OLIVE PINK
1884-1975
Her name combines two colours, but as a
gardener and botanical artist, Olive Pink
cherished every shade of Australia. Growing
up in Tasmania, she bushwalked, camped
and sketched plants in her grandmother’s
garden – and, at a time when Australian
gardeners were likely to spurn native flora,
Olive was rather smitten with arid-climate
plants. She first visited Central Australia in
1930 on a sketching tour, stopping off at far-
flung railway stations to set up camp and
draw nearby blooms. Over the next decade,
Olive returned to the region several times,
eventually planting roots on the outskirts
of Alice Springs; these trips sparked
an interest in the welfare of Indigenous
Australians. She championed Warlpiri
and Arrernte self-determination, and her
uncompromising criticism of authorities
shaped her reputation as an eccentric
troublemaker. Meanwhile, Olive found joy in
painting the colours and textures of desert
flowers. Her impressionistic artworks
recorded each plant’s quintessence – plus
its common, botanical and Indigenous
names. In 1956, aged 72, Olive convinced
the Northern Territory government to
let her revive 16 hectares of land that
introduced animals had stripped bare.
With a team of Indigenous gardeners, she
installed a clever irrigation system to exploit
limited rainfall – the reserve would protect
native flora and provide a site locals could
visit to learn about desert environments.
She lived there until her death at 91, rising
at 5am every day to hand-water plants
propagated from locally collected seeds. In
1985, her oasis was publicly opened as the
Olive Pink Botanic Garden: a heritage-listed
national treasure.
RACHEL CARSON
1907-1964
Rachel Carson wore many different hats:
writer, marine biologist and ecologist among
them. More famously, the Pennsylvanian
dame roused the global movement against
environmental pollution by chemicals – a
pursuit that earned her many detractors.
Supposedly, it was Beatrix Potter’s droll
anthropomorphic tales that first sparked
Rachel’s early love of nature and literature.
She went on to write environmental prose
for newspapers, science magazines, and
even the US Bureau of Fisheries. By the
’50s, she’d penned a trilogy of bestselling
non-fiction books about ocean life. But it
was 1962’sSilent Spring– which warns
of the dangers of pesticides such as DDT- that remains her most stunning literary
achievement. When Rachel observed that
synthetic pesticides were devastating
local ecosystems, she reviewed scientific
literature, interviewed researchers, and
attended government inquiries to argue
that American food crops were being
contaminated bypoorly understood
and regulated chemicals, and chemical
companies were knowingly concealing the
damage done by their products. Though
she wasn’t the first pesticide critic,Silent
Spring’s popularity forced public scrutiny
of compounds that had previously been
hailed as scientific advances. Tragically,
just as she was drafting chapters about
pesticides’ carcinogenic effects, Rachel
was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite
her failing health, she continued to
agitate for government policy reform that
eventually led to the establishment of the
US Environmental Protection Agency. When
Rachel died in 1964, she’d inspired a global
grassroots environmentalist movement.
JACQUES COUSTEAU
1910-1997
Jacques Cousteau was a dashing chronicler
of the life aquatic. Untrained as a scientist,
the French adventurer and educator created
books, films, TV series and contraptions
that illuminated the ocean’s treasures. His
marine infatuation began with a car accident
that almost took his life – daily swimming
in the Mediterranean Sea was prescribed
to assist his rehabilitation. With a pair of
goggles strapped on tight, his eyes were
opened to the complexity of the underwater
world. While in the French Navy in the 1940s,
he co-invented a new diving apparatus, the
Aqua-Lung, which allowed divers to swim
freely underwater for extended periods of
time. He also had a hand in developing a
waterproof camera that could withstand
the high pressures of deep water, and in
1950, refurbished a former Royal Navy ship,
Calypso, as a mobile base for deep-sea
filmmaking, archaeological excavation and
oceanographic research. Jacques’ first film- the Academy Award-winning documentary
The Silent World – was criticised for
environmental vandalism during production;
as a result, his later work was much more
ecologically conscious. It was American
TV series The Undersea World of Jacques
Cousteau (running from 1966 to ’76) that
cemented his romantic public image,
though. Filmed aboard Calypso alongside
his sons – and wearing his iconic red beanie - Jacques travelled the world, exploring
shipwrecks and sea caves, and chronicling
aquatic fish, mammals and birds. Over the
years, he battled commercial whaling and
inspired others to respect the ocean just
as he did. Jacques passed away in Paris in
1998, well into his 80s, and was buried in his
ancestral vault... on dry land.
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