Grenada-based artist and naturalist Robin Whitfield is being honored by the Mississippi Wildlife Federation for her work in leading efforts to protect and preserve a refuge near downtown Grenada.
She will be presented Thursday with the organization’s Air, Soil and Water Conservationist of the Year award.
“I’m so honored to be receiving a conservation award through the Mississippi Wildlife Federation,” Whitfield said in a statement posted on Facebook. “I never imagined my skill set as an artist could protect wild places I love.”
Whitfield is a well-known art instructor in Greenwood at Art Place Mississippi. Her work as a painter is on display in the mural along the front of the Museum of the Mississippi Delta.
In recent years, Whitfield has worked diligently to convince the Grenada City Council not to sell off a stand of hardwood forest adjacent to the Chakchiuma Swamp. A timber sale was planned last year for acreage along the Yalobusha River channel and the swamp, an area Whitfield and other Friends of Chakchiuma Swamp have worked to protect as a nature preserve. But last November, the city agreed to lease the forest to the Friends organization and abandoned the timber sale.
Whitfield implemented an adopt-a-tree plan to raise the money the city required to keep the forest intact. Jackson philanthropist Richard Copeland came forward with an offer of a 50-cent match on every dollar donated to the project, and many other partners and collaborators have joined the effort.
Whitfield said she has “always believed in the power of creativity, positive thinking and imagination.
“I now have evidence that these skills can affect real-world situations.”
The Wildlife Federation will host a Conservation Achievement Awards Luncheon on Thursday to recognize Whitfield and others in the state for efforts and achievements in natural resource conservation.
The awards are presented annually, along with the Eagle Award, recognizing lifetime achievement.
In November, Whitfield told the Commonwealth her work at the Chakchiuma Swamp Natural Area was just beginning.
A land use plan is being designed in collaboration with naturalists from Strawberry Plains Audubon Center near Holly Springs, the same organization that developed the Sky Lake Natural Area near Belzoni.
Whitfield’s vision includes a city park with trails cut throughout the forest on one side of Main Street, which bisects the forest, and a more undisturbed but still accessible natural area dedicated to research and conservation on the other side, where the oldest part of the river channel resides.
Whitfield said a 100-year plan, geared toward sustaining and enhancing bird migration, will encourage biodiversity and help manage conservation in perpetuity.
nContact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
