The 2012 Festival was one of the most ambitious to date—over a hundred films were screened—but this year’s event looks even bigger. What are some of the highlights?

The 2013 Festival is another ambitious undertaking! We’ve got a vibrant and diverse program of films and, this year, a special focus on rivers and watersheds throughout the world. Of the Festival’s 190 films, 110 will screen as premiers, including 18 world premiers and 15 U.S. premiers. And the scope is global: 85 international films will screen, representing 50 different countries.

Some specific highlights include A River Changes Course, about the effects of modernity on the people and environment of the Tonle Sap River in Cambodia; the world premiere of Hot Water, a hard-hitting look at the legacy of contamination from uranium mines in the western U.S.; the world premiere of The Ends of the Earth, a celebration of the magnificent and remote Alaska Peninsula and Katmai National Park; and The Fruit Hunters, a lively exploration of the world’s rarest fruits and the people obsessed with finding them.

Why is it important to keep offering this event in Washington? And why keep doing it?

Our mission is to advance public understanding of the environment through the power of film, and we feel that we are continuing to accomplish this as our audiences grow each year. Our surveys show large numbers of new attendees every season, as well as many returning fans.

Washington is also an ideal place to pursue the collaborations and partnerships that make the Environmental Film Festival unique. This March, over 100 partners, including museums, embassies, universities, commercial theaters, churches, schools, community centers, and environmental NGOs, are joining us to make the 2013 Festival a reality and a true community-wide event.

What’s your favorite part of putting the Festival on every year?

The films we consider deal with every imaginable environmental subject, and they represent the work of dedicated and passionate filmmakers. To watch them is an ongoing education, and my favorite aspect of this work. Festival films are also frequently at the cutting edge of the national public discourse, and debates about things like fracking, mountaintop removal mining, tar sands development, and climate change—to name just a few—have all been significantly informed by films we’ve featured over the years.

You screen a tremendous number of films. What were some of the favorites last year?

There were many favorites in last year’s lineup. The Well is a beautiful film about the ancient singing wells of Ethiopia. The Big Fix investigates the dire consequences of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf. And Watershed, which we are actually showing again this year as part of our rivers theme, is a clarion call to protect the Colorado River and restore its delta. Giving that film its world premiere was definitely a highlight of the 2012 Festival.

What life experiences prepared you to run this massive and independent arts event?

My professional experience includes documentary film production work, and this certainly helps me understand the film world that is the basis of what we do. I had not worked at a festival before, and had to learn much on the job—so it’s helped me to have a deep interest in our films’ wide-ranging topics, and to enjoy working with outside groups and partners to create an event that enriches the cultural life of the city.

While it made sense strategically, since much of the county’s remaining forested and open land has already been conserved, it was also right on mission for Conserve Lake County (CLC). As they got into it, the CLC leadership realized that they didn’t want to convert purchased farms to natural uses, though, but rather to keep them in farming.

Yet the conventional corn and soybean farming practiced widely in the region was not on-mission, given the known impacts of those practices. “That sent us searching for a different kind of farming more in keeping with our mission of improving land and water health,” explained Steve Barg, CLC’s Executive Director. Because their preserved agricultural lands are farmed more sustainably, they were then pulled into the nascent food system conversation in the county and are now leading efforts to develop its local food economy.

While land trusts that specialize in farmland, like American Farmland Trust, have been around a long time, this trend of conventional land trusts wading into food systems work is much newer, and it’s growing. Statistics shared by the Land Trust Alliance (LTA), found that of 912 member trusts surveyed in 2010, 22% reported that farm and ranch preservation was “very important,” and 39% said it was “extremely important.” Well over half of the LTA members, then, are strongly invested in this work (for more stats, see American Farmland Trust’s 2012 survey of land trusts that specifically work to preserve farms and ranches).

When asked about the interest, Rob Aldrich, Director of Communications for the LTA, said he’s been watching it trend steadily upward since the early 2000s, and sees land trusts getting involved all along the spectrum of activities within the new food movement. One of his favorite examples is Massachusetts Audubon, “…a land conservation organization dedicated to saving bird habitat, which is now doing community gardening in some of their sanctuaries. Why? Because that’s what their communities need, and they want to use their resources to address community needs that also blend with their mission.”

And Mass Audubon isn’t alone: the biggest and oldest land trust in the state, The Trustees of Reservations, employs an Agriculture Program Director to manage its ag-strategy and farm-holdings. The LTA’s Aldrich plans a special feature on the whole topic of land trusts in the food system for the summer issue of his organization’s member magazine, Saving Land.

Back in Illinois, the most visible example of CLC’s efforts, beside Prairie Crossing (a 669-acre Chicago subdivision that devotes 100 acres to food production: see “Farming the ‘burbs”) and the fact that around 25% of its portfolio is now agricultural land, is the nascent Casey Farm Center for Land Health, a 34-acre farm CLC also now owns. It will use part of the farmhouse for educational purposes and lease the rest to a young couple for raising chickens and produce. A renovation of the 140 year-old dairy barn to make it friendly for food processing is just being finished.

In a similar vein on the East End of Long Island, NY, Peconic Land Trust has been in the local food game since 1990 when it was gifted land perfect for a CSA. One of the oldest CSAs in the country (and also having the distinction of employing Scott Chaskey as its official “Farmer/Poet” – it really says that on his business card, and his poems are great), PLT’s President John Halsey said that their decision to keep the land in farming hinged on stewardship. “What better way to steward farmland than by operating a farm that engages the community?”

Beside the venerable CSA, called Quail Hill Farm, ninety acres of this land is part of PLT’s new Farms for the Future initiative, an incubator for new growers who can lease the land to “…get their feet on the ground before finding more permanent locations to farm out here.” At the end of their lease, PLT plans to aid the farmers in finding land elsewhere that they can acquire themselves, which is key in Hamptons zip codes.

But that question of whether farmers like them can actually find land, conserved or otherwise, that they can finance remains a big question. Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust in western Massachusetts is one organization that’s working to make conserved farmland affordable to new and old entrants alike with an increasingly popular model.

In addition to more traditional practices (it’s conserved two dozen farms over the past 25+ years), Mount Grace recently launched a new effort that protects the land by way of a community land trust (CLT) structure. This model is one of shared ownership, where the land trust buys the land and provides a 99-year inheritable lease to the farmer, who owns the house and buildings and in turn grants the trust a permanent Affordability Restriction, ensuring that when the buildings are sold to the next farmer (and it must be to a farmer), the price tag will be affordable.

Their Campaign for Affordable Farms is just shy of the fundraising goal for its first project: buying the 100+ acres of Red Fire Farm in Montague, whose current owners will remain on the land and operate their successful 1,400-member/year-round CSA, while shedding unsustainable debt.

All of Mount Grace’s potential farm conservation projects are assessed for their full farm affordability potential, reports Executive Director Leigh Youngblood. She’s a booster of the CLT system both for its economic sense, since a regular conservation easement simply does not guaranteed affordability, but also for the good it does in the community, she says (and speaking of, the National Young Farmers Coalition just surveyed 225 land trusts across the U.S. to find out what they’re doing on the affordability question, from CLTs to language enhancements in traditional conservation easements favorable to agriculture, and plans to publish the results soon).

