Dr. Keith Arnold is an old friend, once ornithologist at Texas A&M and now comfortably retired. For decades Keith functioned as the bird-sighting gestapo in Texas. He would pass judgement on every lame-brained bird sighting or CBC report that crossed his desk. He had a favorite term for the most outlandish of these; “unbelievable if true.”
Since the Gulf spill I have received countless solicitations from nonprofits wanting my money to help Gulf birds. Many of these spiels have been “unbelievable if true.” Today I received the latest from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). I thought buying organic flowers to help Gulf birds could not be topped, but the NWF came through in the clutch.
The email says that I can help Gulf birds in two ways. First, send NWF money, period. Second, send NWF money to certify my backyard. According to NWF, “many of the bird species impacted by the BP Oil Spill are migratory. One way to help them is to create a Certified Wildlife Habitat™ site in your backyard, school or community.”
Unless your yard is a Gulf beach, name one. My Galveston yard is five blocks from the Gulf, and I cannot think of a bird threatened by the spill that needs my backyard habitat. Not gulls, terns, pelicans, cormorants, boobies, gannets, shorebirds, petrels, shearwaters, or any of the seabirds that are in harm’s way. I can’t think of any land bird that might need to set down on oiled waters during migration, except perhaps for chuck-will’s-widow. Of course beach and marsh shorebirds are at risk, and a few of the land birds that frequent the wetlands (Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow, seaside sparrow). Rails such as the clapper are certainly threatened, but I have never seen a rail other than a sora in my yard. There are certain ducks that winter in these waters (such as lesser scaup), and others make use of the nearshore during migration (blue-winged teal, gadwall, northern pintail). But none of these have ever been seen in my, or your, backyard.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s (CLO) appeal follows the same general line of thinking, but is dramatically different in its approach. “Wildlife biologists are monitoring species such as pelicans and plovers in the immediate path of the oil, but we need bird watchers across the country to help us find out if birds that pass through or winter in the Gulf region carry contamination with them, possibly creating an “oil shadow” of declines in bird reproduction hundreds of miles from the coast.” The email is titled “Will the Gulf Oil Spill Affect Your Backyard Birds?,” and asks for no funds.
What do we make of this? First, the fuel for nonprofits is money, no different from any traditional business in this country. Second, within the nonprofit world the organizations differ in significant ways. For those of us who give and/or serve, it is important to know the character and practical intent (not just the canned mission) of the group. Finally, look for proof. Just who exactly is doing good work in the Gulf, and who is using this event as a fundraiser?
Let me mention two, other than eBird and CLO, that I believe are carrying the load – the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), and the American Birding Association (ABA). ABC focuses on bird conservation policy, and in recent months they have become increasingly outspoken about their concerns. ABA sent Drew Wheelan to the Gulf to report on impacts to birds, and he has proven to be an investigative journalist of the old school.
Why does false advertising matter? Simple. The credibility of conservationists everywhere is on the line. The dark side has been effective in obfuscating the impacts of this spill, and all we have in our favor is truth. I understand that money is the fuel that keeps these nonprofits running, but NWF and others need to be called to account for what is misleading advertising. Our challenge is too great, and our efforts too important, to let such obvious false statements go unchallenged, even when from our friends.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public…Theodore Roosevelt
In the weeks since the eruption of the Gulf gusher, criticism of the administration and the president has been muted. There have been no marches on the Capitol, no insurrection in the Gulf. In fact, the only civil disobedience has come from BP.
For example,
The freedom of the press (an unambiguous 1st Amendment right), has been continuously abridged since 20 April 2010. Journalists have been detained and harassed, swaths of the Gulf have been cordoned off from the public, and BP has hired its own “reporters” to obscure the truth.
Independent scientists have been reduced to begging for a chance to collect critical baseline data from the gusher. BP and the administration continue to stall approval.
We have learned that there are over 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf, many dating to the 1940s. More than 1,000 “temporary” wells have lingered in regulatory limbo for over a decade.
BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company’s official website.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted that they approved the original Deepwater Horizon risk assessment since they estimated the chance of a catastrophe at less than 50%. Yet this same agency is working in close collaboration with BP and Entrix (BP’s environmental consultant) on the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). “If they pay the bills, they’re welcome at the table,” said Peter Tuttle, an environmental contaminant specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
To be fair, the Republican opposition has countered every move the administration has proposed. Texan Joe Barton wins the prize with his “I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize” wackiness. But I expect the Republicans to be loony when it comes to the environment. My concern is for our guy, this president, and his administration. This is his watch, and to date his response (or lack of) has been deplorable.
