Tag Archives: Gulf gusher

Isolated in Iceland (Thinking About Partisan Politics and the American Conservation Movement)

Conservation, Opinion, Politics, , , , ,

TLE in RKA
I lie between the dead and the living, my eyes barely cracked, my skin licked by a million tiny molecules of dank, sour air. The neighbor’s blue tick is baying at an imaginary foe, and a chainsaw is slicing the remaining silence to remind me that no one sleeps in on Sunday. As I struggle to the coffee shop my path is blocked by police escorting the dozen UCLA charter buses back to the airport and the land of milk and honey sans offshore drilling. Edward Abbey said that “there is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”

Skimming Huffpost on my IPad, I notice the story that Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell has called evolution “a myth” and backed up her claim with the question: if evolution is real, “why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?” While isolated in Iceland last week [a grand place to get away; nothing is distracting in Reykjavik], away from the yapping heads, I thought about how partisanship in the U.S., while hardly new, has once again returned to its roots – base ignorance. Nothing motivates voters more than blind hate and mindless fury. I cannot imagine people more blind and mindless than those moved to passion at this moment like O’Donnell.

I have yet to hear a single word from the Tea Party or their kind that resonates with me. To be honest, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to expose such silliness in public. For the Western world the Age of Enlightenment centered on the 18th Century. What is forgotten is that the time preceding the Enlightenment, the Dark Ages, was a self-imposed devolution and backwardness. The Roman and Greek classical ages were temporarily lost not through a force of nature but through the force of human ignorance and religious myopia and corruption. The classics were restored to the West through the benevolence and enlightenment of Islam. I wonder who has our back now (forget Islam, by the way).

A multi-party system of government gives rise to partisanship, a natural outcome of competing ideologies vying for power. But what happens when the parties share a basic ideology? Rather than competing over grand ideas, the parties must battle over minutia. Grand philosophical debate is reduced to petty partisanship and ad hominum attacks. Welcome to our time, the age of microscopic people espousing nano ideas. Change in our age is not about transformation; change in our age is no more meaningful than a change of clothes or sheets.

Conservation has become distinctly partisan as well. Most environmentalists like me are liberal Democrats. Republicans oppose us not because of our ideas but because of our ideology. We embed conservation into a liberal social agenda, and support the party (the Democrats) who are more aligned with liberalism as a whole.

The result is that the Democratic Party presumes that our support will be freely given rather than earned. The partisan alignment of the environmental movement guarantees that the Democrats will ignore us while the Republicans will oppose us. We have convinced ourselves that the Democrat’s passive acknowledgement of environmental issues is better than outright Republican opposition. As a result Democrats are rarely blamed and Republicans rarely credited.

Home in Iceland
I offer this as background to the topic of the moment – the British Petroleum blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Administrations are judged by how they respond to acute challenges. Successes are celebrated for all ages; failures are never forgotten. America spent two years in the lead up to WW II, but Pearl Harbor is all that is remembered of the early rounds. The Bush administration will forever be haunted by Katrina, and Carter by Iran. The BP fiasco will be seen as President Obama’s day of reckoning, and, to date, I have found him lacking. I suspect that history will as well.

The Deepwater Horizon gusher is an act of man and therefore unlike Katrina, a natural phenomemon or act of God. The federal government had oversight responsibilities of the well from the outset. In this both administrations failed. The MMS cozied up to the industry it regulated in both the Bush and Obama years, and the USFWS permitted the well without an EIS during the Obama administration. Unlike Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon could have been prevented, and in this both administrations were negligent. With that said, we supported Obama because he promised change, not continuation of the disastrous policies and practices of the past. Blaming Bush for BP is as meaningless as blaming Clinton for 9/11. All Americans want to know is who’s on watch.

Where Katrina and BP are alike is in the political responses to the disasters. Simply go back and review press releases from both administrations during the early days of these events. I understand the fog of war, but why are the estimates of negative impacts always low balled? Why do administrations, no matter the party, always grossly understate the obvious knowing full well that the truth will eventually out? The Bush administration estimated that the war in Iraq would cost $50 billion to $60 billion; now the total cost is in the trillions. President Bush praised FEMA in the early aftermath of Katrina (“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”), and the final estimates of oil gushing into the Gulf exceeded early Obama administration numbers by orders of magnitude. How should we, the public, respond to such obvious errors or obfuscations? Oops?