So although a CLT is a departure from traditional land trust work and comes with organizational capacity questions, Youngblood declared, “We love it, Red Fire is a strong partner, and we were ready for the challenge.” And beside the great mission-match that the campaign yields, there were also direct benefits to Mount Grace in 2012, she reports: “We got 100 new donors at the end of the year. That’s the biggest increase in one month we’ve ever had.”

Which should be music to many land trusts’ ears. CLTs are also likely to have been discussed by a new short course just offered by Bard College (NY) aimed at land conservation professionals, “Private Land Conservation: A Primer, and The Role of Agriculture.” This offering at a college is yet another sign that this trend is getting big.

When asked to share advice with land trusts that are interested in getting into the farmland preservation game, here’s what my sources suggested:

• Lease, don’t own, according to Mount Grace’s Youngblood: “I often see land trusts acquire farms and then operate them. I personally don’t want to be operating a farm. We’re good at conserving land. Owning a farm and running it with your own staff is harder than leasing it.” She also highly recommends Land for Good, which provides farmland access, farm transfer planning, land planning, and farm use agreement information in the Northeast.
• Peconic Land Trust’s Halsey agrees: “Owning the land doesn’t mean you need to hire the farmer as we did, although we’ve gained a lot from that.” He also added that a land trust has a unique position and should take advantage of that with farmland it owns: “Get more involved with active management of farmland: encourage new forms of agriculture and best management practices and look at different models.”
• Find your door-opener, says Conserve Lake County’s Steve Barg: “There’s one farmer in our community who’s been a game-changer for us, a fourth generation farmer and conservationist (who bucks the usual corn and soybeans plan and instead grows an interesting 4 to 5 grain rotation on his land). Because he’s a conventional farmer, he’s been a real door-opener for us in the farming community.”

That’s all good advice, and one hopes that the estimated 1,660+ land trusts across all 50 U.S. states will follow the lead of the 558 Land Trust Alliance member trusts that report being invested in this work. The country needs to greatly increase the number of farmers and the diversity of its farms if it hopes to feed itself well into the future. The good news is that its reliable fleet of land trusts is well-positioned to help by creating many new local food solutions.

Last month a virus broke out in an open water salmon farm in British Columbia that has the region’s fish farm owners scrambling to mitigate their losses. Called infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN), the rabies-like virus was found among salmon in floating net pens belonging to Mainstream Canada, the biggest producer in the region. As a result, the B.C. farm culled over 500,000 fish infected with IHN, which spreads rapidly and can kill up to 100 percent of a fish farm’s population. And this is just the latest disease scandal to hit the province’s salmon farming industry.

Critics of the industry say that the farms should have seen this coming. Their own alarm bells have been ringing ever since Rick Routledge, a professor at Simon Fraser University, claimed that wild sockeye tested by his lab in 2011 showed that another more serious virus, one that causes infectious salmon anemia (ISA), was present in B.C. waters. The government seized his samples and declared through their own testing that the virus was not present (since a verified case of the disease would be treated like other serious outbreaks such as mad cow disease under international convention, this would be devastating to the industry. In 2007, ISA caused a $2 billion loss to the Chilean salmon farming industry, and was found to be imported on Atlantic salmon eggs shipped from Norway).

Diseases like these are suspected by First Nations, activists, and fishing groups to be one cause of the drastic declines among some wild salmon populations that the province has witnessed in recent years. Home to some of the biggest wild salmon runs in the world, B.C.’s provincial government has also welcomed the salmon farming industry eagerly over the years, allowing 100 farms to be established in its waters (59 are currently in use). But activists charge that the open water pens are often located directly on the migration routes of wild salmon, where, as in the case of Chile, exotic diseases imported with the Atlantic salmon could multiply and spread into surrounding waters.

Industry figures dispute that the farms breed and spread such diseases, pointing out the Canadian government’s negative findings, but a 2011 paper in Science supported Routledge’s findings. And fellow researcher-turned-activist Alexandra Morton also maintains that the flu-like symptoms brought about by diseases like ISA can explain why millions of wild salmon die annually in B.C. rivers before they reach their spawning grounds.

Responding recently to the forced closure of the Fraser River sockeye fishery for three consecutive years, Canada convened an official inquiry that gathered dozens of researchers including Morton, government biologists, tribal members, fish farmers, and others to testify about the possible causes of the devastation. Such testimony to the Cohen Commission, as it’s called, revealed that the federal government had known about the likely presence of ISA in B.C. waters since 2006, but has kept that information secret, infuriating wild salmon defenders. The commission is due to release its findings later this year.

Lacking what they saw as a transparent governmental response to the rumors of a disease epidemic (and without cooperation from the salmon farms themselves, which refuse to share whole fish or samples with researchers), Alexandra Morton and fellow B.C. activist Anissa Reed initiated a grassroots disease testing initiative. Organizing volunteers under the banner of their grassroots group Salmon Are Sacred, the women collect wild and farmed salmon found dead along the regional waterways, buy locally farmed salmon in supermarkets, and ship the samples overnight to independent labs that specialize in salmon diseases.

The shipping and testing can cost up to $400 per fish, but they’ve claimed it has established evidence linking the B.C. samples with the disease that has forced the closures of entire areas of Chile and Norway to salmon farming in recent years. In April, these same independent tests revealed yet another exotic salmon virus in 100 percent of Salmon are Sacred’s B.C. samples. That virus, piscine reovirus (PRV), has been linked to disease that causes heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI). PRV is common in both wild and farmed species, but activists fear the concentrated populations of fish on the farms may make them more susceptible to HSMI because it weakens their hearts. The federal government then told the media that it has known of the presence of this virus on B.C. salmon farms since 2010, but maintained that it isn’t a threat to consumers or wild fish.

But many suspect that diseases caused by PRV are an additional factor in the decline of wild salmon. Alexandra Morton is unequivocal about it. “Up to 90 percent [of salmon] are vanishing in the river as they swim through extreme rapids, and 75 to 100 percent of the farm salmon they have to pass [en route] have a disease that spreads like ‘wildfire’ and causes heart failure,” she says.

Salmon are Sacred has attracted a lot of attention for suggesting such links, earning the disapproval of both government and industry. Perhaps in reaction, a bill was recently proposed by the B.C. government that activists say could have made such citizen testing programs illegal. Industry sources countered that Bill 37 would have only muzzled government employees, not citizens, regarding ongoing disease research. Regardless of how each side’s lawyers were reading it, the bill was withdrawn soon after a very public outcry.

Back at sea, the salmon farm industry says that last month’s outbreak of IHN (which occurs naturally in wild Pacific salmon but has caused massive die-offs of farmed Atlantic salmon) is now under control.

Activists say it’s likely that some of the infected fish went for sale in grocery stores (signatures on a general online petition about farmed salmon shot up after the incident) while the salmon farming industry maintains that all the fish were composted. The nets are being quarantined and sanitized, too, but IHN has also now been found infecting a salmon farm in adjacent Washington state, forcing the destruction of all of its fish.

