Board Member Bob Childers Honored with Lifetime Achievement Conservation Award
Bob Childers (second from the left) on a trip into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with Trustees for Alaska directors, staff and supporters.
Alaska Conservation Foundation is holding its annual Conservation Achievement Awards banquet this month. We are pleased that Trustees for Alaska Board member Bob Childers is receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award for his tireless efforts to protect Alaska.
Bob Childers came to Alaska in the early 1970s and soon found himself on the Board of Directors of the Alaska Center for the Environment and deeply engaged in working to assure the TransAlaska Pipeline was built with as little environmental and cultural damage as possible. Out of this effort, Bob was instrumental in helping to establish Trustees for Alaska as he documented the various egregious mistakes that were occurring during construction. Bob’s continuing service on the Trustees Board of Directors has been responsible for the organization’s stability and effectiveness in its numerous legal challenges to defend Alaska’s lands, waters, wildlife, and people. Collectively he has served on Trustees’ Board for more than fifteen years.
Bob worked hard to assure the passage of that Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980 and in the process established strong relationships with the people of Arctic Village and the Gwich’in people. He is passionate about protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Porcupine Caribou Herd. Summer months often find him exploring the Arctic Refuge by raft or foot, engaging his companions with his knowledge and stories about the region. His continuing support of the northern people’s culture is a vital voice for subsistence and protection of tribal values.
In receiving this award from the Alaska Conservation Foundation, Bob joins the ranks of conservation giants Peg Tileston, Jay Hammond, Celia Hunter, Ginny Wood and Lowell Thomas, Jr. This award is a well-deserved acknowledgement of Bob’s tireless commitment to Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gwich’in people of Alaska and Canada.
The Awards Ceremony is September 18, 2014.