Jane Alexander describes, about half way through the conversation above, being in Belize with Alan Rabinowitz several decades ago for birdwatching, and how it changed her life. She has been a committed conservationist ever since, as she also describes in this 2012 interview in Audubon Magazine. Anyone who uses an extra 15 minutes of fame – – after a lifetime endowed with plenty of it, well earned for her professional accomplishments — for this purpose is a class act in our book. She has a book that looks worthy of her, according to the publisher’s description:

A moving, inspiring, personal look at the vastly changing world of wildlife on planet earth as a result of human incursion, and the crucial work of animal and bird preservation across the globe being done by scientists, field biologists, zoologists, environmentalists, and conservationists. From a longtime, much-admired activist, impassioned wildlife proponent and conservationist, former chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, four time Academy Award nominee, and Tony Award and two-time Emmy Award-winning actress.

In Wild Things, Wild Places, Jane Alexander movingly, with a clear eye and a knowing, keen grasp of the issues and on what is being done in conservation and the worlds of science to help the planet’s most endangered species to stay alive and thrive, writes of her steady and fervent immersion into the worlds of wildlife conservation, of her coming to know the scientists throughout the world–to her, the prophets in the wilderness–who are steeped in this work, of her travels with them–and on her own–to the most remote and forbidding areas of the world as they try to save many species, including ourselves.

And according to the program notes for the interview above, with Leonard Lopate:

Tony Award-winning actor Jane Alexander discusses her book Wild Things, Wild Places: Adventurous Tales of Wildlife and Conservation on Planet Earth.  Alexander is a former trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society and a commissioner of New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and is on the board of the Audubon Society. Wild Things, Wild Places takes a critical look at what is being done in conservation and science to help the planet’s most endangered species to stay alive and thrive, and interviews writers and scientists around the world.