegate --- Senator John Kerry. Three years later, on May 26, 1995, they were married on Nantucket.)
She has endowed a professorship in environmental management at the Harvard Business School and a chair in environmental policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In addition, she has established the Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research --- annual awards to provide support for individuals writing doctoral dissertations or a master's thesis, or for project enhancement, for research and solutions on emerging environmental issues. All research must have public policy relevance that increases society's understanding of environmental problems and their solutions. In 1996 she created the John Heinz Environmental Fellows Program for the United Negro College Fund. These fellowships are open to students enrolled full-time in UNCF institutions majoring in science with an environmental emphasis.
As a member of the Advisory Board for the Earth Communications Office, she helped to pioneer an internationally acclaimed public service campaign promoting citizen environmental action in countries around the globe. Similarly, she sponsored The Environminute and The World ECO Minute, a daily radio campaign reaching citizens in more than 100 countries, and HealthWeek, a weekly PBS-produced program with a strong focus on women's health and the environment. She helped to conceptualize and launch Second Nature, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the development of an environmentally literate citizenry. She is a co-founder of the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning and serves on the Advisory Council for the Center for Children's Health and the Environment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
