Michael Schnitzler

Michael Schnitzler (August 7, 1944, Berkeley) is an Austrian American ecologist and musician.

Michael Schnitzler was born to Austrian parents who fled from the country after the Anschluss in 1938. He is also the grandson of the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. In 1959 the family moved back to Vienna, where he studied violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. At the age of 15 he played in the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic as a substitute, and fromn 1967 to 1983 he was first concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony. From 1982 to 2006 he was professor of violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Since 1968, he has been violinist of the Haydn-Trio Wien () (together with pianist Heinz Medjimorec and cellist Walther Schulz), playing over 1500 concerts and recording a substantial part of the piano trio literature.

Michael Schnitzler's big love is nature. In his youth, he climbed mountains in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and the Alps. He trekked in Peru, Nepal, Canada and Ladakh, climbed Kilimanjaro and Cotopaxi in Ecuador, undertook safaris in Africa, went diving in the Red Sea, the Maldives, Polynesia, the Great Barrier Reef and the Caribbean, and rafted through the Grand Canyon. His travels brought him to the Galapagos Islands, the Antarctic, Greenland and various tropical countries, where he fell in love with the ecosystem "rainforest". In 1989, he purchased a little house on the edge of the rainforest near Golfito in southern Costa Rica with the intention of spending his vacations there. Soon he became aware of the ongoing destruction of the surrounding forests and decided to do something against this catastrophe. In 1991, the Esquinas Rainforest was declared a national park, but it was categorized as a "paper park" as long as all property was in private hands. Logging permits were in effect, and logging was continuing at a fast pace. The only way to stop this was to purchase the property and donate it to the Costa Rican government. Michael Schnitzler founded the NGO Rainforest of the Austrians with the purpose of collecting funds to buy land within the Esquinas forest. Soon, his voluntary work as a conservationist took up even more time than his profession as a musician. Rainforest of the Austrians has since raised more than $3,000,000 and purchasaed 10,000 acres of rainforest, which were donated to the Costa Rican government to become part of Piedras Blancas National Park.

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