SCB Remembers Board Member Sue Mainka

The Society for Conservation Biology mourns the passing of board member Dr. Sue Mainka who bravely faced cancer for five months before passing away on Sunday, February 12, 2012 in Nyon, Switzerland.

“Sue was a dear friend of several SCB Board members,” noted SCB President Paul Beier.  “All of us in the conservation community have lost a friend and true champion of our work.”

Sue maintained a blog – a new pace to life – that poignantly chronicled her struggle with colorectal cancer as well as the things that brought her joy in the final months: family, a stroll along the lake, visiting her IUCN office, the Australian Open tennis tournament. She offers humor – comparing her cheeks to the Pillsbury Doughboy – and she reflects on the costs of cancer, both monetary and emotional. On December 27 she started to read “The Emperor of Maladies: a Biography of Cancer,” noting, after the first 100 pages, that “I think [the book] will live up to its reputation as a stellar description of the state of play for this disease.”  It also prompted this observation from Sue:  “In 2010 the National Cancer Institute cancer research budget was USD $5.1 billion but the national defense budget outweighed it 100 fold at USD $663 billion.  What are we thinking?  Truly we are a perverse species.”
 
In the weeks before her death, Sue, a tennis fan, followed the Australian Open tennis tournament from the hospital. It served as a distraction to the side effects of her treatment. A post script to her January 17 blog entry said, “The Australian Open starts this week. Go Roger, Go!” While her preferred champion, Swiss great Roger Federer, came up short in the tournament, he no doubt gave Sue something fun to cheer for. The tournament ended with an epic match – a five hour and 53 minute “endurance test” between the two best players in the world. It was played on January 29, the day of her final blog posting.

In another blog post – December 23 – Sue remarked how a series of earth quakes in Christchurch reminded her that she wasn’t alone in her struggles: “And in the meantime, yet another series of 5.8+ earthquakes hits Christchurch, NZ, reminding me that there are many people out there with many challenges to face as serious as mine.”

On December 26, she enjoyed a stroll along the lake where she snapped photos of water birds:  “It's another fabulous day weather-wise and so we stroll along the lake side and I try to take innumerable photos of swans, mergansers, red-heads, coots, mallards, and (in vain) crested grebes.  There seem to be thousands of water birds all gathered on the lake enjoying all that the sunshine and fresh air has to offer and when they suddenly and unanimously decide to take off, it sounds a bit like the next EasyJet flight to Gatwick has just departed.”

Sue’s entire career was devoted to species conservation, including several years of volunteer work after graduating from veterinary school. She worked on captive management of giant pandas at Wolong Reserve, tropical rainforest conservation and agroforestry in Xishuangbanna, wetlands conservation, conservation education in China, and several other projects in central China, Bhutan, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

After years of field work in China, Sue came to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and served the organization in several capacities, including as Deputy Head of the Species Programme (1997 to 2000), Head of the Species Programme (2000 to 2004), and Head of Science and Knowledge Management from 2009 until her untimely death.

“Sue knew well what conservation is about: a mix of technical expertise, endurance in the field and skills in managing administration and political meanders,” said former SCB President Luigi Boitani. “I had a deep admiration for her tranquil yet most effective approach to manage the incredibly complex IUCN Species Programme. Her blend of intellectual rationality and spirituality remains an example for all of us.”

On February 4, Sue received the IUCN's Peter Scott Award for Conservation Merit "in recognition of her pioneering work on the conservation of the Giant Panda, her leadership of the IUCN Species Programme, and her encouragement of conservationists worldwide, especially in Asia."

Jeff McNeely, chair of SCB’s Policy Committee and the former chief scientist at IUCN, remembers Sue as a stalwart at IUCN who, through her work and encouragement of young conservationists, cultivated a well of influence that endures in death just as it lifted others in life.