Exactly what has the Obama administration accomplished for the environment that should earn our unquestioning support? Despite a clear majority in Congress, the administration failed to advance cap-and-trade. The America’s Great Outdoors initiative is palliative care (like the Last Child in the Woods campaign), long on meetings and talk but short on substantive change. As Frank Rich said during the early days of the BP gusher,

Obama was elected as a progressive antidote to this discredited brand of governance. Of all the president’s stated goals, none may be more sweeping than his desire to prove that government is not always a hapless and intrusive bureaucratic assault on taxpayers’ patience and pocketbooks, but a potential force for good.

I still believe in government as a potential force for good. I still believe that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. But I also believe, as did Jefferson, that “all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Early this summer I wrote an article about the environmental movement’s abdication of advocacy. An aspect of this surrender is the partisan alignment of the movement today. Advocacy should be focused on the issues and the cause, not on any particular party or power. For example, Martin Luther King found it necessary to split with President Johnson over the war in Viet Nam in his Beyond Viet Nam speech. This critical shift, while consistent with his cause, led to him to be ostricized by many who had previously supported him. President Theodore Roosevelt battled with his own Republican party over his progressive agenda, particularly conservation and public lands. No matter how vilified or disputed, they remained true to their beliefs and the causes.

The Gulf gusher has been a moment in time that begged for clear, unambiguous leadership and action. When Harry Truman faced a railroad strike that would have crippled the country, he responded by threatening to draft all railroad workers into the Army. Theodore Roosevelt used John Lacey’s new Antiquities Act to circumvent a recalcitrant congress and protect millions of acres of America’s heritage. Franklin Roosevelt closed the banks for a “bank holiday” to stop the hemorrhage that threatened to bleed the country even deeper into the Great Depression.

The BP disaster has been Barrack Obama’s defining test, that one event in time when a presidency is made or broken. Only at these critical moments can a president step outside of his or her political skin and lead the nation as an individual, a fellow American. The country forgave Roosevelt’s being caught off guard at Pearl Harbor because he and the nation he led ultimately won the war. Roosevelt honed in on the prize (victory) and swept away the conventions and structures of the past that kept him from that goal. In the Gulf this president has continued with the shopworn policies and agencies of the past, and has offered little in the way of a grand idea for the Gulf restoration beyond platitudes and promises.

Conservation and the environmental movement (not necessarily the same) should embrace a return to the nonpartisan advocacy of the past. Let me be clear – there are two forms of nonpartisanship. The first is to avoid all forms of advocacy, as seen with groups such as the Nature Conservancy. The polar opposite is an advocacy that believes that all should be held accountable, and that the basic tenants and beliefs of conservation must transcend (rather than ignore) the politics of the day. I care little for the former, but the latter is the advocacy that I embrace and promote.

Let’s return to the Gulf. Here the Obama administration has done little more than promulgate the mistakes and inefficiencies of the agencies and allies that he inherited. Where is the change promised just two years ago? Where is the bold, daring leadership that challenges the country to rise to this occasion, to be its best? The Gulf has been an America colony since the end of the Civil War. Wealth is extracted, with little returned. Isn’t the restoration of the Gulf and its people worthy of this president’s interest and investment?

Here is where I would begin. No one disputes that a lot of oil lies untapped under the rocky floors of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans off the U.S. coasts. Yet drilling in these areas has been banned by Congress since 1982. Recently six U.S. senators from the states along the West Coast including Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein jointly introduced legislation to ban all future drilling along the Pacific shoreline. Notice that drilling rigs in the Gulf stop at the Florida Panhandle. Drilling is banned offshore of Florida as well. Why? Why are Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, along with Alaska, bearing the weight of coastal oil and gas production and refining in the U.S.? And if the Gulf is being sacrificed so that others in the U.S. can drive in their SUVs to their oil-free beaches or ship their crops to foreign markets, shouldn’t the impacts to the Gulf be mitigated for with revenues from these economic activities? Shouldn’t the federal government be investing these revenues back into the Gulf states to build local capacity, expertise, and the research necessary to respond to future spills and future dead zones? Shouldn’t national environmental organizations be aiding local groups and institutions in developing the financial and human resources that would aid this capacity building, rather than sucking even more funding from the Gulf to New York and Washington?