Teddy believed that he could rally the public to his side, and he rarely failed. If he felt mounting opposition within Congress (often from his own Republican party) he would hit the rails to tell the people his side of the story. Teddy understood that he could never get too far ahead of the public. I cannot believe that the public in the early 1900s understood conservation any better than us today. But they believed in the president, and knew that his conservation campaign would benefit all Americans, including future generations. In the end no president left his mark on the American landscape more clearly than Theodore Roosevelt.
I see nothing clear about this president, and he has offered nothing riveting or inspirational related to the Gulf that our citizens can hold on to. The Gulf fiasco offers a revelatory moment, an epiphany, when the interests of the public are starkly defined. The Gulf is a war, and the administration is still hoping for appeasement.
Why? Why aren’t the president and his administration attacking the gusher with force and gusto? Why aren’t outraged Americans spilling into the streets? Do Americans have a clue as to the true impacts of this disaster?
No, they don’t. In fact, I am not certain that most Americans even know where the Gulf is located. According to a Roper/National Geographic poll after Hurricane Katrina (and the around-the-clock media coverage), “nearly one-third of young Americans (ages 18 to 24) polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi.” Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. Why should I believe that more could locate the Gulf of Mexico?
Americans are semantically (as well as geographically) challenged. We are asking our neighbors to apply terms and concepts such as biodiversity, ecology, and food chain to the Gulf of Mexico when they haven’t yet seen or touched it in their own backyards. Many of these words have also become adopted by marketers, transforming critical scientific language and concepts into cheap slogans and squishy labels.
Sustainable is one of those squishy words (like eco, green, and ethical) that is a manipulatable modifer. Slap one before a word or phrase and presto! your product or service is sanctified. Several years ago Wired Magazine wrote about Patrick Moore, one of the Greenpeace founders. Today he owns a consultancy and often works in direct opposition to environmental organizations. A recent opinion piece on his webpage is titled How Sick Is That? Environmental Movement Has Lost Its Way. He is considered by some to be an eco-traitor.
Or what about eco-friendly Spandex, or eco-sexy dating? A few years ago I accompanied Texas Governor Rick Perry on a quick trip to Dallas and Houston to announce a new project along the Trinity River. I had been hired by the state to compile an assessment of eco-tourism opportunities in the region. As he introduced me in Dallas, he concluded by calling me an expert in eco-terrorism. The crowd laughed, and I assumed a simple slip of the tongue. However, he went on to repeat the mistake in Houston. Toe-mah-toe or toe-may-toe, eco-tourism or eco-terrorism, what’s the big deal when you’re governor?
When words like sustainable and eco become popularized, I get nervous. Perfectly good words often become diluted or bastardized when they reach the street. Queer (as in odd) is an example. Most of the green modifiers (like green itself) have become meaningless or indistinct. Heading the list is sustainable, the word that no one can define.
The Brundtland Commission tried. They defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Which (and whose) needs? Economic? Social? Ecological? Mine? Yours? The rich? The poor? One glance at America today should convince even the most blase observer that we have exceeded our economic capacity, our international policies have not proven to be sustainable, and we are going to hell in a hand basket in the Gulf. Does this mean that the U.S. is not sustainable? Of course not. In my mind, it means that the U.S., in its present configuration and on its present tack, isn’t sustainable. In sustainability, nothing is more important than knowing when to correct course.
Nothing, except for knowing what one is sustaining. Since my immediate interest is nature, let’s look at ecological sustainability. Exactly what are we sustaining? Do we try to sustain all of the parts, or only those that have value to us? Do we even know all of the parts?
Piping Plover, East Beach, Galveston, Texas, Ted Lee Eubanks
In the Gulf gusher, the focus has been on megafauna such as brown pelicans, sea turtles, and dolphins. Nothing sells papers better than a dead baby dolphin on the beach. The press and non-profits report bird deaths like the weekly Viet Nam casualty reports once given by Walter Cronkite on CBS Evening News. But do we really know all that is being lost, all that is being eradicated? Are we only concerned with the obvious, with the dramatic?
