Blue Planet Prize Story

At the age of 12, she returned to Frankfurt, where she lived during her teenage years. Her father was a professor of ophthalmology who wanted his family to know the broader world outside of America.
Nature in Germany was entirely different from that in California because it was managed. Gretchen sometimes missed the great nature in California; however, she was also very attracted by the nature in Germany, which has been taken care over thousands of years.
Germany is exceptionally well known for its forests. Indeed, German culture developed around them. People care for the forests and often go hiking through them on weekends. Gretchen also liked to go cycling in the forest nearby.

Germans called it "waldsterben," which is "forest dieback" in English. Why don't we try to stop the dieback of forests? Why do we spend all time for development in a disorderly way without any consideration for nature? People got together and marched in protest in the town almost daily. Sometimes a few hundred people marched, and other times a few thousands and even tens of thousands marched together. This was a shock for Gretchen, who was a sensitive teenager.
It was the first time for her to learn about acid rain. The acid was killing the beautiful forests in front of her and the fish in lakes throughout Northern Europe. Having come to understand that the cause of acid rain was human activity, the people were now trying to change the society that caused the problem. She felt that she also wanted to do something to protect nature.

Living in Germany, Gretchen knew that the country's culture and history were deeply connected to nature. However, she was not sure that the nation's politics and the economy had developed a friendly relationship with nature. She believed that if humans could consider politics and economics about nature, we would be able to change society.
She thought, though, that she first needed to understand nature. It was then that she decided to become a scientist.

When she was 16, she heard on the radio about a scientific survey contest for high school students in New York. She visited her favorite teacher, Dan Holmquist, who taught chemistry at her school, to ask about the contest. Gretchen was studying about acid rain at the high school and wanted to enter the contest.
Holmquist recommended that she investigate river pollution instead because acid rain was too tricky. The river pollution became Gretchen's first scientific investigation. She visited many places in the snow. She moved along a river in a rubber boat with her friends to check water quality around the pipes that they suspected may be discharging industrial liquid waste. Those were adventurous days for her.

Encountering people and fieldwork

She also met terrific teachers at the university such as the American ecologist Paul Ehrlich and plant ecologist Harold Mooney, who gave Gretchen the chance to start studying biology.
The phrase, "standing on the shoulders of giants," describes the desirable way of studying. No one achieves anything on his or her own. We can see further when we are standing on others' shoulders. In other words, we can discover new things because of the discoveries, research, and knowledge accumulated by people in the past. Gretchen also realized that her role is to expand the concepts developed by researchers such as Professor Ehrlich and Mooney.

What Gretchen did at those research laboratories was the repetition of persistent efforts in observing the life of organisms in detail and understanding them deeply. It was only a tiny aspect of this earth; however, it helped her to discover clues to understanding the mystery of the earth. Research in ecology has such pleasure, and her research in Costa Rica has continued for 26 years.

2. Nature exists where we live