Gulf of Mexico Oil Production

To date reinvestment has not been the trend. Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife has received a $216,625 noncompetitive contract from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a seabird survey in the Gulf. Manomet, based in Plymouth MA, has received a similar grant to survey shorebirds. Bird cleaning funds have gone to three out-of-area firms. Local universities have been unused, and volunteers have been kept on the sidelines. The issue is not whether or not Defenders and Manomet are well-meaning, worthwhile organizations (they are). My concern is how Gulf environmental interests, as limited as they are, have been effectively locked out by those who should have their best interests at heart.

Did the USFWS believe that Defenders is better qualified to count seabirds than Van Remsen’s LSU, Frank Moore’s Southern Mississippi, Texas A&M, or the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory? Is Manomet more familiar with the shorebirds and their habitats along the Gulf than local birders and scientists that have been surveying shorebirds here for decades? Why aren’t the national environmental organizations insisting on local involvement in the NRDA and environmental assessments, or are they too busy trying to snatch their own slice of the pie?

For those along the Gulf, the refrain is familiar. Funds dedicated to those with the least often end up in the hands of those with the most. For example, five years after the passage of the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, more of the tax-free benefits from the Katrina disaster have gone to the Louisiana’s powerful oil industry than to development in hard-hit areas. According to Newsweek,

New Orleans has so far received a total of $55 million in bonds shared between eight projects—or less than 1 percent of the more than $5.9 billion issued statewide. None of the bonds issued for New Orleans projects went to development in hard-hit and still-struggling areas like the Lower Ninth Ward.
Instead, the federal largesse has been poured into oil companies operating far from New Orleans. Since Congress’s unanimous approval of the GO Zone Act, Louisiana officials have issued nearly $1.7 billion in tax-free bonds—about one third of the total issued—for projects that contribute to the production of oil.

I blame the Democrats for continuing with the bankrupt policies and strategies of the past and their continued reliance on organizations and institutions that haven’t conjured a new idea since the 1970s. I blame the Republicans for equating environmentalism with socialism (although I admit that both have relied on strong central government and coercion rather than consent), and for their mindless opposition to our issues no matter the stakes. I especially blame rational members of both parties for not stepping outside of party ideology and allowing themselves to intelligently consider the conservation challenges of our time. As Huey Long said,

The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the neck down.

Finally, I blame many in the conservation movement for divesting themselves of an honorably passionate past in the quest for political aggrandizement and financial reward. The Gulf gusher can still serve as a catalyst for change within the conservation and environmental communities. Good can be salvaged even from the wreckage of the Gulf. As I said earlier, there is nothing that I find agreeable in the Tea Party, with one significant exception. At least the Tea Partiers know when to be angry. They are often furious at the wrong people about the wrong issues, but at least they show up. Anger is a potent catalyst, and the time has passed for us to kindle that fire.

[Let me add a comment about the Tea Party. The degree to which the Tea Party is viewed favorably is a measure of how disenfranchised people feel at this moment. The fact that much of the economic and social malaise can be dated to the Bush administration is irrelevant. We elected Obama as a force for change, not to enforce a status quo. The Democrats will be spanked in November, and we will see if this president learns his lessons and salvages his legacy in the last two years of his first term. At this moment, he has only himself and his fellow Democrats to blame.]

We should begin by stripping ourselves of rote partisanship and start embracing an advocacy that towers above politics. Political leaders are not preordained to failure or success. Change is always possible. The advocate’s responsibility is to point out failures, no matter one’s political affiliation, and to suggest measures that may succeed. Spare us the platitudes. With measurable, tangible results will come our support, and not before.

The Gulf would be a perfect place to begin.