Today is 6 July, and in about a week piping plovers will begin to arrive on the upper Texas coast. Around 75% of the world’s population of piping plovers winters along the Gulf coast. The remainder winter, in general, along the southern Atlantic coast.
The most recent NOAA oil spill probability map shows a good chance of oil spoiling beaches throughout the plover’s winter range. There are fewer than 10,000 piping plovers left on the planet, and the bird is considered either endangered and threatened throughout its range. What makes a brown pelican intrinsically more valuable than a piping plover? Or what about a polychaete, part of the benthic infauna that shorebirds depend on for food? These are the segmented worms that live in the muck. Piping plovers spend much of their time foot-trembling in the soft sand, coaxing worms to the surface, then to the gullet. As worms go, so go shorebirds. As fish go, so go pelicans. Nothing about oil is good for worms or fish. Nothing about this oil is good for man or beast.
This brings me back to sustainability, my backyard, and John B.S. Haldane (hang with me, I know it’s a stretch). JBS Haldane is the biologist who said that “if one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation it would appear that God has a special fondness for stars and beetles.” I would expand on Haldane and say that God must have an inordinate affection for life. Walk into your yard, any yard, and look. You will see only an infinitesimal fraction of what lives there, but even the obvious is overwhelming. The birds, mammals, and reptiles are apparent and exposed. But what about insects? What about all plants, not just the obvious (trees, shrubs, flowers)? What about nocturnal mammals and birds? And what about insects, including Haldane’s beetles?
What about damselflies? I photographed this damselfly in my yard this morning. On several occasions I have photographed ones infested with mites. You can imagine how small a damselfly mite must be. A couple of years ago I read a research paper about the parasites that live in the guts of mites that infest damselflies. That’s biodiversity, vividly illustrated in your own backyard.
Dusky dancer (Argia translata), Austin yard, 6 July 2010, Ted Lee Eubanks
Why does this matter? Because if you cannot see biodiversity in your backyard, that grasshopper in the cucumber blossom, how can you see it in the world? Within what context would you place biodiversity even if it’s under your own nose? Why should you care if you have never seen it, touched it, or known it? I know that this is a basic premise for Last Child in the Woods, but, no offense, the world cannot wait for 4th graders.
Aztec spur-throat (Aidemona azteca) on cucumber blossom, Austin yard, 6 July 2010, Ted Lee Eubanks
I have another yard, this one in Galveston. I live about 5 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. Last week the first BP oil (tar balls) reached our beaches. The Gulf of Mexico is my extended yard, and I have seen, touched, and known its diversity for my entire life. Although I have spent countless hours in, on, and around the Gulf, I am still a neophyte, a dunce. I find peace knowing that what little I learn, what little I contribute, still becomes part of a grand encyclopedic saga.
Consider our friend Haldane one more time. In a famous study in Panama, 19 trees were “fogged” with insecticide and the dead were collected as they fell through the canopy. In this study, nearly 1,200 species of beetles alone were collected. Of those, 80 percent were not known to science. Extrapolation is dangerous, but studies of this type suggest a high estimate of the number of species that could exist on earth. The current best guess is around 10 million, the low around 2 million, but the number could be as high as 100 million species.
In truth, we have no idea how many species exist on this planet. Between 1.4 and 1.8 million have been named, but most experts admit that the total ranges between 2 and 100 million. Even a conservative estimate, let’s say 10 million, means that we currently have identified only 14% to 18%.
How many are left to be named in the Gulf of Mexico? Hell, we are still finding new named species there, a few big like whales. Once thought to be rare in the Gulf, in recent years pods of as many as 200 orcas have been found in the northern Gulf. How do you overlook an orca?
Easy. The Gulf is immense, the lookers minuscule. Below the surface both mystery and water deepen. We do not, we cannot, know all that is there, all that is being damaged, all that is being killed. Accurate loss estimates will take years, and will rely (as usual) on the effect rather than the cause. We will assume that piping plovers were harmed if we see the population drop over the next decade or so. We will assume that orcas were harmed if they vacate the Gulf. We will assume that brown pelicans were harmed if we wake up to find them gone, like in my childhood, from our beaches. We will assume that shrimp were harmed if shrimpers can no longer net them along the Louisiana coast.
What about those organisms that we haven’t seen, touched, felt, measured, or named? Without a name does a species not exist? What about individuals within a species (named or not), each striving to survive and reproduce in a world turned upside down? What about life, all life?
