Former President Jimmy Carter’s environmental activism began and flourished in his home state of Georgia.
By his death at 100 years old on Sunday, Carter had established his green legacy throughout the fields, forests and river bottoms of Georgia just as much as he had in the White House.
Carter’s green roots in Georgia
Carter’s reverence for the environment began in his adolescence , when as a teenager he received an acre of farmland from his father in Plains, Georgia. It was there that he learned to grow and sell peanuts. After serving in the Navy, he returned to the modest land with his wife, Rosalynn, taking over his late father’s farming operations.
When he finished his term as a state senator in 1967, Carter went on to help create the Georgia Conservancy . The organization soon helped establish the Cumberland Island National Seashore, a protected wilderness designation for the Okefenokee wetlands, and the creation of Sweetwater Creek State Park.
As governor, Carter established the Georgia Heritage Trust, which identified critical areas in the state for conservation and protection. This included preserving more than 300 acres along the Chattahoochee River in metro Atlanta.