Best known as a founder of the legendary rock band, the Eagles, as well as an influential solo artist, Don Henley has maintained an extraordinary commitment to music and to various philanthropic efforts throughout his career, including a dedication to environmental issues and artists’ rights. As a solo artist and as a member of the Eagles, Henley has received myriad accolades, numerous gold and platinum records and performed sold-out concert tours worldwide.
Henley has been a tireless champion of land conservation. Since 1990, he has focused on protecting the historic woods around Walden Pond in Massachusetts, site of the seminal work of author and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau. Henley is the founder of the Walden Woods Project--a nonprofit organization leading the effort to preserve this iconic landscape for future generations. The Walden Woods Project’s conservation work and its acclaimed education programs introduce Thoreau’s influential philosophies on natural resource conservation and social reform to students and educators across the globe.
In 1992, Henley also founded the Caddo Lake Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to wetlands science education in conjunction with the preservation of Caddo Lake, a 27,000-acre maze of flooded Bald Cypress forests, bayous, sloughs and backwaters located on the Texas-Louisiana border. Due to the efforts of the Caddo Lake Institute, Caddo Lake was designated as a “Wetland of International Importance” under the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. On October 23, 1993, Caddo Lake became the thirteenth Ramsar Site in the United
States.