Brown pelican, Galveston yard, 6 Jan 2006, Ted Lee Eubanks
In the evening, when the heat of day fades, I relax on my porch in Galveston and watch the birds pass. The gulls, terns, pelicans, herons, and egrets stream over, though I see them only for a moment as they fly between beach and bay. For 116 years birds have passed over this house, and there has never been a time when the day broke without them. There is a continuity and a permanence in their presence.
The people of the Gulf also know they can be taken away by our greed, cruelty, ignorance, and indifference. Feather hunters, egg collectors, pesticide sprayers, wetland drainers, resort developers, and deep-water drillers have all left their lesions. One lesson still rings true – people value what they know, and they protect what they value. Too many people simply do not know nature, do not know that their backyard is a living, breathing organism of incomprehensible complexity and dazzling beauty. Many do not know even when their yard is the Gulf of Mexico.
Teddy Roosevelt, faced with the ruination of the heron and egret rookeries by feather hunters, had no trouble capturing the right tone and words.
And to lose the chance to see frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach — why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time.
The Gulf is not a sewer, or a dumping ground, or an oil field, or a fund raiser. The Gulf is one of the masterpieces that Roosevelt is referencing, and he did his part to see it protected. Nature is a time machine, allowing us to share experiences with the past. The same birds that Teddy reported from the White House lawn a century ago can be seen today.
The challenges to nature also transcend time, and we are sharing one of those moments of clarity and revelation with Roosevelt. How would Teddy have faced the Gulf gusher? How can we follow his lead and lessons?
Teddy Roosevelt sitting on the shore of Breton NWR in 1915
Here is one last Teddy story. Chapman and Boroughs came to meet with Teddy about the need to protect birds and wildlife in the Gulf, especially the rookeries. The discussion eventually shifted to the topic of federal lands and of sanctuaries. Roosevelt looked to an advisor, and asked about the legality of a president simply declaring these lands to be protected. A head nodded in the affirmative, and the president then made one of the most famous declarations in conservation history – I do so declare it. The AOU and Audubon then donated the funds to hire the first game wardens, men who served for little compensation and at great risk.
Roosevelt had brass. He understood that he had the public’s support to develop progressive conservation policy. In our time, we who know, we who believe, are responsible for garnering the public’s support (even beginning in our own yards). We cannot stay silent. We must wake from our sleep and challenge our neighbors, our fellow Americans, to rise to this occasion. Not all wars involve guns, bombs, and carnage. Wars can also be about beliefs, about sacred responsibilities. Our opponents have clearly defined their position, and drawn their line in the sand.
Have we?
Teddy said that “in a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” In our time, we must quit feeling sorry, sad, morose, horrified, and depressed and get back in the game. In your time, President Obama, it is your job to gut it up and follow Teddy’s example.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people…Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation has lost its edge. Once razor sharp, the movement is dull and rusty. Rosalie Edge had a brass that has leached from the cause. Conservation has become a soirée for the well-meaning, well-heeled saviors.
Conservation did not begin this way, emerging first as a militant. Roosevelt, Pinchot, Dock, Rothrock, Chapman, McFarland, Edge, and their kind were brusiers. A 1948 New Yorker magazine profile called Edge “the most honest, unselfish, indomitable hellcat in the history of conservation.” An Audubon Society lawyer in the lawsuit she had brought against its officers in 1931 denounced her as a “common scold.”
I like hellcats and scolds. They confront the status quo, and beyond thinking “outside of the box” they recognize that there is no box in the first place.
Hellcats shove movements out of the muck where they inevitably become mired. A civil rights movement existed before Martin Luther King. An environmental movement existed before Rachel Carson. Computers were around before Steve Jobs. They were the game changers, the ass kickers.
How did the current conservation effort become so tepid, so nice? How is it that this once vibrant cause, this movement, now looks more like a marriage between the junior league and the junior varsity?
The Deepwater Horizon blowout is one of those cathartic moments when the emotional debris we collect dissolves and we see ourselves, at least for a brief moment, in a clear light. After Pearl Harbor American isolationists could see the futility of their efforts. After 9/11 the U.S. seemed a little less secure, a little less safe. After the Deepwater Horizon, we see just how fruitless it is to blithely ignore politics and policy while rubbing noses (and purses) with those who may exploit and despoil.