Ted Eubanks
26 September 2010

The Culture of Conservation – Taking it to the Street

Conservation, Culture of Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, Politics, Recreation, , , , , ,

The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture—Gaylord Nelson

Gifford Pinchot popularized, rather than coined, the word conservation. He placed his mark on the word by combining conservation with ethic, embedding his concept of conservation in an almost forgotten book The Fight for Conservation. Aldo Leopold followed with the Land Ethic which states that conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. For the past century American conservation has heeded these tenets.

Yet even Leopold spoke of the difficulties in applying these rules, these ethics. In Land Ethic Leopold asks the following:

Despite nearly a century of propaganda, conservation still proceeds at a snail’s pace; progress still consists largely letterhead pieties and conventional oratory. On the back forty we still slip two steps backward for each forward stride. The usual answer to this dilemma is ‘more conservation education.’ No one will debate this, but is it certain that on the volume of education needs stepping up? Is something lacking in the content as well?

Walter Russell Mead has recently written that the environmental movement has “become the voice of the establishment, of the tenured, of the technocrats.” Leopold spoke of “letterhead pieties and conventional oratory.” Edward Abbey said “that which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.” What all are saying (or at least implying) is that conservation, to remain relevant, must constantly evolve. Yet as conservation has become more business and less movement, the forces constraining evolution have become increasingly restrictive and dampening. At these junctures evolution must become revolution.

Over a decade ago I served on the board of the National Audubon Society. One spring we met in Jamestown, North Dakota, where we continued with our debates and discussions about a new strategic plan for the Society. I recall sitting in the Holiday Inn, unable to sleep, and slipping over to my computer to write a section of the plan that I called the culture of conservation. Although the board at that time adopted my thoughts, not long after I left the board the concept vacated as well.

Now I want my idea back.

As I have written before, the conservation and environmental movements (which I will simplify to movement) have been signaled onto the wrong track. I will avoid the Casey Jones analogy, but my message is the same. I see trouble ahead, and trouble behind. Once an organic, social phenomenon, the movement has sacrificed its soul in the pursuit of efficiency and currency. Most environmental organizations are well-meaning, highly educated, and effectively isolated from the fabric of everyday life in America.

Here are a few off-the-cuff examples. In the U.S. two out of three Americans are white, non-Hispanic (according to the census bureau). About 16% of Americans are Hispanic, and around 13% are black. I know of no environmental organization, agency, or department where employment or membership remotely reflects these percentages. The environmental movement, save environmental justice, remains lily white.

In the U.S., only 27 percent of the population has earned a college degree. Only 8.9 percent of Americans have a Masters’ Degree and only 3 percent have earned a PhD. Yet the conservation and resource agencies and organizations usually require an advanced degree as a term of employment. We are white and egg-heads.

Environmental threats occur in every state. In recent years, for example, the Gulf of Mexico (Katrina, Ike, the BP gusher, the dead zone) has been a hot spot. Rural communities are often disproportionately at risk, for example the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania and New York states. Yet the national environmental groups office in the largest cities in the U.S., and at the edges of the country. Here are a few examples:

National Audubon Society – New York City
Defenders of Wildlife – Washington D.C.
National Wildlife Federation – Washington D.C.
American Bird Conservancy – Washington D.C.
Environmental Defense Fund – New York City
The Conservation Fund – Washington D.C.
Defenders of Wildlife – Washington D.C.
The Trust for Public Land – San Francisco
The Sierra Club – San Francisco

I remember an Audubon board meeting that I helped arrange in McAllen, Texas. The board and dozens of staff members would be coming to southmost Texas for this meeting. I recall one of the young female staff members cornering me before the meeting, asking me if it would be safe to drink the water.

I mention this not to embarrass the Audubon staff. I only want to illustrate my point about the groups being culturally, educationally, and geographically remote.

The environmental problems and threats we face in this country are relevant to everyman, not just white, educated urbanites. The average American earns less than $40,000 annually, does not have a college education, and is left wondering why he or she should give a damn about something as amorphous and ill-defined as global warming. We in the environmental movement may be convinced of the facts, and smugly certain of our position, but science does not win elections or hearts. The average American must understand enough to care, and care enough to vote. At this moment, he and she do neither.

You say you want a revolution? Begin and end with the people.