Many, including Routledge, question whether quarantining the farms can be effective.

“Since viruses cannot be kept from spreading from net pens [into] surrounding waters, and since small salmonids can themselves pass through the nets, an infected farm cannot be effectively quarantined,” he says. Yet industry sources like Colleen Dane of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association disagree. “Given the quick actions of the company and the fact that follow-up testing has shown 50 other farms do not have the virus, it appears so far that the quarantines have been effective,” she says.

Viruses aren’t the only way that salmon farms can affect wild salmon populations. Farmed escapees could compete with wild salmon for forage, and they also spread parasitic sea lice that kill juvenile wild salmon. Activists say the industry responded to this revelation by increasing its open water application of the pesticide Slice, which has reduced the populations of the parasite, with unknown ecological impacts. Meanwhile, the industry claims that farms have reduced the use of the SLICE.

To salmon farm opponents, the only answer to this situation is closed containment, and they have renewed their call to move all B.C. farmed salmon into tanks on land where disease and parasite loads can be controlled. In recent years, the chorus of voices for containment has grown considerably, marking a high point in 2010 when 10,000 people marched the length of Vancouver Island in support of this move, calling it the “Get Out Migration.”

Many salmon are already grown in such scenarios in B.C. — hatcheries culture juveniles until they are large enough to make the trip to the open net pens offshore. And companies, including the one that suffered the recent disease outbreak, have indicated interest. “Mainstream is currently looking at this alternative for grow-out operations through our research station in Norway, and is following the prototypes for containment in Canada,” Laurie Jensen, Mainstream’s Communications and Corporate Sustainability Manager, told me by email. But, she continued, “The operating cost to grow salmon to five kilos is not environmentally, socially, or economically sustainable at this time due to the increased carbon footprint required for land-based saltwater grow-out.”

Indeed, even closed containment has its critics. As marine biologist Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Center told me, on-land containment is “an answer to the pollution, parasite, and disease problems, not to the deeper issues connected with farming carnivores.” The larger question of whether the oceans’ dwindling stocks of sardines and other forage fish can support the salmon farm industry for long, on land or otherwise, is even thornier than the disease problem.

Update: This story was amended to include the number of salmon farms currently in use (versus those that have licenses), and to reflect the salmon farming industry’s claims that sick fish were composted, and the use of SLICE has gone down.

While creating public programs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for 15 years, Flo Stone learned that movies were a great draw. Film is one of the most effective means to reach people on complex environmental issues, so after moving to Washington, D.C., she applied that knowledge to her green streak and established the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital (EFF), which since that time has premiered almost 700 films, including world premieres of important titles like A Sea Change (2009), Carbon Nation (2010), and Planeat (2011). This year it celebrates its 20th event from March 13 to 25, during which 180 films (and 93 premieres) will be shown in 64 venues. Its founder took a minute to answer our questions before the excitement begins.

Q. What’s the role of film in turning the tide on the environmental challenges we face? 

Flo Stone, the Environmental Film Festival's founder.

A.In the first years of the EFF, people often asked: Why environmental films? To attract large audiences, some suggested that we drop the word environment, but for me, the environment is all-encompassing and central to our life and future. I also felt its infinite diversity could be reflected in films of all kinds: documentaries, animation, narrative features, experimental films, and a range of films especially for children. Film tells stories in so many different ways. Great films focus attention, and you can learn endlessly through the eyes of talented filmmakers. We need quality films, as we face major environmental challenges, to give us greater understanding and unforgettable experiences. Never underestimate the power of film at its most compelling and artistic.

Q. What has surprised you about the films you’ve screened over the years?

A. Film is a subjective medium and I’m often amazed by the range of responses. What is shown may offend one person and not faze another. Once, a staff member on a written evaluation described a film as the best that year, whereas a loyal volunteer wrote that it was impossible to understand how such a boring, confused look at pollution had been allowed in the lineup! And we have been challenged by people not wanting us to screen certain films: Gasland, The World According to Monsanto, and The Price of Sugar come to mind. We have always shown what we have scheduled, though.

Q. Are all the films that appear at the festival documentaries?

A. The majority are, but we also show narrative features, animated films, archival films, and experimental films. The festival office, along with all of our partners — museums, embassies, universities, theaters, environmental organizations, community centers, and schools — annually search for quality films. We want to hear different voices and have the films that are presented (increase) attendance and participation at the screening events.

Q. Food is an increasing theme. What’s exciting from that category this year? 

A. Our pre-festival screening for middle and high school students is Cafeteria Man, about a chef who became a food-service director trying to “green” lunches for Baltimore’s 83,000 students. To Make A Farm is about the trials of people turning to farming as a way of life; a Japanese film, Eatrip, explores the contemporary Japanese food culture; Greenhorns profiles young farmers in the U.S.; The Harvest: The Story of the Children Who Feed America is about young migrant workers; Taste the Waste, a German film about the fact that in Europe and the U.S., over half the food goes to the dump between the farm and the store; In Organic We Trust investigates the organic food brand; and Symphony of the Soil is a comprehensive exploration of soil worldwide, directed by Deborah Koons Garcia, who made The Future of Food.

Q. How has your idea spread?

A. I may have founded the first “environmental film festival,” but over the past 20 years, I am thrilled to say that (such) festivals have developed at an ever-increasing rate across the U.S. and around the world. Each has its own character and mission, but all have growing audiences. We hear almost weekly from ones that are starting up or expanding, and we’ve always welcomed opportunities to serve as a resource. Of course, the web has given a tremendous boost to exchanging information, learning about other programs, and new films. In 1993, the exciting new form of communication was the fax!

Q. Who comes to the festival?

A. In 1993, 1,200 attended. Last year our audience rose to over 30,000. We’re a major community event and most of our programs are free. This year our screenings will be at 64 locations in every part of Washington, D.C., and we have about 110 partners. We want to engage as many people as the theaters and auditoriums will seat. A pre-festival event will bring 1,800 middle and high school students to the Warner Theatre. We want the events to hold the attention of very different audiences, stimulating curiosity and the urge to learn more, and hope to engender an appreciation of the craft of film, the passion of dedicated filmmakers, and the importance and implications of environmental issues. A good film presentation is time well spent, and hopefully provides lasting inspiration to be vigilant and to learn more.

Q. Who’ve been some favorite special guests?

A. There have been so many favorite guests for me at the festival over the past 19 years that I don’t know where to begin or where to stop. It has been wonderful to have E. O. Wilson and David Suzuki three of four times, and David Attenborough as well. We have had retrospectives of Terrence Malick’s films with him in attendance, as well as retrospectives of the work of George Butler, Les Blank, Carroll Ballard, and this year Lucy Walker. Also, Alison Argo explaining frogs to hundreds of young children at the Martin Luther King Library, David Conover describing his dedication to films on coastal issues, as well as the late Mike de Gruys explaining his extraordinary underwater work. Equally unforgettable was seeing the late Nobel Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, experience Taking Root, a portrait of her life, for the first time; hearing Peter Matthiessen speak passionately about wildlife in the Arctic, and having Pete Doctor, a director at Pixar, explain his work process. There are hundreds and hundreds of filmmakers who have given so much to audiences at EFF presentations. I want to list them all!

