Rolex Laureate Anita Studer

The Rolex Awards for Enterprise are given to people who make a difference. Well… how about someone who’s made so much of a difference that millions of trees have been planted in the Amazon rainforest? How about someone who’s made so much of a distance that there are two different species named after her? In 1990, Anita Studer, a Swiss Ornithologist, won the Rolex Award for Enterprise for her work in Brazil.

She first went to Brazil to study its wide variety of birds. She recalled how fascinating and beautiful she found songbirds as a child and so studied them. She wanted to see the colors of birds in the rainforest. She wanted to hear their songs. She also wanted to find a species to study for her master’s degree. She never thought that decision would change the course of her life.

In Brazil, she focused on the Forbes’s blackbird. It lived along the northern Atlantic coast of Brazil. Her professor pointed out to her that the bird would likely be extinct in ten years because of deforestation, and Anita’s life was set out before her. Would she study fast or would she find another solution? Studer’s response was to determine that she would save the forest and then she would have the rest of her life to study the bird.

That was in 1980.

Forty years and eight million trees later, Studer has accomplished more than most people dare to dream is even possible. When Studer began in 1980, best estimates suggested there were about three hundred of the blackbirds left in the word. With her efforts to save the habitat as well as the bird, it appears there are now more than three thousand. The benefits don’t stop there. Her reforestation efforts have also transformed communities dependent on the forest, including access to water and more.

I love thinking that my obsession for Rolex can be about more than just their remarkable watches. Don’t you?

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Rolex Laureate Mark Kendall