Nathaniel Reed (environmentalist)

In 2018, Reed died in Quebec City, Canada at the age of 84 from a brain injury he received while fishing for salmon on the Grand Cascapédia River.

In 2017, Reed wrote a memoir, Travels on the Green Highway, that covered his decades of environmental campaigns.

In 1993, Reed co-chaired the new Florida Greenways Commission. In 2006, he co-chaired the Urban Land Institute’s Florida Committee for Regional Cooperation. He also served on Florida's Environmental Land Management Study Committee II, Reclaimed Lands Committee, and Constitutional Revision Commission. In addition, he served on the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council and chaired the Coastal Zone Committee.

In 1981, Reed publicly denounced James G. Watt, Secretary of the Interior and former underling to Reed. Although a supporter of President Ronald Reagan, Reed noted that, "They are attempting to turn the clock back to the pre- [Theodore] Roosevelt era, when everyone supposed natural resources were inexhaustible." He spoke out because, "I cannot sit idly by and watch lame-brained, outmoded philosophy take hold in stain my party's image." According to Reed, Watts had cut funding for endangered species, wanted to reduce grants to states through the Land and Water Conservation Fund by as much as 75%, and had promised to give concessionaires a larger role in the administration of national parks. Reed also objected to Watts' belief in a Christian mandate "to occupy the land" and his description of the Grand Canyon river run as "boring.

Back in Florida, Reed was elected to the Jupiter Island City Commission in March 1977. Also in 1977, he contemplated running for governor of Florida, with Dr. Charles Perry Kirk, as a running mate. In 1978, Governor Bob Graham appointed Mr. Reed to the board of the South Florida Water Management District. He served on this board for fourteen years and oversaw replacing its development-minded members with those who supported the restoration of the Everglades.

In 1971, became the Assistant Secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks at the United States Department of the Interior. In 1967, the newspapers had described Reed as a wealthy Republican. In 1971 when he was 37 years old, he was described as a multi-millionaire. During his confirmation hearings with the U.S. Senate, it was revealed that Reed owned $500,000 in Mobil Oil company stock; however, this was not enough of a conflict to stop his appointment. Reed's family had accepted the oil stock in exchange for oil shale land in Colorado. Although not required, Reed immediately sold $200,000 of the stock and committed to sell another $200,000 by January 1972. The remaining $100,000 was to be given to his children.

When he accepted the federal appointment which paid $38,000 a year, Reed expected to be in Washington D.C. for two years. He stayed in this position until 1977, serving under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. One of his duties was to review the Department of Interior's environmental impact statements with regards to compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. On November 24, 1971, Nixon appointed Reed to serve as a commissioner of the U.S. Great Lakes Fishery Commission.

After Kirk left office, Reed was asked to continue as a consultant to Governor Reuben Askew and the chair of Florida's Air and Water Pollution Control Board. In 1968, Reed became chair of the Florida Pollution Control Commission. He then became the first chairman of the Florida Department of Air and Water Pollution Control in 1969. In this capacity, he sued Mobil when their phosphate mining subsidiary polluted a stream. Under his leadership, Florida's department became "one of the most aggressive and creative in the United States." When describing Reed's service to Florida, Democratic Representative Paul G. Rogers (Florida) said, "What impressed me about Nat Reed was the fact that he didn't care who it was that was polluting—and I think this is very significant—if they were polluting, he took action against them."

On January 6, 1967, Reed was appointed to the staff of Governor Kirk as an Environmental Counsel or administrative assistant for matters relating to industrial development and conservation. His salary was $1 a year. He worked to protect Everglades National Park and to safeguard public lands. He endorsed the creation of Biscayne National Park and 22 new state parks. He also established effective controls to limit water and air pollution through the Florida Air and Water Pollution Control Act.

On January 9, 1965, Reed married Alita Davis Weaver Pryor on January 9, 1965, at Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was from St. Louis and Greenwich and was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William B. Weaver Jr. of Quaker Ridge in Greenwich. They had three children: Adrien, Alita, and Nathaniel Jr. The family lived on Jupiter Island, Florida.

In 1962, Democratic Governor Farris Bryant appointed Reed to serve as the co-chair of the Florida Board of Antiquities. Reed saved thousands of gold coins and antiquities found in the state for Florida. When Republican Claude R. Kirk Jr. ran for governor of Florida, Reed prepared his conservation platform. Reed's qualifications seemed to have been that he was an amateur biologist, amateur botanist, and amateur ichthyologist, as well as a fisherman and hunter. He also had a passion “to unite fellow Floridians in my quest to stop unwanted development and mitigate ecological losses.”

In 1960, Reed moved to Florida and began working as the vice president, and then president, of his family's business, the Hobe Sound Corp, until 1971. Hobe Sound Corp. was a land holding company that owned clubs and hotels between Fort Pierce, Florida and West Palm Beach, Florida, including owning the private Jupiter Island and its Jupiter Island Club. In 1968, Reed and his family donated five miles of beachfront to create Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge. One newspaper noted, "The area will thus be a haven for sea turtles and birds as well as for and millionaires." Regardless, Reed was horrified by the population explosion and uncontrolled development that was taking place in Florida during his childhood; he joined The Nature Conservancy. He was also motivated to become an environmentalist by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring which was released in 1962.

He attended Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. He also attended Trinity College in Connecticut, graduating with a B.A. in 1955. There, he was a member of the fraternity St. Anthony Hall. After college, he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force for four years, serving in intelligence services in Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa through 1959.

Nathaniel "Nat" Pryor Reed (July 22, 1933 – July 11, 2018) was an American environmentalist and political aide. He was Assistant Secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks at the United States Department of the Interior who co-wrote the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and is credited with stopping the use of DDT. He is also helped with the passage of the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the expansion of national parks and reserves.