Q. What are you looking forward to during the 20th festival this month?

A. The whole experience, but especially seeing Last Call at the Oasis, Participant Media’s new film about the global water crisis, and to welcoming Alex Prud’homme, whose book, The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century, inspired the film. I will present some of my favorite animated films from past festivals, including two Oscar winners from Canada: The Man Who Planted Trees and Old Man and the Sea. It will be a joy to honor Lucy Walker with a retrospective of her work, including Waste Land, Countdown to Zero, and her newest, Oscar-nominated work, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom.

To have the Goldman Environmental Prize winner Hilton Kelley come to the Howard University screening of Shelter In Place, about civil rights and pollution in Port Arthur, Texas, is important. And to see on the big screen A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet, the festival’s final offering, with the filmmaker Mark Kitchell on hand.

But there is so much more, with 180 films, 93 premieres, and work from 42 countries. Having 77 filmmakers in attendance as well as 115 special guests speaking is thrilling. We hope the 20th anniversary festival will draw the largest attendance ever both to the screenings and to the information on our website as well!

See all the information on screenings, guests, and events here.

Tom Weis, the “renewable rider,” biked the 2,150 miles of the U.S. portion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route over two months late this fall, from the U.S./Canada border to Port Arthur, Texas. He steered his “rocket trike” through many small towns along the way, raising awareness, talking to reporters, and recording scores of interviews with a wide variety of people. He’s just returned to his home in Colorado with a good sense of the prevailing opinions of the project in America’s rural West.

Q. Why didn’t you celebrate Obama’s delay of the Keystone XL pipeline back in the fall?

A. I saw nothing to celebrate. Delay doesn’t equal victory. It was disturbing to see environmental leaders, many of whom I consider friends, praising President Obama for his “leadership” and “courage” for what was in fact an act of political cowardice on his part. Kicking the Keystone XL can down the road until after the election was a transparent political ploy to appease his environmental base by throwing them a bone. Since when do we start giving presidents a pass on making tough decisions until after Election Day? I share Paul Hawken’s view that it is “dangerous” to allow a decision with such huge planetary ramifications to be delayed until political pressure no longer has any sway.

The pipeline fighters I met on the front lines of the Keystone XL Tour of Resistance certainly weren’t celebrating. It was like having the rug pulled out from under you. Just as the pressure was starting to build on the Obama campaign, all the air was let out of the room. This prompted me to write an op-ed for the Huffington Post, “Now is the Time to Fight the Keystone Pipeline.” Those with the most to lose — the farmers, ranchers, rural families, tribal communities, and fence-line communities living along the proposed pipeline route — will celebrate when this project is actually stopped.

Q. But isn’t TransCanada losing a ton of money from the delay? Doesn’t that doom the project?

A. Sure, they’re losing money, but that won’t stop them. When you have pockets as deep as TransCanada’s, you hire teams of people to create contingency plans for every possible scenario. But don’t just take it from me. Even as President Obama announced the delay, CNNMoney reported TransCanada’s CEO remained confident Keystone XL would ultimately be approved.

Q. What about this new directive from Congress for a 60-day consideration of the pipeline?

A. Aside from the crass political motivations behind it, I actually view the 60-day Keystone XL provision [requiring a presidential decision by Feb. 21] as an opportunity. The Republicans accomplished what the rest of us could not: They forced President Obama to take a stand. We’ll soon see if the president’s original rationale for a 12- to 18-month delay was truthful.

Subsequent statements by the White House and U.S. State Department certainly seem to point to Obama rejecting the pipeline and pinning the blame on Republicans for rushing the review process. But it would be foolish to underestimate the political influence of the oil lobby. Shortly after New Years, American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard threatened political retribution if Obama does not deliver them Keystone XL.

Those are fightin’ words. But they also give the president a chance to begin driving the narrative of the 2012 election by differentiating himself from Big Oil and their old-world economic views. Little would do more to reinvigorate his presidency than saying “no” to Keystone XL and “yes” to a U.S.-led green industrial revolution and the millions of good-paying jobs it will create. Did you know the green economy has already generated 2.7 million jobs in the U.S., more than everyone employed in the entire fossil-fuel sector?

I’m not a Democrat, or a Republican, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see Obama turning the tables on the oil lobby and his Republican opponent for backing this un-American pipeline scheme. He can start by using his upcoming State of the Union address to spell out to the American people why this foreign energy project violates our national interest, and our values. The preponderance of hard evidence shows this export pipeline may destroy more jobs [PDF] than it creates, will raise fuel prices, and won’t make America more secure. Keystone XL is a dangerous threat to Americans, and our economy, and is the exact wrong direction for our country.

The Lakota Nation's solidarity march and rally.

Q. Can you share one peak experience from your trek?

A. I was totally blown away by the solidarity march and rally we had courtesy of the Lakota Nation. I have never felt so warmly embraced by a community in my life. Rolling into downtown Pine Ridge, S.D., on my rocket trike, I was greeted by dozens of Oglala Sioux tribal members who had taken over the streets. It was a beautiful sight to behold … grandmothers holding banners, a youth drum group singing honor songs, men waving flags, and camo-clad youth providing security. It was an incredibly powerful experience. The horseback solidarity rides with indigenous leaders in Montana and South Dakota were also unforgettable. The Native wisdom of these people fills me with hope.

Q. You taped a lot of interviews on the road. Have a favorite one to share? 

A. There were so many profound interviews, it’s hard to pick a favorite, but I was deeply touched by the words of Goldman Environmental Prize winner Hilton Kelley, who spilled his heart out into a poem called “My Toxic Reality.”

Q. Can you generalize about the views on the pipeline of people you’ve met?

A. The more people hear about Keystone XL, the less they like it. Most people I met during the six-state ride knew very little about it, other than the jobs and energy security propaganda they had heard from TransCanada. What struck me the most was how quickly people would turn against it after hearing just a few facts.

Of course, the landowners I met who would be most directly impacted had an almost uniformly negative opinion of the pipeline. Many had been on the receiving end of TransCanada’s bullying tactics and were very angry at how they had been mistreated by this foreign corporation. “Disrespect” is a word I heard a lot.

I discerned no party-line affiliation whatsoever. Keystone XL is bad for America on so many levels, it transcends political party. There’s something in it for everyone to oppose. I met Tea Party activists working side-by-side with environmentalists. I saw powerful alliances of “cowboys and Indians” being formed. By assaulting so many core American values, TransCanada has succeeded in uniting people against the project. What started out as a fight against a pipeline has morphed into a struggle for the future direction of our country, and world.

Weis made a trip to the Johnson Space Center to draw inspiration from the Apollo Program.