Consider the oil and gas industry. The run-up in prices and industry consolidation have given rise to an industrial oligarchy. Remember that our country’s greatest conservation president, Theodore Roosevelt, broke up Standard Oil to protect the public from this over-reaching industry over a century ago. We didn’t heed his lesson.
What does this have to do with conservation and the movement? The BP fiasco in the Gulf highlights the environmental costs of being asleep at the switch. Where were the hellcats and scolds before the gusher irrupted into Gulf waters? Didn’t anyone notice the reference to “walrus” in the oil companies’ Gulf of Mexico oil spill plans? Shouldn’t that have tipped someone off that these identical plans were fiction? How could the US Fish and Wildlife Service, charged with protecting endangered species, sign off on the MMS risk assessment? According to the NY Times, Deborah Fuller, the endangered species program coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s office in Lafayette, La., admitted that her office did not challenge the minerals service’s assessment of the risk. “We all know an oil spill is catastrophic, but what is the likelihood it will happen?” Ms. Fuller asked. She said her office had considered that any likelihood under 50 percent would not be enough to require the protections of her office.
Oops.
What is also important to recognize is the long reach of oil money and influence. Whether in politics or in the environmental movement, this industry is invested. While the political world has always been on the dole (see a complete list here), this has not always been the case with environmental organizations. Exxon gives to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Louisiana while funding global warming deniers. ConocoPhillips helps Audubon throughout the nation (just Google ConocoPhillips Audubon), and yet a University of Massachusetts study ranked it the third worst corporate air polluter in the nation.
Here is an example of the political impact of these oil industry investments. According to the Political Wire, even though BP’s corporate code of conduct proclaimed it will make no political contributions, whether in cash or in kind, anywhere in the world, the Washington Post reports that BP North America “has donated at least $4.8 million in corporate contributions in the past seven years to political groups, partisan organizations and campaigns engaged in federal and state elections.” Its most generous corporate contributions — totaling about $4 million — have gone to two Republican-aligned political action groups working to defeat state ballot initiatives in California and Colorado that could have raised oil and gas industry taxes.
Environmental groups have been direct recipients of the oil largesse as well. The blowout prompted a flurry of articles describing how BP had invested in many international environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International. An article in The Economist noted that the spill seems certain to prompt NGOs to review their ties to business. Lenny Mendonca of McKinsey, one of the authors of a new report, Shaping the Future: Solving Social Problems through Business Strategy, sees a “risk of heading into a vicious circle of antagonism” that he believes would be a mistake.
Stop.
McKinsey? That McKinsey and Company? Is this the same McKinsey that gave us Enron? Is this the same McKinsey that produced both John Sawhill (former CEO of The Nature Conservancy) and his underling Jeffery Skilling (incarcerated former CEO of the former Enron)? Is this the same McKinsey where Sawhill and Skilling were both energy specialists in the Houston office, and worked side-by-side for the client InterNorth (when merged with Houston Natural Gas became Enron)? Is this the same McKinsey and Company that developed Audubon’s 1995 strategic plan, the one that for all intents jettisoned the grassroots? That McKinsey? [For more information, read Robert Bryce’s Pipe Dreams.]
As his obituary in the NY Times generously pointed out, though his credentials as an environmentalist became impeccable, Mr. Sawhill’s positions were not always predictable. In 1974, for instance, he said that the environmental risks of strip-mining coal might be acceptable to meet national energy demands. That year, he said oil drilling off the New England coast, an idea that horrified fishermen, lobstermen and many environmentalists, should not be beyond consideration.
And he told a Senate committee in 1974 that higher fuel prices were not necessarily bad, especially if they encouraged oil companies to find new supplies.
Sawhill came from both the energy sector and from McKinsey. As Range magazine reported, “some of its most informed critics, in fact, suggest that since 1990 when John Sawhill brought his experience as a former McKinsey vice president into the Conservancy’s top job, the world’s richest and most powerful conservation organization has evolved into “McTNC.”” As the NY Times put it, “Mr. Sawhill pressed for more cooperation between business interests and environmental groups.” The fact that The Nature Conservancy and the oil industry developed a cozy relationship should not be surprising. If you launch billion-dollar campaigns, you need friends with deep pockets.
