Meeting milestones
Two previous Rolex Laureates, Forrest Mims III (1993) and Sebastian Chuwa (2002) are approaching important milestones in their long-term projects. Twenty years of ozone layer measurements and 15 years of planting trees are paying off as these two Rolex Laureates help improve life on Planet Earth.
Invention, curiosity and the ozone layer
Prolific American inventor and science writer Forrest Mims III will celebrate his milestone in early 2010. “On 4 February, 2010,” says the Laureate of the 1993 Rolex Awards, “my daily noontime measurements of the ozone layer, column water vapour and haze will mark 20 years. Many new measurements and sun and sky photography have been added over the years, and I hope to write a scientific paper on two decades of data.”
©Rolex Awards/Tomas Bertelsen
This amateur scientist, engineer and teacher is largely self-taught and had to battle to win recognition from an initially sceptical scientific establishment. His inventions and insights cover a wide range of disciplines, but, arguably, his greatest contribution has been worldwide monitoring of ultraviolet radiation and ozone levels.
Two of Mims’ inventions, the Total Ozone Portable Spectrometer (TOPS) and, with help from his Rolex Award, the smaller Microtops, allowed amateurs and specialists around the world to measure the status of the ozone layer that protects life on our planet’s surface. Mims says Microtops has undergone several transformations since he invented it in the 1990s, and it is still used by scientists around the world.
His many scientific activities are described on websites forrestmims.org and sunandsky.org. Mims says that his 1993 Rolex Award has played a key role in his life, giving credibility to his work on the ozone layer. The other key to his success is his endless questioning and observation. “I approach science with the curiosity of a child,” he says.
Learn more about Forrest Mims III
Tanzania’s national tree brings hope for future
Sebastian Chuwa, an Associate Laureate of the 2002 Rolex Awards, has been working to save the forests of northern Tanzania and in particular the national tree, the African blackwood or mpingo.
Chuwa’s massive environmental education programme has encouraged Tanzanians, including thousands of schoolchildren, to plant tree seedlings to restore the nation’s dwindling forests. The total of young trees planted over the 15 years that he has led this work has reached 1,445,000, with the 1.5 million figure expected early in 2009.
Courtesy of Sebastian Chuwa
In Tanzania, one of the world’s poorest countries, people are often tempted to cut down valuable, indigenous trees like the mpingo. Despite this, thanks largely to the replanting programme, “there is more forest than there was five or 10 years ago”, Chuwa says. While his campaign needs many years of further planting and environmental education to succeed fully, the 54-year-old Laureate says “the sight of trees growing since I planted them when I was young gives me hope”.
Over the past two years, the African Blackwood Conservation Project (ABCP), set up to support Chuwa’s project, has gained funding from the UK-based Good Gifts Catalog, which enables individuals and organizations to make gifts to environmental and humanitarian programmes around the world. Thanks to this funding, mpingo trees are being replanted at locations in northern Tanzania: at Makayuni, two full-time workers are now employed by ABCP to plant trees, while a school in Kilindini has agreed to plant 5,000 mpingo trees. Thousands of seedlings are being planted at other locations, bringing the 1.5 million mark steadily closer.
A key element of the ABCP programme is ensuring that seedlings receive plenty of attention in the first few years of growth to ensure their survival.
Learn more about Sebastian ChuwaGet Inspired
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