Franklin receives Heinz Environment Award

A Seattle-based forest ecologist and progenitor of a new paradigm for protecting America’s old-growth forests has been selected to receive the 11th annual Heinz Award for the Environment, one of the largest individual achievement prizes in the world.

Dr. Jerry Forest Franklin, dubbed the “father of new forestry” whose one-time unconventional views on forest management eventually became established practice, is among five distinguished Americans selected to receive the $250,000 awards, presented in five categories by the Heinz Family Foundation.

“Dr. Jerry Franklin literally helped us see the forest for the trees,” said Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation. “With conviction born of scientific truth, he championed a controversial – some thought heretical – view toward managing our nation’s precious forest resources, a posture that has since been vindicated and adopted far and wide as the preferred forest management technique. For his wisdom, passion and resolve, and on behalf of the world’s forests that he has helped to sustain, we are pleased to recognize Jerry Forest Franklin – so aptly named indeed – with the Heinz Award for the Environment.”

One of the nation’s leading authorities on sustainable forest management, Dr. Franklin is considered the “father of new forestry” and the “guru of old-growth forests.” He challenged the long-held conventional practice of clear-cutting by advancing solutions that were based more on science. His “new forestry” strategy for logging – which advocates leaving logs and other wood debris, standing dead trees and some larger live trees – more closely aligns with the scale and character of natural disturbances. While his views were met at first with skepticism and derision within the industry, his “new forestry” principles have since been embraced by environmentalists and timber companies alike.

Dr. Franklin has spent his entire career in forestry research, beginning in 1959 as a research forester for the USDA Forest Service. He served as director of the ecosystem studies program for the National Science Foundation, president for the Ecological Society of America and chair of the Long Term Ecological Research network. He has served on numerous local, national and global commissions studying forest issues. He was one of the so-called “Gang of Four,” a quartet of scientists who provided advice on national forest issues to three congressional committees in 1991. Subsequently, he was among the scientists who assembled with President Clinton in 1993 to discuss old-growth preserves, logging practices and threatened and endangered species and was a major contributor to the Northwest Forest Plan, the first, large ecologically integrated forest plan in the world, which covered 24 million acres of federal forest lands in the Northwest. The plan resolved the controversy over the spotted owls and timber jobs. Thirteen years earlier, he led early scientific studies of ecological impacts and recovery at Mount St. Helens following its eruption in 1980 – studies that contributed directly to the development of new forestry practices.

His career as a teacher began in 1975 at Oregon State University, and he later became professor of ecosystem analysis at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Franklin serves as the director of the Wind River Canopy Crane Research Facility where he has installed a 250-foot tall construction crane. The crane provides access high in the canopy of an old-growth forest for research, allowing scientists to probe the relationship between forests and climate change.

“The world’s forests are a treasure for mankind, providing an incredible array of goods and services – from such basics as water and wood to the most inspirational,” Dr. Franklin said. “In my lifetime, we have increased our understanding of forests by at least an order of magnitude, and their richness and complexity are far beyond what we had imagined. Incredibly, we have only really touched the surface of their many secrets. I hope that this award, for which I am most grateful, will help inspire others to engage in this important field of discovery.”

Since 1993, the Heinz Family Foundation of Pittsburgh has recognized individuals whose dedication, skill and generosity of spirit represent the best of the human condition – qualities that the late Senator Heinz, for whom the award is named, held so dear. Presented in five categories, the other Heinz Award recipients are:


Arts and Humanities: Mark di Suvero, sculptor, artistic visionary and founder of Socrates Sculpture Park from New York City
Human Condition: Joseph Rogers, mental health administrator and advocate and founder of Project SHARE from Philadelphia
Public Policy: Sidney Drell, Ph.D., theoretical physicist, educator and arms control advisor from Stanford, Calif.
Technology, the Economy and Employment: Mildred Dresselhaus, Ph.D., scientist, researcher, educator and trailblazer for women in the sciences from Cambridge, Mass.

From time to time, the Heinz Awards program will bestow upon a truly exceptional nominee its Chairman’s Medal, created to honor lifetime achievement by someone whose career has been distinguished by a pattern of singular accomplishment and character. Richard Goldman, philanthropist and chairman of Goldman Insurance Services from San Francisco, has been selected to receive a Chairman’s Medal as part of the 11th annual Heinz Awards.