TNC’s admitted success has bled over to shape the entire environmental community. For example, John Flicker served closely with Sawhill at TNC, and then came to Audubon to implement the pro bono McKinsey strategic plan. The TNC model has profoundly impacted both the way environmental groups do business, and the subsequent abandoning of advocacy. After all, pointing out an industry’s deficiencies makes high-dollar campaigns difficult.
Here is an example of the TNC influence at work. Recently Houston Wilderness named a new CEO to replace retiring Rosie Zamora. Here is a quote from their press release; “Johnny’s [Cronin] credentials are second-to-none,” said Joel Deretchin, chairman of the Houston Wilderness board of directors. “Our search committee was impressed with his experience in strategic planning, donor cultivation, supervision and implementation. He has a true commitment to conservation and his experience working on the national level with the Nature Conservancy, one of the preeminent organizations in the country, is impressive.”
The new president of TNC, Mark Tercek, came from another Wall Street favorite, Goldman Sachs. As recently noted, as the head of Goldman Sachs’ Center for Environmental Markets, created in 2005, Tercek has overseen the company’s effort to match environmentally friendly policies with profitable business practices. The center also works with think tanks and academic institutions to develop ways to link environmental conservation with business.
Linking conservation with business. Donor cultivation. Call me atavistic, but t I wouldn’t call “donor cultivation” evidence of a “true commitment” to conservation. I doubt that John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, Rachel Carson, or Rosalie Edge would either. Perhaps Cronin and Tercek know the environmental business, but that is different from knowing the environment.
Albert Camus wrote that “by definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.” To influence policy in a democracy, one must embrace politics. The environmental movement has abdicated this responsibility, and the BP disaster has revealed just now politically impotent the movement has become.
As Abraham Lincoln said, “he who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.” The environment, lacking its own voice, must have those of advocates to protect it (or, as Edward Abbey said, “the idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”) The movement (or at least a segment) must labor at the nexus of the public and policy. The Deepwater Horizon offers a chance to return to the policy advocacy of the past, and to reengage with the public (you know, those who we once called neighbors). Gallup Survey
As this recent Gallup survey dramatically illustrates, active public support for the movement has eroded this past decade. What makes this particularly surprising is that this decade has purportedly been the dawning of a “green age.” Without advocacy, without governmental policy standing between corporate greed and a vulnerable public, this green age is little more than a marketing ploy.
TNC’s Mark Tercek, responding to the Washington Post article, said that “anyone serious about doing conservation in this region must engage these companies, so they are not just part of the problem but so they can be part of the effort to restore this incredible ecosystem.” Actually, anyone serious about “doing conservation” in the Gulf should begin with engaging the public’s help in forcing policy changes that will insure that such a fiasco does not happen again. In a recent paper, Zaradic et. al concluded that “ultimately, the fate of biodiversity and intact ecosystems may depend less on rates of habitat loss or invasive species, than on public perception of whether conservation should be supported at all.” Those who have devoted much of their lives to this cause must force a return to a balanced approach, one that recognizes that engaging business is not the same as engaging the public and that high-dollar campaigns do not replace progressive public policy.
Modern political practice is to never pay for today what can be delayed until future elections and generations. Want proof? Governor Ed Rendell, working with the Pennsylvania legislature, has crippled one of the most progressive conservation agencies in the nation – the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. As the PA Environmental Digest reports, “the budget just adopted for FY 2010-11 means a total of $1.3 billion has been diverted or cut from environmental programs to help balance the state budget or to fund programs that could not get funding on their own over the last eight years.” Rendell has opened state lands to gas development (Marcellus Shale), yet has diverted the lease revenues that might have mitigated for this new development to the general fund. State parks are threatened with closure, critical environmental protections are underfunded, and yet, at least from my vantage point, there is no general outrage on the part of the public.
Why?
Simple. Conservation has forgotten its constituency, and lost its audience. Organizations have become so enamored with anything big (business, government, foundations, campaigns, galas) that they failed to stay in touch with those who matter the most – the people. The opposition has made no such mistake, and the results (as seen in the Gallup survey) are stark. Those who have devoted their lives to conservation should use the Deepwater Horizon incident to review the movement’s successes and failures. No failures are more obvious than the movement’s disengagement from the public, and the antipathy that has arisen in the movement for advocacy. Without progressive public policy, and the public sentiment necessary for such policies to succeed, conservation’s future is up for grabs.