Q. What happened when you reached your destination in Texas?

A. After 2,150 miles of pedaling, the ride ended with a press conference in the shadow of polluting smokestacks at a playground in Port Arthur, Texas. I was joined by local resident Hilton Kelley. I chose the West Side of Port Arthur because the air of the people living in this fence-line community would be further poisoned by emissions from refining toxic tar-sands oil. I wanted to draw attention to the plight of the babies and elderly living in this community who are already suffering enough.

Going forward, the clock is ticking on a 60-day window for President Obama to make a “national interest” determination on this foreign pipeline scheme. Every day between now and Feb. 21 is critical. The president needs to hear from voters that if he rejects Keystone XL, and rolls out a green energy plan to put America back to work leading a worldwide green industrial revolution, the American people will have his back. We can turn the Rust Belt into the “Green Belt” by building the solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars needed to power the 21st century. It’s time for a green energy moon shot for America.

Learn more about Tom’s trek at http://www.rideforrenewables.com, and see his interview-packed YouTube channel here.

Alex Smith.Photo: Philip Smeltzer

Q. Who was your favorite guest recently?

A. That’s a tough question. There have been so many. Maybe Emily James, the British filmmaker, and producer of the climate film The Age of Stupid. I’ve just seen an advance copy of her latest movie, Just Do It, a behind-the-scenes look at young climate activists in the U.K. They plan zany actions, like supergluing themselves on the trading floor of the Royal Bank of Scotland to draw the world’s attention to the bank’s funding of dirty coal plants. Just Do It also visits the “climate camps” that pre-dated the Occupy movement in the U.S. There are a lot of similarities. North American activists can learn from the Brits. James and her crew are still looking for more funding to get distribution of the film in the U.S. and Canada.

Q. What’s the most undercovered climate issue?

A. It’s all undercovered when it comes to climate, but I’ll pick peat fires. Peat is organic material compressed over a long time, just one step away from coal. There are huge deposits of it in the tropics. Burning peat in Indonesia helped set record emissions and a global heat wave in 1997 and ’98. Indonesian peat is on fire again in 2011 as corporations clear away jungles and swamps for palm oil plantations for production of supposedly green biofuel, sold mainly in Europe.

Even more frightening to the few scientists who cover this are the emerging peat fires in the Arctic. Across northern Canada and Russia, peat is starting to burn, releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide. There are no news cameras there, and no way to contain the fires. Neither country wants to monitor these emissions, since they are both fossil-fuel producers with an agenda to deny or minimize climate change. If all the Arctic peat burns, our civilization — and maybe our species — is toast.

We need an emergency scientific program to monitor peat fires, and methane emissions in the Arctic. The more emissions from that region, the less we can burn in our transportation and industrial systems further south.

Q. Where do you think we are on the road to full-on climate crisis?

A. From the scientists I interview, severe climate change is a given. It has already started, but much worse is to come. Now we fight to prevent the worst, to stop a catastrophe from damaging the world of our grandchildren, and their grandchildren.

Q. Your view seems pretty dim on the prospects of nuclear to be a part of the solution.

A. I’ve lived in the shadow of a faulty nuclear plant. Now here on the West Coast, my family just got hit with another dose of radiation from the Japanese Fukushima disaster. There is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste and no safe place to go.

Are you willing to risk everything for more energy? To give up the state of California, or New York, or wherever? Those are the stakes. We don’t need such gargantuan risks, now that we have safe renewable energy. It’s cheaper too.

Q. What sources do you rely on most to keep informed?

A. I subscribe to two news services that cost about 10 bucks a month: carolynbaker.net and Michael Ruppert’s collapsenet. These pinpoint stories in the major media and alternative sources. I stop daily at Joe Romm’s Climate Progress blog. To keep track of Fukushima (where three reactors are still melting down!), the best is ex-skf.blogspot.com.

I’ve given up on the big American TV networks as hopeless propaganda. Foreign services like the BBC, or even Russia Today and ABC Australia, are more useful. I get most of my news tips from blogs and from listeners. Radio Ecoshock has great activist listeners all over the world who keep me informed with the latest.

My daily cruising also includes a lot of financial sites, like Zero Hedge and The Automatic Earth. I’d like enough warning to duck if an extreme economic crash comes, although I’m not sure what any of us can do. I may run away to the mountains.

Q. What other radio shows or podcasts do you recommend?

A. “The Climate Show” from New Zealand helps with the latest science. That podcast also has John Cook, who debunks anti-science and the “global warming does not exist” cult on his blog “Skeptical Science.” Radio National in Australia has “The Science Show” with Robyn Williams. For a fun look at the “banksters” who are plundering our world, I download the Max Keiser radio show from Resonance FM in London, which also broadcasts Radio Ecoshock.

Sadly, America has lost two of its best environmental shows. Sure, NPR has “Living on Earth,” which is kind of a nature program, rather than anything activist-related. Without corporate advertising, Betsy Rosenberg had to give up on the Air America show “Ecotalk.” And in the summer, one of our best green broadcasters, Daphne Wysham, stopped producing “Earthbeat,” at least for a while, due to funding problems. Green radio just doesn’t pay, even as we need this news so badly!

Q. How does economic contraction fit into your view of the overall challenges we face?

A. The West has wasted its productive resources on McMansions, oversized vehicles, and phony banking scams. We should have built high-speed rail, a new energy grid, and established local foodsheds for security. Now it looks like we won’t even be able to repair the ongoing damage from climate-induced storms, much less start large projects.

The good news is that economic insecurity is driving Western citizens to question everything. People are choosing self-sufficiency out of self-defense, joining initiatives like the Transition movement.

Q. What do you recommend people do to be ready for the changes on the horizon?

A. Number one is to realize big government is not going to save you, and big
corporations will just make it all worse. Knowing that, we have to rebuild family networks, and start new community action groups for survival in very difficult economic times, and in an unstable climate.

At a personal level, I recommend that a year’s supply of food be stored away, just as the Mormons used to do. That’s because industrial agriculture is unstable and unsafe. So is the economy. Freaky weather may wipe out crops, and ever-rising energy prices will translate into higher food prices. If you have a food buffer, that gives you and yours extra time to adapt, or move if you have to.

Learn how to can and dry food when the harvest comes in. You save a bundle, and get the best food. But individualism won’t make it in the longer run. We do this together, or fail.

Q. What gives you hope?

A. Seeing people get off the couch, away from TV dreams, and into the streets. Electronic life is really anti-life. We have serious things to do. Consider donating your TV time to a local charity, a Transition group, local politics, protests, or whatever moves you. We need to get going.

Listen to Alex’s show at ecoshock.org or subscribe to the free podcast. All past programs with experts, scientists and authors interviewed on the show are available as free MP3s. If your local radio station is not carrying Radio Ecoshock, ask them to get on board. It’s free for any station to broadcast. Send requests to radio@ecoshock.org.

Teeg Stouffer fishes blue ribbon waters in Colorado.Photo: Recycled Fish

Q. How many people fish recreationally in the U.S.?

A. According to the American Sportfishing Association, more people fish in America than play golf and tennis combined. Depending on what number you use, that’s between 40 million and 60 million anglers.

