ONE MAN'S PASSION
Too young to fight in the war, he became a warrior for wildlife. Indifferent to fame and fortune, he just wants to rescue earth's creatures from the human tide. |
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BY JENNIFER GREENSTEIN
Zambia's Nick Carter, an award-winning advocate for African wildlife, goes about his work with unusual fervor--even for a conservationist. He draws inspiration from a source that has been around for centuries, long before the advent of U.N. reports on endangered species or environmental groups with catchy slogans. Carter looks to the Bible.
"This is God's world," he says. "It's not ours. People say we've got dominion over the earth, that it's written in the Bible. [The Jewish scholar] Rashi pointed out that if man is worthy, he has dominion. If he's not worthy, he's worse than the beasts. I think we can be worthy."
Carter looks as though he might have stepped out of the Old Testament himself, with his scholarly mien, rumpled attire and long prophet's beard. Born in England, he came of age during World War II and tried in vain to join the military at the age of 12. By the time he was conscripted, the war was over. Following an infantry stint, he helped the Allied Control Commission track down former Nazis, honing investigative skills he would later use as an environmentalist. After some clerical jobs in London, he went to Africa to work on wildlife conservation and soon became a roving activist.
In the 1970s he doggedly pursued companies that killed whales illegally, a practice known as pirate whaling. With evidence gathered from old-fashioned sleuthing--he has been known to sift through secret ship-to-shore transmissions--Carter persuaded South Africa to block the maiden voyages of two ships whose owners he had accused of defying whaling regulations.
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