As the Deepwater Horizon gusher continues, and reporters dig in the oil-slimed muck for new angles, I believe it important to review just how well the press has covered this story. My assessment is focused on the ecological story, although I do recognize the various facets of this disaster (political, social, economic). In fact, I am willing to fine-tune my focus even further, to consider how well the press has told the story of those without words, without voices – the wildlife and sea life of the Gulf.
There are several groups that I follow on Linkedin, including Green Communicators. One of the members posted a story today about the impacts of the oil on Gulf birds. As with many group posts, this one originated on Digg.com. The story is titled “The US Oil Spill Endangers the Rare Bird’s Habitat Near the Coastal Islands,” and came from a website named The New Ecologist. Given my interest in Gulf birds I naturally read the article, a ghastly mistake. Let me dissect this story to illustrate much of what is wrong about the current state of psuedo-reporting.
I admit that I had never heard of The New Ecologist. A quick look at the web led me to the parent company – Expedient Info Media. EIM, as stated on their web page, “is the premier online publisher of information and news. We publish blogs & web sites that cover wide variety of subjects with the goal of providing expert and detailed information, solutions and resources.” Their blogs include a pregnancy blog, one about pets, and a celebrity blog. Not exactly Scientific American or the New York Times.
The story begins with a grammatically mangled heading, and without attribution. There is no original material in the article; in fact, the majority of the material is from the American Bird Conservancy. I wonder if George Fenwick (their president) would be happy to see his information so thoroughly disfigured.
Most of the article lists birds (with photos) that the unnamed author considers at risk. Ignoring the fact that English is apparently the writer’s second language (at best), the avian line-up, in my opinion, is misleading. Many of the species are not rare, and none are threatened or endangered. This is not to say that all are not at risk from the gusher, but there are many other species in a far more precarious position.
Have we really wandered this far from the basics of journalism, the who, what, when, and where of my college days? I know; I earned my degree in journalism in the dark ages, the Watergate years. But underlying these new media and new communication tools should be something that transcends time – well researched, trustworthy content.
Here is my list of those species that concern me at the moment:
Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle (endangered, slowly recovering, although numbers of nests in 1985 dropped to as low as 200.)
Sperm whale (perhaps 2000 in the Gulf, feeding at depths similar to this well).
Pygmy sperm whale (between 1500 and 2000 in the Gulf. Like most whales, this species is matriarchal, with females never leaving the Gulf. Recent studies show these females to be genetically distinct).
Piping plover (most of the world’s population winters along the beaches and tidal flats of the Gulf coast. They arrive along the Gulf two days either side of July 7, although nonbreeders often oversummer).
Snowy plover (breeds along Gulf beaches, although numbers swell in winter).
Wilson’s plover (breeds along Gulf beaches).
Reddish egret (most breed in Texas, and winter flocks in south Texas and northern Mexico can number in the hundreds).
Whooping crane (the world’s entire population of this critically endangered species winters along the Gulf).
Least tern (a beach-nesting tern, already declining from loss of habitat).
Black skimmer (same story as least tern).
American oystercatcher (an odd shorebird, that as the name implies, feeds on oysters. The population is small and disjunct. For example, there are probably no more than 200 to 300 in the entire Galveston Bay system).
Seaside sparrow (this bird spends its entire life in Spartina alterniflora, the smooth cordgrass that borders saline Gulf waters).
Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow (likes the same habitat as the seaside, but only in winter. This sparrow nests in the northern Great Plains).
Clapper rail (like the two above, a rail that is a saltmarsh obligate).
Whale shark (a little known species in the Gulf, although recent studies show that many more congregate in the northern Gulf than previously thought. The same could be said for the orca, a species of whale not normally associated with the Gulf. Recent sightings of 200 or more show that the Gulf may have hundreds or even thousands of orcas).
Bottlenose dolphin (the near coast dolphin, although I would consider any Tursiops to be at risk).
Redhead (90% of the world’s population of this duck winters in the Lower Laguna Madre of Texas).
Lesser Scaup (a species of concern that winters in near Gulf waters; same goes for common loon, northern gannet).
Black tern (this interior tern stages in immense numbers along the Gulf before heading south over Gulf waters).