Q. Tell me about the S.A.F.E. angling practices you promote.

A. S.A.F.E. angling stands for “Sustaining Angling, Fish, and Ecosystems.” It encompasses the products and practices an angler can use on the water to be a good steward of [fish and ecosystems]. That means using effective catch-and-release tactics, employing selective harvest strategies effectively, [using] non-toxic and biodegradable tackle, and cleaning up after others, to name a few examples. But it’s the stuff we do every day — our lives when we are not on the water — that matter just as much. We encourage anglers to live a “lifestyle of stewardship,” because no matter how good we are at practicing catch and release, our everyday choices matter as much or more.

Q. I just took the Sportsman’s Stewardship Pledge at your site. It is very no-nonsense but also far-reaching in encouraging people to adopt a conservation mindset. How many have signed it, and what has the practical outcome been?

A. Over 13,000 anglers have taken the Sportsman’s Stewardship Pledge from all 50 U.S. states and 20 countries globally. The question is, “Does it matter?” The short answer is yes.

In a survey of people who have taken the Stewardship Pledge — we call them “stewards” — we learned that over 90 percent said that they had learned more about how to be a good steward in the year following taking the pledge. In other words, once a person pledges to be a steward of their waters, their eyes are opened to their own actions, and their own sense of personal responsibility is invoked.

More exciting is this statistic: 65 percent say they actually changed the way they live.

Q. Recycled Fish is an environmentally minded organization, but you avoid using words like climate, eco, and green with fellow anglers. Why do words like stewardship, caretaker, protect, and conserve work better?

A. Everything regarding the environment has been politicized. As soon as you mention “green” anything, the conversation is colored by association with the political left. Many anglers identify themselves with the political right, so terms like global warming, environmentalist, and eco-friendly disengage them. They immediately dismiss it. That’s the opposite effect that we want to have — we want to engage them, and activate their passion for our waters.

Anglers tend to have an independent spirit, and individualism is a highly regarded value. Themes like being a “protector” resonate with them. “Caretaker” isn’t a politicized term, and we tend to use the term “steward” a lot because it invokes both spiritual values and a personal responsibility, which is exactly what we’re all about.

The truth is, whether you believe that climate change is occurring or not, the strategies and tactics that prevent carbon emissions and greenhouse gases are the same ones that will help our waters. All we have to say is, “If you care about catching more and bigger fish and you want to leave something great for your grandkids, turn off the lights when you leave the room.” That line of reasoning makes perfect sense to an angler. Our lifestyle runs downstream, so everyday choices affect our waters. When we say stuff like, “Clean up after your dog if you want to catch more and bigger fish,” it gets the attention of anglers. It’s logical.

Kids play a game to learn about taking care of our waters at this year’s Bassmaster Classic.Photo: Recycled Fish

Q. What mainstream events and partners do you have?

A. Recycled Fish has been a part of the Bassmaster Classic — often referred to as “The Superbowl of Fishing” — for the past four years, thanks to Dick’s Sporting Goods, who are the presenting sponsors for the classic expo. They have afforded us space to present the Stewardship Ethic at the expo, and we always have interactive games to teach kids how to be stewards of our waters. We also turn up at fishing industry events like ICAST, and appear across the country at retail events like the Bass Pro Shops Spring Classic or Dick’s Sporting Goods grand openings.

Our “Recycled Fish On Ice” tour takes us to over 60 of the biggest events in ice fishing, and we’re proud to be the conservation partner to the St. Paul Ice Fishing & Winter Sports Expo, which is the unofficial kickoff event for the ice fishing season each winter. Recycled Fish is the nonprofit conservation partner to the Professional Anglers Association, a professional bass fishing association.

Q. What do you see as the biggest environmental threat to fishing?

A. Without a doubt, water quality is huge. The fishing industry has responded to two main issues in recent years: recruiting and retaining anglers, and also access issues. Those are big, but the looming giant is water quality. Endocrine disruption in fish is well-documented, but still little understood by the angling public and the fishing industry. The EPA recently found both male and female reproductive organs in individual freshwater fish everywhere they looked except Alaska. That wasn’t the case 30 or 40 years ago. It’s not great news. Fish are a canary in the coal mine for us — after all, we drink that water too.

The causes are not yet scientifically proven, but likely causes include the downstream effects of a highly medicated human population and our inability to fully remove these medications through our aging sanitary sewer systems, as well as the effects of the chemical load on our waters, [from] soaps and detergents to surfactants. Endocrine disruption and reproductive abnormalities mean more than the potential for collapsing fish populations, they’re an indication of what’s coming for us.

Fishing is one of the best ways to get kids interested in the outdoors.Photo: Recycled Fish

Q. How does the “take a kid fishing” campaign he
lp the conservation movement?

A. What’s good for our waters is good for our culture. In his book Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv established that kids who get unstructured time in the outdoors do better in school and have better social skills and lower rates of ADD / ADHD. So another organization, the Outdoor Foundation, did a study that asked, “How do we get kids interested in the outdoors?” Fishing ranked No. 1. That’s higher than other more accessible, easier to do activities like hiking or riding bikes. I suppose it’s because fishing provides that tangible connection and real interaction with nature.

The point is — if you want your kids to do well in school, take ‘em fishing.

And our waters need anglers. Conservation by participation is the name of the game. The primary funding source for conservation and the management of our waters comes from license sales and a special excise tax on fishing gear. Every fishing rod, tackle box, or boat sold in America delivers dollars straight to our waters.

Finally, if people aren’t engaged with our waters, they aren’t motivated to be caretakers of them. That means that from the political decisions about managing our waters to the way we live — our everyday choices — we need people who are experiencing our environment firsthand if we want to have a healthy place to live a few generations from now.

Q. What successes can Recycled Fish claim in the last five years?

A. We are proud of the results of the Stewardship Pledge. However, it’s also been said of us that we’ve shifted the culture of ice fishing. Before our “Recycled Fish On Ice” tour, ice fishing was essentially a kill sport. Large events — some with over 10,000 people — killed a lot of fish and generated a lot of trash on the ice as well, and the norm was to have event organizers or a Boy Scout troop do a cleanup afterward.

Teeg gets a moment to fish during the “Recycled Fish on Ice” tour.Photo: Recycled Fish

Today, catch and release and selective harvest are normal terms in ice fishing. We show up at events and give everyone a heavy duty clear plastic bag. They fill it with water, and transport their fish to weigh-in stations alive, and the fish are released alive after being weighed. Fish that can’t be released are utilized for raptor recovery efforts or cleaned and become food for the less fortunate.

At the end of the events, every person is encouraged to use their bag to clean up any trash they see, and that has powerful ripple effects. Sure, the lake is left clean, but it also instills the mindset that we don’t wait for someone else to come clean up after us — each of us is a steward of our waters and the area around us.

Q. Doesn’t catch and release still kill fish, though?

A. No matter how diligent we are, fishing is a blood sport. Some fish die. But if we use the best practices like those on the Recycled Fish website, mortality rates are around 4 percent. Historically, people practiced “catch all you can, and can all you catch.” That led to mortality rates of 100 percent. Part of fisheries management today involves catch-and-release fishing, and we support selective harvest. Fish are delicious and healthy; they are a renewable resource, and part of the heritage of our sport is bringing fish to the table. However, if we want strong fisheries, we have to harvest selectively.