Lincoln said:

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

By real facts Lincoln did not mean the obscure, confusing, and tiresome arguments that only serve to alienate our audience. For example, I believe that most people understand that millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico is not a good thing. What most do not understand are the endless arguments between experts. We speculate about lost oil while Governor Barbour howls about lost jobs. We debate the pros and cons of cleaning birds while Governor Jindal promises to clean house. We aim for the head, they for the heart.

I realize that the terms grassroots and ground up are hackneyed and shopworn. This does not mean that the words are not true, even if overused. Few of the national environmental organizations are of the grassroots form. Sierra has a local chapter structure, and a few have state offices. Audubon had the most distributed, community-level organization of them all, with hundreds of local chapters. Yet over the past several years Audubon has moved away from chapters and more toward state offices and centers. The Tea Party has shown the efficacy of working at the community, even district, level. Our movement, in contrast, has spent the last decade consolidating and distancing itself from the hoi polloi.

Here is an example. A close friend in Houston wrote me to ask about volunteer opportunities to help with the Gulf gusher. Her daughter had a few free weeks of summer break to spend, and she desperately wanted to help. She called Audubon and asked about opportunities, and received the fundraising spiel in return. Ted Williams recently wrote in Audubon magazine that “the very last thing Gulf Coast birds need are well-meaning amateurs crashing through nesting habitat.” Dead wrong, Ted. What the movement needs is those 17,000 potential volunteers to become crusaders, and what better way to engage them than through their willingness to pitch in and help. We would all agree that nesting areas would be off limits to the uninitiated. But that leaves the vast majority of the shore eligible for cleaning by volunteers.

Our movement has become Conservation Inc. We need to step forward to the past, and spark conservation back to life.

Walter Russell Mead notes the following:

Intellectually and culturally, environmentalists came out of the same movement as critics of crude urban development like Jane Jacob (The Death and Life of Great American Cities). They celebrated the diverse local, small-scale adaptations that reflected the knowledge of communities as opposed to the grandiose plans of the social engineers.

Precisely. Jane Jacobs dug in against Robert Moses and the planners who would have stripped New York of the diversity that is its hallmark. She worked at the neighborhood level, yet argued that her concepts also had application on a global scale. Jacobs spent her life concerned with city culture, and the ways in which enlightened, empowered citizens can persevere. I will argue that conservation is a community as well, peopled by well meaning, dedicated citizens that simply need to be empowered, enlightened, and appreciated.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has—Margaret Mead

Yes, a small group of people can provoke a cultural shift. Change is contingent on these provocateurs, the tiny legion willing to face friend and foe alike. My previous article focused on one of these provocateurs, Drew Wheelan. Drew is a person willing to allow the public to see a problem (the Gulf gusher) through his eyes. We need more of his kind to help us drag this movement out of the muck. I am not arguing that the ecocrats and Conservation Inc. should go away. We need all the help we can get. I am arguing, though, that we need to quickly reintroduce ourselves to our neighbors and ask for their help, not just their money. In this we are years behind, so we have little time to waste.

This is just the first part of a rewriting of conservation and the movement that needs to take place. Future articles will address additional steps in the process. But without the public, there is no movement. Let’s take it to the street.

Ted Lee Eubanks
10 Sep 2010

Wounds To The Salt

Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, Politics, , ,

Royal tern and black skimmer, Galveston, Texas, Ted Lee Eubanks
Now that I have identified my hit list (the 25 species of birds that I feel most at risk from the Gulf gusher), which are these are most threatened? Here is the latest from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation (NFWF).

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) announced today a major project to provide critical wetland habitat for migratory birds affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. With a $2.5 million investment from NFWF’s Recovered Oil Fund for Wildlife, NFWF will join with Ducks Unlimited and others to establish the wetlands on farms and other private lands along the Gulf coast. These alternative habitats outside of the spill area will provide habitat for millions of migratory birds that will soon descend upon the region.

NFWF, DU, and others will develop freshwater wetlands in the interior to protect ducks, geese, and migratory freshwater shorebirds from the impacts of the gusher. Fantastic, I am all for it. Except my hit list birds would not be expected outside the “spill area.” I support any effort to enhance wetlands (particularly in the agricultural interior), but the benefit from this project to many of the birds most impacted by the gusher will be negligible.

