WI (WISCONSIN CONSERVATION HALL OF FAME FOUNDATION, INC. PRESS RELEASE) – The Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame (WCHF) Foundation, Inc., is pleased to announce the April 2025 Induction of J. Baird Callicott, David Carlson, and Robert Freckmann. “Our 2025 inductees have established lasting legacies in Wisconsin and continue to have a far-reaching impact across many areas of conservation. We are grateful for their numerous contributions and are thrilled to celebrate each of them on April 5, 2025.” said WCHF Foundation President Marco Mascitti. Each of these individuals will be inducted into the WCHF on April 5, 2025, in live ceremonies held virtually and free for the public to attend, donations are appreciated. For more information visit: https://wchf.org/2025- induction-events
INDUCTEE BIOS
J. Baird Callicott:
J. Baird Callicott is often credited with founding the field of environmental ethics. Beginning by teaching the world’s first course in environmental ethics in 1971 at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, Callicott’s scholarship over the next five decades simultaneously advanced across four main fronts: theoretical environmental ethics; comparative environmental ethics and philosophy; the philosophy of ecology and conservation policy; and biocomplexity in the environment, coupled natural and human systems (the latter two occasionally sponsored by the National Science Foundation). Callicott is perhaps best known as the leading contemporary exponent of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and has more recently explored an Aldo Leopold Earth Ethic in response to global climate change. (See J. Baird Callicott, Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic, published by Oxford University Press in 2013.) He is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and author or editor of a score of books and author of dozens of journal articles, encyclopedia articles, and book chapters in environmental philosophy and ethics. Callicott has served the International Society for Environmental Ethics as President and Yale University as Bioethicist-in-Residence, and he has served the UNT Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies as chair. For the last ten years Callicott has served as the Senior Assigning Editor of the Journal of Conservation Biology. In this role, he has shaped the discussions and their coalescence into concrete guidelines around several key topics, including human-wildlife conflict, equity in conservation research and practice, animal rights, trophy hunting, wilderness, the concept of intrinsic value, and the status of non-native species. He has refereed some very challenging positions and divisive opinions, in turn substantially enhancing conservation policy and conservation-oriented research on conservation science.
David Carlson:
For over 30 years, Dave Carlson’s broadcast reporting on outdoor sporting and resource topics, especially in the Midwest, informed outdoors enthusiasts and the public on a remarkably wide range of subjects. He is known across the region as a straight-shooting reporter, one who never shied away from controversial topics, and a passionate outdoors enthusiast who strove to put his viewers into the stream or woods or onto the ice with him. He produced over 3,000 segments for his outdoor television shows, “Northland Adventures” and “Northland Outdoor Journal”, and received dozens of awards from his peers for notable segments. Along the way, his segments included coverage of injured vets and kids on the water, women who love to hunt and fish and are teaching others to do so, threats to natural resources, and controversies such as frac sand mining, high capacity wells and groundwater, and the confrontations at boat landings over Native Americans’ exercising their treaty rights to spear walleyes. He covered all of us who love our woods and waters, and in a way spoke for us in telling our stories.
Robert Freckmann:
Dr. Freckmann has loved, explored, and conserved the natural resources of Wisconsin all his life through his teaching, research, outreach, and volunteerism as a member of the Botanical Club of Wisconsin (founding member, second president, and Central Wisconsin chapter leader for 55 years), Aldo Leopold Audubon Society (board member, officer, or chair for 30 years), Ice Age Trail Alliance (hike leader for 39 years), North Central Conservancy Trust (emeritus board member, conducting botanical surveys for 23 years), The Nature Conservancy (8-year board member), and Wisconsin Wetlands Association (4-year board member). He has given hundreds of talks, led innumerable field trips, and conducted workshops attended by thousands who have heard him speak on the imperative of conserving Wisconsin’s flora.
Born in Milwaukee in 1939, Bob attended UW-Milwaukee for his undergraduate degree and Iowa State for his PhD, studying the taxonomy of Dichanthelium and Panicum grasses which occur throughout Wisconsin’s prairies, savannas, fields, and roadsides. After working at the Milwaukee Public Museum, Bob joined the faculty of UW-Stevens Point in 1968, where he taught botany and museum courses for 32 years, inspiring over 5,000 students, many of whom pursued careers in conservation. He enlarged the eponymous Robert W. Freckmann Herbarium from 2,500 to 230,000 specimens, documenting the biological diversity of Wisconsin, including major portions of the state not well-covered by other institutions and major aquatic plant inventories. These collections are paramount for establishing baselines for any effective conservation work in the State of Wisconsin.
For decades, Bob has been the “go-to” person for Wisconsin conservationists wishing to identify plants, especially members of difficult groups, sharing his expertise with federal, state and local agencies and organizations who gratefully make the pilgrimage to the Herbarium, where he patiently explains the finer points of identification, ecology, and distribution of aquatic macrophytes, grasses, and sedges.
WCHF INDUCTION EVENT DETAILS
The 2025 WCHF Induction Events will be held on Saturday, April 5, 2025. The events will be held live on a virtual platform and are free and open to the public, donations are appreciated. For more details about the events visit: https://wchf.org/2025-induction-events/
WISCONSIN CONSERVATION HALL OF FAME FOUNDATION, INC. (WCHF) The WCHF was established in 1982 to encourage the growth and practice of a conservation ethic as a legacy for the people of the State. Individuals may be nominated for induction into the WCHF by the public. Based on a set of criteria, 2025 nominees were selected for induction by the WCHF Board of Directors, Representatives of 30 Voting Member Organizations, and an independent Board of Governors.
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