On May 10

On this day in ...
... 1869 (140 years ago today), at the 2d hour of the afternoon at Promontory Summit, Utah, a golden spike was driven into a rail, marking the completion of the 1st transcontinental railroad in the United States. Built in large part, as we've posted, by immigrants from China and Ireland (left) and other European countries, as well as freed former slaves and veterans of the Civil War, the railroad connected the East and West Coasts of the ever-growing country. (photo credit)
... 1946, Dr. Biruté Galdikas (below right) was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. She would grow up in Canada, and then earn a Ph.D. in anthropology frm the University of California at Los Angeles. She, along with Dian Fossey (transnational foremother of IntLawGrrls' guest/alumna Annecoos Wiersema) and Jane Goodall -- known together as the "angels" of their mentor, paleontologist Louis Leakey -- were among the most renowned researchers of the great apes. (photo credit) Galdikas is an expert in primatology, and has spent much of her life studying the endangered orangutan that inhabit the tropical rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra, both islands of Indonesia. She has written a memoir, Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo (1996).

(Prior May 10 posts are here and here.)

Guest Blogger: Annecoos Wiersema

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome as today's guest blogger Annecoos Wiersema (left).
An Assistant Professor of Law at the Michael E. Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University in Columbus, where she teaches Environmental Law, International Law, Property Law, and Comparative Environmental Law. Annecoos earned an L.L.B. from the London School of Economics in England and an S.J.D. degree in International and Environmental Law from Harvard Law School, where she was the George W. Foley, Jr. Fellow in Environmental Law. She's taught at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, was a litigation associate in the Denver office of Arnold and Porter, and was a Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund.
Annecoos' research focuses on how legal institutions might fulfill their goal of protecting species and ecosystems notwithstanding ecological science’s recognition of complexity and uncertainty. The question is at the heart of her guest post today.

Annecoos dedicates her post to Dian Fossey (below right), the scientist who, as described in this prior post, was killed in 1985 in Rwanda, where she'd devoted her life to the study and preservation of mountain gorillas. Annecoos writes:

Although sometimes controversial, Dian Fossey’s work with gorillas led to international attention and continues to inspire efforts to protect the species. Together with Jane Goodall and Biruté Galdikas, she makes up the triumvirate of women who worked with great apes beginning in the 1960s, trying to ensure their survival and generating worldwide international support for their protection. Her work bridged international boundaries as an early example of transnational activism.

Today Fossey joins other IntLawGrrls transnational foremothers in the list just below the "visiting from..." map at right. (photo credit)

Heartfelt welcome!