The birds most at risk at those that are either salinity tolerant or saline obligates. The more restricted the bird is to the tidal zone, the more restricted it is to the beach, the more the bird is at risk. Yes, a hurricane would change the threat considerably, particularly if the storm surge pushed oil into the interior. But without such a storm (and assuming the BP finally caps the damn thing), the tidal zone (along with the open waters of the Gulf) is where we would expect the greatest impact and threat.

Therefore the birds at the top of my list are those that are non-migratory, saline obligates. In other words, these birds are restricted to the tidal zone and remain throughout the year.

Clapper rail
American oystercatcher
Black skimmer
Horned lark (coastal)
Seaside sparrow

There are others that spend their lives in the tidal zone, yet individuals may migrate to the south in winter (hopefully out of harm’s way).

Mottled duck
Neotropic cormorant
Reddish egret
Roseate spoonbill
Snowy plover (coastal breeders)
Wilson’s plover
Least tern (coastal breeders)
Royal tern

The next group breeds in the interior, yet winters in the tidal zone. Most of these birds are capable of making non-stop flights between where they nest and where they winter. In other words, they do not depend on interior staging areas during migration. Others, like the whooping crane, stage their migrations, and “refuel” en route.

Whooping crane
Piping plover
Red knot
Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow

There are also species that are interior breeders that pass through the Gulf. These birds are only at risk during the seasons of passage (fall and spring).

Fulvous whistling-duck
Franklin’s gull
Black tern

The following birds winter in the open waters of the Gulf and the near shore (bays and estuaries), yet breed long distances to the north.

Lesser scaup
Red-breasted merganser
Common loon
Eared grebe
Northern gannet

American oystercatcher, Galveston, Texas, Ted Lee Eubanks
None of these species will benefit from enhanced duck ponds away from the coast. The question is just what is being done for those most at risk? A few of these species, such as whooping crane and piping plover, are already endangered and their populations have little wiggle room. Others, such as the American oystercatcher, are low-density, year-round residents. What is being planned for these species? Migrants are beginning to arrive on the Gulf now.

Cleaning crews in Grand Isle trashed least tern nesting sites. BP incinerated sea turtles along with oil from the gusher. We do not need another round of ham-fisted trial and error. We need specific, targeted results. My fear is that the people who know the Gulf the best are being kept on the sidelines because of politics, ignorance, ego, and fear. These are not BPs beaches. These are not BPs waters. These are not BPs marshes. Let’s get the best and brightest from the Gulf (rather than from Wall Street or DC) into the mix now.
One last comment. Why did I leave brown pelican off of the hit list? Yes, it is as threatened as any of these, but the press has already brought its plight to the public’s attention. I am concerned about those species (such as American oystercatcher) that are obscure and unknown outside of the birding world. Those high-profile game birds with large advocacy support (ducks and geese) will always be helped. What about those who do not have such panache?
Ted Lee Eubanks
9 July 2010

Fine, Smart Ass, What Would You Do?

Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, Politics, , , , , ,
Snowy plover, Quivira NWR, Kansas, Ted Lee Eubanks

I thought that you would never ask.

Look at the list of imperiled birds again. Most share a habitat type. When the oil has oozed its last, habitat will still be these birds most pressing need. I agree with the sentiment behind Paul Kemp’s (National Audubon Society) comment that “here, we have a patient that’s dying of cancer, you know, and now they have a sunburn, too,” but Paul, choose your words (and analogies) more carefully next time. The grotesque wetland losses in Louisiana began before the gusher. The dead zone in the Gulf existed before the gusher. The 27000 abandoned wells in the Gulf existed before the gusher. The incessant nipping away at coastal beaches existed before the gusher. Only this time, at least for a moment, a catastrophic event has shined the light into America’s backyard.

Enough carping. What should we do? First, we need protected, untrammeled beaches. A number of the birds on my list (piping, snowy, and wilson’s plovers, red knot) spend most of their lives in or around a beach or sand flat. The driftwood that is removed by beach groomers (you know, a sun tan requires an immaculate beach) gives these birds a place to roost, particularly during high winds. An open beach should not be a race track. Protect these birds, and their beaches, and you protect a number of other birds and wildlife as well (ruddy turnstone, sanderling, western sandpiper).

