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"This little gem of a book offers sage advice..."
Fred Brock
The New York Times
Too Young to Retire
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B Shimon
Schwarzschild:
Engineer to Environmentalist
 Growing up in
Jersey City where he settled with his family after fleeing Nazi Germany as a boy of 10,
(Bert) Shimon Schwarzschild, 77, decided he would one day devote his life to good
causes. During World War II, he joined the U.S. Navy, getting trained as a radar
technician. By the time his military service was over, he knew he wanted to pursue
electrical engineering, a choice that would ultimately lead to a long and successful
career, including a partnership in an engineering company serving customers in "the
military/industrial/ aerospace complex.""
After Shimon relocated to the West Coast with his family, working an engineering
sales territory, his childhood promise reasserted itself: "I reached a point
where I felt that I wanted to serve the earth rather than being a part of its
destruction. He decided to take a year's leave of absence from his engineering job
to accept a position as Executive Director of American Youth Hostels in San Francisco
despite a significant cut in pay. One year stretched into three, and his career as
community activist was born. "I was having so much fun, I decided to resign
from the engineering firm. I never went back." With a small payout,
Shimon went on to develop a chain of youth hostels along the California coast.
While he was in this position, he met Dr. Albert Baez, father of singer Joan Baez,
and a member of the Commission of Education and Communication of the World Conservation
Union (IUCN), headquartered near Geneva, one of the most powerful environmental
organizations in the world. "We hit it off," he
recalled, "I asked him to join our board of directors and he said, ' I will under
condition that you join our commission.'" Thus began a 13-year
affiliation with the IUCN "that opened up a whole new life for me. I became totally
involved in nature protection." He would later become director of the Whale
Center in Oakland, California working for whale protection and ocean conservation.
Shimon Schwarzschild has also headed many San Francisco community, environmental,
and political organizations seeking to improve urban "liveability." He is also
cofounder of the Native Yew Conservation Council that has worked to save wild yew trees
through conservation or sustainable harvesting and, by extension, save cancer patients.
Although well-known as conservationist at home, Shimon wasn't looking for another cause
when he went to Europe in 1982 on vacation. Yet he found one that would ignite his
passion anew. A friend had suggested that he visit Assisi, made famous by Saint
Francis in the 13th Century, and renowned for its songbirds. "It was a beautiful day
when I climbed Mount Subasio, St. Francis' mountain," he recalled. "As I
started walking, I heard shotgun
blasts in the valley below. Then I started to notice hundreds of shotgun casings on
the trail, and feathers in the bushes." What he hadn't known was that songbirds
are a delicacy in Italy, and Assisi's fabled songbird population was being severely
threatened from hunting.
Outraged, he started an international campaign to halt the slaughter of Assisi's songbird
population. Joined by others in Italy and elsewhere, the initiative led to a ban on
the hunting of songbirds, the establishment of an environmental education and ethics
center in Assisi, and the approval for a nature preserve on Mt. Subasio. With his
friend and fellow conservationist, Maria Luisa Cohen, he co-founded the Assisi Nature
Council in Italy. Later, Schwarzschild co-founded in San Francisco its U.S.
affiliate, Assisi Nature Council/USA, later renamed Action for Nature, Inc.
What lies ahead? "I am concerned about a lot of things in the world," the
conservationist writer/editor/consultant says, "But I have also learned that if you
scatter yourself, you end up being concerned about everything and making no change. So I'm
concentrating on the protection of nature where I know I can make the biggest difference.
Right now, we want to expand by taking Action for Nature into the classroom, letting young
people know how they can take personal action to protect their community's
environment." Acting
For Nature: What Young People Around the World Have Done to Protect the Environment
(Heyday Books, 2000) is a collection of stories of children from eleven different
countries who "looked at the problems in their communities and decided to do
something to help." All proceeds go toward supporting the programs of Action
for Nature.
Next Steps
Visit the Action for
Nature site for young people at: www.actionfornature.org
or
write: Action for Nature
2269 Chestnut Street, Suite
263
San Francisco, CA 94123
Email: action@dnai.com
Bay Area residents,
seek out The Bay Area Volunteer’s Handbook (EarthWorks Press 1996), from the
creators of 50 Simple Things You Can do to Save the Earth
Nationwide
environmental opportunities: Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI) http://www.easi.org/ and The Nature Conservancy, http://nature.org/
For other community
service opportunities, check out http://www.2young2retire.com/links.html
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