Mindy Baha El Din (1 November 1958 – 18 March 2013) was an American-born Egyptian environmentalist. Together with her husband, ornithologist and herpetologist Sherif Baha El Din she made contributions to the protection of migratory birds and their habitats, she also helped lay the foundations of the Nature Conservation Sector of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and in the establishment of Egypt's Protected Area network.

Career

Mindy Baha El Din was born as Mindy Rosenzweig in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. After her graduation in Arabic and economics at the

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

she took a course in field ornithology at the

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and became a birdwatcher. As an employee of

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

she went to Egypt in 1988 and established an environmental education center at the Giza Zoo in Giza. In the early 1990s she helped in establishing the Technical Office of the Environment of the EEAA, an environmental protection organization, which helped develop and finance its early development. In the late 1990s she and her husband, whom she married in 1989, worked as freelance ecologists and wildlife management consultants, organizing and guiding birding tours through Egypt, producing educational materials, launching campaigns promoting migratory bird conservation and studying migration. Mindy and Sherif Baha El Din were advisers of the Nature Conservation Sector within the EEAA. In 1994 they founded Tortoise Care Egypt, a group of international and local organizations and individuals, with the aim to build up a captive breeding project for the critically endangered

Kleinmann's tortoise Kleinmann's tortoise (''Testudo kleinmanni''), also called commonly the Egyptian tortoise, Leith's tortoise, and the Negev tortoise, is a critically endangered species of neck-hiding tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species is native t ...

(''Testudo kleinmanni'' ) which was extirpated in Egypt. She suffered a stroke on 14 March 2013, of which she died on the 18 March in a hospital in

Giza Giza (; sometimes spelled ''Gizah'' arz, الجيزة ' ) is the second-largest city in Egypt after Cairo and fourth-largest city in Africa after Kinshasa, Lagos and Cairo. It is the capital of Giza Governorate with a total population of 9.2 ...

. Sherif Baha El Din commemorated his wife with the scientific names of the Qattara gecko (''Tarentola mindiae'') in 1978, and the Mount Sinai gecko (''Hemidactylus mindiae'') in 2005.Baha El Din, Sherif M. (2005). "An overview of Egyptian species of ''Hemidactylus'' (Gekkonidae), with the description of a new species from the high mountains of South Sinai". ''Zoology in the Middle East'' 34: 11–26.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Mindy Baha El Din", p. 178).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baha El Din, Mindy 1958 births 2013 deaths American conservationists American emigrants to Egypt Birdwatchers Indiana University alumni Naturalized citizens of Egypt