Second, protect and enhance (i.e., expand) the Gulf coastal habitats where these birds nest. In the case of least terns and black skimmers, the protected beach complex will do the trick. It is critical, though, to conserve the beach/bay habitat in its entirety. On Galveston Island, the depressed economy has opened the door to conserve tracts from beach to bay. People like Karla Klay and Artist Boat have been trying every trick in the book to raise funds for an acquisition, and have had the door slammed in their faces. This is not an isolated incident. There are wonderful local conservation groups around the Gulf trying to save these lands, their heritage, and the support they receive is pitifully small.

Other birds (such as brown pelicans and reddish egrets) need their colonial nesting areas and rookeries protected. Predator control, public use limitations, and structural enhancements are all in order. Groups like Audubon (national and local) protect a number of these critical islands and marshes. For example, the Houston Audubon Society maintains North Deer Island, Bolivar Flats, Horseshoe Marsh, and the High Island sanctuaries (and more) for birds. Let’s give them the support they need to do the job.

Third, it’s about the wetlands, stupid. Approximately half the nation’s original wetland habitats have been lost over the past 200 years. Louisiana’s wetlands today represent about 40 percent of the wetlands of the continental United States, but about 80 percent of the losses. Stop it. Replumb the Mississippi (and while you are at it, deal with the agricultural and urban runoff that is killing the Gulf). Finish the Everglades, and then make the Mississippi (and the Missouri, while we are on the subject) right. If the Gulf is an industrial park, the Mississippi is a highway and sewer.

Fourth, in order to accomplish the above put Americans to work. Roosevelt named the CCC accurately – the Citizens Conservation Corps. We have millions who are desperate for work, and many have exactly the skills to help us restore the Gulf, its tributaries, and its wetlands. Give them a chance.

Franklin's gull, Quivira NWR, KS, Ted Lee Eubanks

Fifth, involve citizens in monitoring this spill and the health of the Gulf. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (CLO) and eBird are great places for birders to start. You may not live on or visit the Gulf, but you can monitor these indicator species when they are in your extended neighborhood. No, these are not backyard birds, but many may be near you during migration or breeding season. For example, Franklin’s gulls pass in phenomenal numbers through the Great Plains, and declines in their population are worrisome. Snowy plovers that nest in Kansas winter along the Gulf. Piping plovers that nest in North Dakota winter in Texas. We need to know what is happening throughout their ranges. Get out, go look, and give back what you see.

Sixth, your backyard does matter. I know, I keep dissing (I picked this word up from by grandson, Woodrow) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and I doubt that I will stop as long as these insipid fundraising campaigns continue. But I do like their backyard habitat program for a simple reason. Recreation is, for most Americans, the pathway to nature. There is no recreational venue closer than your home or heart. Birds at a backyard feeder are a portal, a rabbit hole, through which people can easily pass into the natural world. If we are going to have any chance of connecting Americans to nature, to biodiversity, I believe that it must start close to home. NWF needs to focus on backyard connections, and groups like the American Birding Association (ABA) need to promote recreation as the pathway. We must nurture public sentiment and support if we are going to have any hope of changing political policy.

Finally, policy and politics matter. I like how the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has been increasingly proactive in asserting its policy recommendations. A place to start would be to enforce existing regulations, and to insure that these programs are adequately funded. Opponents know that you kill a policy by starving it. As I have said previously, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a classic example (the Wilderness Society has prepared a great fact sheet about the chronic underfunding of this program). The Endangered Species Act (ESA) funding is abysmal. The National Estuary Program on the Gulf (such as the Barataria-Terrebonne NEP) needs a boost. We need progressive, dedicated, well-funded organizations, policies, and programs to restore the Gulf, not empty promises and platitudes. BP’s fines should not fall into the congressional black hole. Let’s invest in the Gulf and its people, now.

Ted Lee Eubanks
8 July 2010

Unbelievable if True: Conservation and Truth in Advertising

Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, , , , , , ,

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.

Ted Eubanks
7 July 2010