Q. How are you funded?

A. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, we count on people who care about our waters to chip in. One of our most important sources of funding is private, individual donations. Anyone can take the Sportsman’s Stewardship Pledge for free. We want no barrier to someone identifying themselves as a steward of our waters. However, we rely on people to become Supporting Stewards by making a $25 donation. It’s a no-brainer, if you ask me. We send a Stewardship Kit that’s loaded with stuff, including a Recycled Fish T-shirt, for that gift.

We also get support through corporate sponsorships, grants, and fundraisers. You can see a complete list of our partners on our website.

Q. How does the 24 Hour Fish-A-Thon help your mission?

A. We are in our third year for the 24 Hour Fish-A-Thon, and it looks like it will be our biggest year so far. Anglers fish around the country and around the clock to raise awareness for the problems facing our fisheries, and money to help solve those problems through education. Not only that — it’s fun! It’s kind of like the fishing version of running a marathon, and anglers love fish stories. This produces them. Plus, anglers win all kinds of prizes, including fishing trips of a lifetime. This year we’ll give away a trip to the Mississippi Delta with Griffin Fishing Charters, and either a trip to Spring Bay Resort in Minnesota or Fish Tales Outfitters in Montana.

Q. What are the toughest hurdles you see for your mission getting out further?

A. Without a doubt, funding is one of our greatest obstacles. Our growth on the program/mission side has greatly outpaced our growth on the financial side, which is unsustainable. We’ve made some changes and are continuing to adapt our approach to be sustainable, but funds need to come, and soon.

The other challenge is that there are so many other organizations that can say, “Help us join the fight against ‘insert evil here.’” For example, “Cancer is bad, join the American Cancer Society in fighting cancer.” Or, “Child poverty is bad, join Compassion International in fighting child poverty.” There is a clear evil and a person gets to be a hero by fighting that evil.

When it comes to our waters, that evil is us. So the best we can do is say, “You can be one of the good guys, or one of the bad guys — which will you be?”

People resist change, and anglers tend to be a group of people who can be especially slow to change, which means that we have our work cut out for us in shifting this culture. But the payoff is huge, and we’re making progress, so that’s the motivation to keep going.

Volunteers help with restoration work at Carter Lake, Iowa.Photo: Recycled Fish

Q. What accomplishments do you anticipate in the next 10 years?

A. If you buy a spool of fishing line today, no matter who the manufacturer is, you can be pretty sure there will be a knot guide in there. It’s a little information card that teaches you how to tie knots. Within the next 10 years, I believe that half of the fishing products on the market will come with some sort of information that talks to anglers about being stewards of their waters. That’s a charge we’re leading right now.

We’re also piloting a program right now that will put a shoreline cleanup bag in 1 million anglers’ hands. Packaged with it is a booklet that talks about choices we can make every day to help our waters be cleaner and healthier. Ten years from now we will have distributed at least our first million. I’d love to say that
we’ll be up to 2 million by then. The message is that we don’t do the occasional lake, stream, or beach cleanup. We are lake, stream, or beach cleanups — every time we’re on the water, our waters are better off because of us.

Q. So you really think fishers can be significant agents of change.

A. There exists a perception among some that anglers are drunk rednecks. A more politically correct way to say that would be “wasteful, consumption-oriented people.” That’s not accurate. Statistically speaking, no group of people puts more time or money into conservation than anglers. Demographically speaking, anglers span the geographic, political, racial, and socioeconomic spectrum. We are a diverse group with a tangible connection to our waters, and a passion for both healthy waters and leaving something great for future generations.

Recycled Fish is doing something that no other group is. There are other angling-oriented conservation groups, but they focus on either a specific species (BASS Conservation Team, Trout Unlimited, Muskies Inc.), or a specific watershed. There are other good organizations doing important work for our waters and wild places, and the list is long, but they don’t specifically engage anglers.

We’re the only group that engages anglers for everyday stewardship of our whole environment. We’re the only group taking a holistic view of our waters and the problems facing them, and activating this huge group of people — anglers — as a way to help solve those problems.

There’s nobody we tell about our mission who doesn’t say, “That’s great!”

What we’re counting on is more people who say, “That’s great, I’ll help.”

These bumper stickers have proliferated on cars of those opposed to LNG terminals on Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine.Photo: Erik Hoffner

Citizens groups in nearby Eastport, Maine and St. Andrews, just across Passamaquoddy Bay in New Brunswick, Canada, rallied regional support for the activists by pointing out how the enormous, fuel-laden LNG tankers would pose a safety risk to nearby communities, disrupt commercial fishing operations, and harm tourism (including whale watching and recreation operations).

That’s the happy backstory. Even though LNG is likely preferable to fracked domestic gas due to its more benign derivation as a byproduct of oil drilling, much of the native community’s remaining ancestral land and lifeways would have been industrialized for the benefit of some jobs and lease payments.

Rob Wyatt, Environment and Permits director for Downeast LNG at the site of the project’s proposed terminal on Passamaquoddy Bay.Photo: Erik HoffnerBut it’s not the end of the story, as another energy company still seeks to site a terminal on the Maine side of the international marine border, farther up the bay from the reservation. The bay’s border status, and the fact that it is an arm of the Bay of Fundy, are among the biggest hurdles faced by Downeast LNG. Passamaquoddy Bay would seem to be a questionable body of water to which to send a 1000-foot ship carrying an average of 888,000 cubic feet of fuel that’s more flammable than oil. Narrow and clotted with islands, it also features tides of 20 feet, which cause the largest whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere to appear twice daily.

Besides the strong Fundy currents and dramatic tides, the international border itself presents a much larger problem for LNG ships in Passamaquoddy Bay: To enter it, tankers must transit Head Harbour Passage, which is recognized as being on the Canadian side. But Canada doesn’t want LNG ships using this particular piece of water, and that has caused a quiet but stern border dispute.

A June 29, 2010 letter from a Consul General of Canada formally notified the Maine Department of Environmental Protection that because of navigational, environmental, and public safety risks, LNG transits are prohibited in their “internal waters,” such as Head Harbour Passage. Further, U.S. law requires LNG tankers to have Coast Guard gunship escorts (they are a terror target, according to lawmakers) and Canada does not want foreign, armed vessels in its territory.

Save Passamaquoddy Bay’s Bob Godfrey stands on the Eastport, Maine waterfront at Head Harbour Passage.Photo: Erik HoffnerNew Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham in 2010 reinforced his government’s opposition to LNG tankers in the Passage, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is also on record against the developments. Further, American LNG companies don’t have a legal leg to stand on since the U.S. never ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, according to Bob Godfrey, of Eastport-based Save Passamaquoddy Bay. If the government had, tankers could claim “innocent passage” in the Bay, he says.

