Kieran Suckling
| Kieran Suckling | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1964 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Worcester Polytechnic Institute, College of the Holy Cross |
| Occupation | environmental activist |
| Known for | Center for Biological Diversity |
Kierán Suckling (born 1964) is one of the founders, and executive director, of the Center for Biological Diversity (Center), a nonprofit conservation group known for its innovative approaches to the protection of endangered species, wilderness, clean air and clean water.
He has infused the traditionally staid environmental arena with an unusual degree of creative energy, leading the New Yorker to dub the Center "the most important radical environmental group in the country" and Suckling a "trickster, philosopher, publicity hound, master strategist, and unapologetic pain in the ass." The LA Weekly calls the Center "pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the most effective conservation organization in the country," and says of Suckling: "Rimbaud reinvented poetry. Kierán Suckling would do the same with environmentalism."
The Center, which has secured protection for over 500 endangered species and 450,000,000 acres (1,821,000 km2) of habitat in the U.S. has an excellent reputation for its scientific, litigation and media work among those in favor of environmental protection. It often comes under fire from logging, mining, pesticide, oil, coal and other industries.
Suckling founded the Center for Biological Diversity while working on doctoral dissertation in 1989 along with Peter Galvin, Robin Silver and Todd Schulke. He served as executive director from 1998 to 2004, policy director from 2005 to 2007, and became executive director again in 2008.
Suckling's parents and siblings immigrated to the United States from Ireland and England in the 1960s. He is the only member of his immediate family born in the United States. As a child, he lived with his family in Ireland, England, Peru, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts. Following the divorce of his parents, he settled in Cape Cod, graduating from Sandwich High School in 1982. He entered Salve Regina University in Rhode Island in 1982, then transferred the following year to Worcester, Massachusetts where he double majored in computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross. He was very culturally and politically active in college, editing literary and science magazines, organizing poetry readings, founding a chapter of Student Pugwash USA, working for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group and participating in numerous political rallies and teach-ins opposing U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and advocating global nuclear disarmament.
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