No part of the Gulf is safe from this gusher. As Hurricane Ike demonstrated here in Galveston, a powerful storm moving west across the Gulf will push an overwhelming wall of water ahead. In fact, I am in Galveston at this moment, and although Hurricane Alex is far south of us already we are seeing high tides and gusting winds. One Ike this year will push oil deep into Texas marshes.
I wish I could say that this story from The New Ecologist is an exception. It is not. We have all seen the hundreds of brown pelican photos, the poster bird of this disaster. But many of those most at risk are rarely seen by a press safe on shore. Where is the investigative zeal? Where is the unwillingness to accept the first right answer? Where is the journalistic ethic that has kept this democracy safe since its founding?
If you wish to be a green communicator, begin with the basics of journalism. Follow the following bullets, and make sure that your communications are:
Accurate
Lucid
Incisive
Comprehensive
Original
Honest
Otherwise, you are simply another brush in the greenwashing paint box.
Scarlet Colley, telling Woodrow Davidson about the lives of dolphins, June 2010Last week our little family group traveled to South Padre Island to celebrate my wife’s birthday, and to expose my grandson to southmost Texas. On the 25th we joined Scarlet Colley (Fin to Feathers Tours) for a morning boat ride around the Laguna Madre. We met in Port Isabel, the seaside community where I stayed with my father in the early 1960s to hunt and fish. We always lodged at Harvey Courts, a thread-bare conglomeration of cabins that nestled up to one of the boat canals. Back then to reach Padre Island you drove across the original causeway and were met by three or four weather-beaten buildings and endless undeveloped barrier island. Thanks to Ralph Yarborough and other Texas leaders, the Padre Island National Seashore preserves much of this wild region. Between the south end of Padre and the National Seashore, though, what I remember as a child has been transformed into Miami Beach.
Within minutes of our leaving the dock with Scarlet we had seen our first dolphins, and at times during the trip they ventured so close that we could hear them breathe. Of course my grandson could not believe that these “people of the sea” were so confiding, so engaging. But, in truth, Scarlet is the one who made the trip so memorable.
I have been in the nature interpretation business for over two decades. What I have come to believe is that great interpretors are born, not taught. This is not to say that training is not important at the entry level, such as certification through the National Association for Interpretation (NAI). But being a great interpretor is like being a great writer or great artist. The world is full of learned journeymen, while greatness is bestowed on a very few.
Scarlet is one of those who has been blessed. First, she knows her subject (the Laguna Madre and southmost Texas). Second, she has been years on, in, and around the water, and her complete mastery of the element is comforting. Third, she is, by nature, a wonderfully engaging human being, and does not seem to ever tire of showing the same old stuff over and over again.
More importantly, Scarlet is passionate. Scarlet’s love of the Gulf is palpable, and her stories are not intended to be “fair and balanced.” Of course, in some interpretive circles such a bias is forbidden. There are those who say that the interpretor should be dispassionate, leaving opinions to be expressed over a beer after work. Perhaps this is why so may interpretors are little more than “books on a stick,” reciting the script that has been approved by a bureaucratic management deathly afraid of any political faux paux. Scarlet also talks to the dolphins, calls them by name, whistles to the mangrove warblers, and whoops and hollers when one of them returns the favor. All wrong, no doubt, but endearingly effective.
Scarlet reminds me of my dear friend Karla Klay. Karla’s nonprofit, Artist Boat, works with many underprivileged kids from the Houston/Galveston area. Karla and her staff load the kids into kayaks, and take them on discovery tours around Galveston Bay. After the boat trip each kid makes a model, a tile, of something they noticed in the Bay. Eventually all of these tiles are melded into a mosaic at the respective schools. Click here to watch a video about the development of one of these mosaics.
Karla Klay, Virginia Eubanks, Hugh Burris, and Woodrow Davidson, Christmas Bay, Texas, August 2008Karla grew up in the Florida Keys, and shares Scarlet’s unbridled passion for the Gulf. They are both children of the ocean, and my impression is that each feels most comfortable when out at sea and away from land. But they both are forceful in speaking about their concerns for the Gulf, and have no time to be impartial. Oscar Wilde said that “most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” With Scarlet and Karla, their lives are as true as their passions, and their opinions shape those of others. In this age of junior-league environmentalism, I am thankful that there are still a few like Scarlet and Karla to fight the good fight, even when the passion of the moment may water their eyes.
Please support Scarlet and Karla and their efforts!
