Tia Nelson’s Message for Earth Week 2024

Note from Carolyn Pralle, WGF Communications and Outreach Coordinator

This Earth Week message comes from Tia Nelson, one of WGF’s Ambassadors, and an international champion for environmental stewardship.

The Wisconsin’s Green Fire team thanks you for donating to our Earth Week 2024 spring appeal fundraiser toward WGF research, education, and scholarships.

When my father, former Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founded Earth Day in 1970, his goal was to inspire a national conversation about our environment. 

His call to action, a nationwide “teach-in” on the environment, was successful beyond his wildest dreams. And now, more than five decades later, Earth Day endures as a reminder of the critical importance of protecting and conserving the environmental systems that support all life. There remains much work to do. 

Here in Wisconsin, we are experiencing significant challenges in our efforts to ensure a healthy environment for this and future generations. Too often, important conservation efforts are thwarted by people who disregard science and promote policies based on special interests or personal benefit, at the expense of the public good.  

I have committed my entire career to environmental protection, conservation, and public lands management here and abroad. I’ve worked on climate change issues–humanity’s greatest environmental risk–in my home state of Wisconsin, and in countries around the world.

WGF Science Council meeting in Wausau

Today, I am asking you to join me in supporting Wisconsin’s Green Fire, a nonprofit group of scientists working to advance conservation and science-based environmental policy in Wisconsin.

They are working tirelessly to advocate for clean air, clean water, and healthy ecosystems around our beautiful State. The founders of Wisconsin’s Green Fire have decades of extraordinary experience and expertise in water quality, wildlife biology, sustainable forestry and natural resource policy. They are playing a critical role in ensuring that the citizens of Wisconsin have the information we need to make sound, science-based decisions for our future. 

We need to protect our lakes and streams, our air quality, our forests, and our farms. And we need Wisconsin’s Green Fire to help us do that. I’m proud to be an ambassador for Wisconsin’s Green Fire.

Bittersweet Lakes State Natural Area, Vilas County by Ron Eckstein

Please join me in donating today. A gift of any amount makes you a member of the Voices for Conservation. Let’s make everyday Earth Day!

Thank you,

Tia Nelson

P.S. You may enjoy this video I narrated for PBS Wisconsin Education: Gaylord Nelson: A Vision For The Earth | Wisconsin Biographies