Don’t Let Mother Earth Down: Wright Inspires People to Take Action in Earthstock Keynote

Patricia Wright, Stony Brook University Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, delivered the keynote address for Earthstock 2026 at the Charles B. Wang Center. Photos by John Griffin.

Patricia Wright arrived in Madagascar nearly four decades ago in search of a lemur thought to be extinct. She found it, along with the realization that protecting it along with other Madagascan wildlife was inexorably linked to the well-being of the people living alongside it.

In her April 20 Earthstock keynote address at the Charles B. Wang Center, "Resilience in a Changing World," Wright, Stony Brook University Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology and Herrnstein Professor of Conservation Biology, detailed her personal journey, the importance of biodiversity conservation and the efforts to save endangered species.

Wright began by relaying a recent dream she had where Noah's Ark docked at Port Jefferson Harbor and Noah himself walked onto the dock, asking for refuge for his cargo of almost 10 million species.

"I couldn't understand what he meant, because Long Island is small. There's no room," Wright said. "But Noah was adamant, sobbing that he didn't have space on the ark anymore. And then I realized that the ark was the earth, and the animals on board was the biodiversity that was going extinct, and we were being asked to help save the animals in the world."

Wright was introduced to Madagascar as a postdoc at Duke University when a professor asked if she'd like to go help look for that lemur that was thought to be extinct. She said 'yes,' not knowing that choice would dictate the course of her life and career.

"The first time I flew over Madagascar I burst into tears," she said. "It looked like a moonscape. It was once covered with forests, but what I saw was a country cleared of trees - 90 percent of the natural habitat was gone. My graduate students and I landed and searched for months to find forest, and eventually we did."

That forest was called Ranomafana, and was pristine.

"It was as tall and undisturbed as any I had ever seen in the Amazon," she said. "But this forest, unlike the Amazon, had lemurs, lots of species and birds and chameleons and frogs. I had reached paradise. It was magical."

Aneil Persaud, assistant director of Student Affairs events and initiatives, introduced the keynote address by Patricia Wright.

Ranomafana was very productive for Wright and her fellow scientists, leading to the discovery of a new species of lemur - the golden bamboo lemur - and another species thought to have gone extinct.

While Wright concentrated on her research, she was horrified to see timber exploiters arrive, and droves of local people chopping down the trees. Appealing to the director of the Department of Water and Forest to protect the area, Wright was made aware of an even greater societal challenge she had not considered.

"The director stopped me and said, 'You're in one of the poorest countries in the world. We don't have money to make a protected area. We don't have money for boundaries and infrastructure. But Madam Patricia, if you can find the money to make the National Park, we will be happy to help you make that park.'"

Not seeing any path, Wright stood in the hall in despair, an assistant professor who had never raised more than a few thousand dollars for her own research, with no experience making a national park - and no time to do things other than research.

"And then from deep within, I knew that I couldn't let those newly discovered lemurs go extinct on my watch," she said. "Ranomafana was the only place in the world where they existed. I knew that I had to protect them and save them from extinction. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. So I did it."

Starting from ground zero, Wright managed to raise millions of dollars from USAID for the park's infrastructure.

In 1991, thanks in large part to Wright's efforts, the Ranomafana National Park opened, and now encompasses 125,000 acres of rainforest, home to 15 species of lemurs living together with almost 100 species of frogs and over 3,000 tree species. In 2007, Ranomafana was named a protected United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) site.

Wright is also the founder and executive director of both Stony Brook University's Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments and Centre ValBio, a state-of-the-art research and training center in Ranomafana.

Wright concluded her talk by circling back to her dream.

"Noah, when he steered his ark into Port Jefferson, asked what we did to help before things went extinct," she said "'Extinct' is such a final word. I said 'I didn't mean it.' And he said 'You didn't mean it, but did you do anything?'"

Wright then challenged the audience to do whatever they can, noting that there are millions of people that care about the planet.

"Organize with the people who don't want to see the animals disappear. Don't let Mother Earth down," she said. "Get up and take action. Nature is resilient, but it needs your help. Be the future during this Earthstock week. In honor of that first Earth Day and those millions of people throughout the world who vowed to make a difference, let's vow to start the movement of resilience at Stony Brook."

- Robert Emproto