Orange County has lost one of its strongest advocates for the environment. Jan Vandersloot led many campaigns in behalf of wetlands, wildlife, parks and clean oceans. He was a co-founder of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which is credited with saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands.
In between major campaigns, Vandersloot fought hard to protect other slices of wetland, wild habitat or parkland, in part to defend one of his great loves: birds. “He was somebody who was deeply moved by nature,” his son Jon said. “He wanted to preserve things the way they originally were, prior to the hand of man. He had a focus and energy about him that I think everybody respected, regardless of if you agreed with him or not.”
1 response so far ↓
1 laura curran // Nov 5, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Hard to express how much Jan van der Sloot will be missed. He had an encyclopedic memory about the history of policy on environmental issues. It was invaluable, and 2 weeks I asked him if he’d written it down ‘in case something ever happened to him’, because it was a knowledge base that would be difficult to replace.
He gained the respect of everyone he knew, because he knew the basis of the law, and had a genuine appreciation for nature and its complex glories
His family deserves respect, because they shared Jan with all of us, through so many meetings and time at the computer, to let us know about one more meeting /situation where input was required.