Raised in Vancouver and Toronto, Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been camping and hiking all her life. When she was 9 she started the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They were successful in many projects before 1992, when they raised enough money to go to the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Their aim was to remind the decision-makers of who their actions or inactions would ultimately affect. The goal was reached when 12 yr old Severn closed a Plenary Session with a powerful speech that received a standing ovation.
Alongtime activist for ‘intergenerational justice’, Severn founded the Environmental Children’s Organization with friends at nine years old, which culminated in her speech to the UN at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 when she was twelve. Severn is an Earth Charter Commissioner (earthcharterinaction.org), and she and the Skyfish Project brought the ‘Recognition of Responsibility’ pledge to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002. Severn has participated in three speaking tours in Japan with the Namakemono Club. Severn is an Action Canada Fellow (‘04-‘05), has published several books in Japan, and is a co-editor and contributor for the bookNotes from Canada’s Young Activists (Greystone books, 2007). She holds a B.Sc. in Biology from Yale University and an M.Sc. in Ethnoecology from the University of Victoria, where she studied with elders from the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations. Severn lives on the archipelago of Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia where she is studying the Haida language with her husband and two sons.
For more information visit Severn Suzuki’s father David Suzuki’s website http://www.davidsuzuki.org
Mini Biography
David Suzuki is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, he earned a B.A. at Amherst College (Mass.) in 1958, followed by a PhD in genetics at the University of Chicago in 1961. He was a professor of genetics at the University of British Columbia from 1969 until 1993, when he became an Associate in the University of British Columbia’s Sustainable Development Research Institute, while continuing to pursue his international environmental and media work. He has written 32 books, including 15 children’s books. He resides in Vancouver, Canada.