Dean Girdis, CEO of Downeast LNG, and his lawyers hotly dispute this. “International law is not on (Canada’s) side and they know it. They’re just protecting their constituents and their own business interests, particularly the Irving LNG terminal in New Brunswick, because we would be a competitor. They will back down, or the U.S. government will take them to court in The Hague and they will lose,” Girdis told me.

Whether or not the court would agree, he could be right about business interests playing a role in Canada’s stance. A new LNG terminal owned by Irving Oil was recently completed 60 miles from the Maine border and sells gas to the same markets in the Canadian Maritimes and New England that Downeast would. That same terminal could begin exporting LNG as well, thanks to extensive shale gas fracking plays recently discovered in the province.

Maine Governor John Baldacci had Downeast LNG’s back on this until leaving office last year, and had written to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) advocating on its behalf (and his Republican successor Paul LePage is just as friendly). Given the recent cross border trade dispute over softwood lumber imports, combined with the high stakes standoff over Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage, easy resolution to the rights of passage seems unlikely. According to a 2006 report in New Brunswick’s Telegraph-Journal, Harper had promised to “pursue ‘all diplomatic and legal means’ to prevent LNG tankers from transiting Head Harbour Passage. Should Canada do this, one FERC official admitted that the Passamaquoddy (Bay) projects would be dead in the water.”

Better than fracked gas or not, LNG faces hurdles like this everywhere terminals are proposed in the U.S. Lacking consensus on how to handle such developments, local battles and border wars (of words) like this one are sure to continue.

Abandoned boat in Iraq.Photos: Stephen Foote. Photos courtesy of PBS Nature’s “Braving Iraq.”

The recent environmental history of Iraq is a tale of two men. Saddam Hussein had a horrific impact on the ecology of the country, principally by ordering the draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes in the 1990s in order to collectively punish communities where resistance to his regime persisted. The incredible cultural and biological loss of the marshes (which once covered 20,000 square km in southern Iraq, twice the size of the Everglades, making it the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East and Western Eurasia) inspired Azzam Alwash in 2003 to come back to Iraq from the U.S. to see what remained of the marshes he grew up visiting as a child.

The marshes provide habitat for a number of globally endangered or threatened species and support a diversity of fish and amphibians year-round, situated as they are between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They are home to 28 of Iraq’s Important Bird Areas thanks to the other geographical factor of being in the midst of a migratory flyway for birds headed from Africa to Europe and back. Untold legions of birds have stopped here to rest and refuel in safety for millennia, feeding on the myriad small creatures found in the mudflats and reed-beds.

The area’s richness is what supported the Sumerian culture (and the ancient city of Ur plus the Biblical site of Eden, allegedly) that gave rise to agriculture and written language, as well as the rich Marsh Arab culture, which as recently as the 1990s numbered around 300,000 and lived an independent, sustainable, and indigenous lifestyle. This independence is what ran these people into trouble with Saddam Hussein, who in the 1990s ordered a herculean feat of engineering that channelized and drained the marshes in order to control dissent and root out anti-government rebels there, reducing the reeds to just 10 percent of their previous glory.

Dr. Azzam Alwash of Nature Iraq, a conservation organization, that’s spearheading the marsh restoration project. The result was a dustbowl where life once teemed. Alwash, who had visited the marshes as a child with his father, an irrigation engineer for Hussein’s government until the family fled to the U.S. to escape the Ba’athists, dreamed of a renewed marsh system again capable of supporting a multitude of life and indigenous people.

So after the fall of Hussein, Alwash, by now a successful engineer in California, approached a D.C.-based NGO about initiating a project focused on restoration of the marshes. The first outcome was a study [PDF] which showed immediate benefits possible from re-flooding the marshes, and the ultimate result was Nature Iraq (NI). The new NGO partnered with international NGOs, agencies attached to European countries, and the new Iraqi government to engineer the re-flooding and revival of the marshes — in 2010 they sprawled across their greatest extent in recent history! More than that, NI is creating a new culture of conservation in the country by training a dedicated corps of biologists who help document the massive return of species and by popularizing a vision that Iraq’s biodiversity is a precious resource.

One of the key partnerships Nature Iraq has developed is with the international NGOs Wetlands International and also BirdLife International (BI), with whom they published a field guide to the birds of Iraq in Arabic in 2007 (the first resource of its kind). Richard Porter of BI has been impressed with their dedication and effectiveness, saying recently of NI that he has “been involved in wildlife conservation in the Middle East for over 40 years and I can honestly say that Nature Iraq is the most active organization I have worked with, and its staff and supporters the most capable and dedicated.”

Aerial view of the restored Mesopotamian Marshes.NI has an increasingly important role in advocating for the overall biodiversity of Iraq now, too. Under direction from Alwash, NI is developing Biodiversity Action Plans for new sites in mountainous Kurdistan far to the north, as well as surveying the migratory stop-over sites of the critically endangered Sociable Lapwing and the globally threatened Houbara Bustard, Egyptian Vulture, Marbled Duck and Lesser White-fronted Goose. On behalf of these species NI is also undertaking conservation education efforts by giving talks to groups of school children and hunters in the communities in which they work, north and south, and by distributing educational information widely.

Alwash has been called a visionary for managing so much effort and success, but he is measured when asked. Like he said last year in a great “Braving Iraq” episode of Nature on PBS, “In many ways the restoration of the marshes mirrors the restoration of Iraq, there’s two steps forward, one-step back. But you know what? Directionally we’re on the right track.  The future’s good, all you need is to have the will and persist, and if we can restore (the marshes), Iraq can be restored too.”

Azzam’s long-term goal is to establish Iraq’s first national park, right there in the marshes, an attraction capable of educating Iraqis, building pride in the area and its conservation legacy, and bringing tourists from all over the world to see the rare birdlife and the amazing ruins of the Mesopotamian cities. Tourism dollars could really help the region, and stave off the urge to drill the area for oil instead of setting it aside for conservation. It is a lofty goal but with a workable restoration plan already succeeding and with strong support from the government, it is a real possibility.

Southern Iraq is a difficult working environment and can be dangerous, as insurgent groups operate in areas that Nature Iraq works in. Alwash’s main hardship is being away from his family and giving up his career and engineering business in the States, though. He routinely misses his daughters’ birthdays, recitals, graduations, and other important milestones in life.

Woman harvesting the bountiful reeds that are the bedrock of life along the marshes.In addition to Nature Iraq’s key NGO allies, Alwash has made important alliances with UNEP and UNESCO, but perhaps most importantly with the nascent Iraqi government. NI counts the Ministry of the Environment as one of its key partners, and the culmination of this happens this week (May 14/15, 2011) when at the invitation of UNEP they co-host the official observance of World Migratory Bird Day with events in the cities of Irbil, Suli, Baghdad, and Al Kaba’ish (more information here on the events that are planned).

As busy as he is with all this, Alwash took a minute to respond to my recent question of what Americans can do to help. “Encourage the US government and military to support environmental activities, be it sponsoring projects for the clean up of the environment, the formation of protected areas, or constructing buildings associated with such protected areas.”

Are you listening, Uncle Sam?

Alex Johnson exploring riotous, unpredictable Nature.

Q. You propose the queering of ecology. What does that mean to you?

A. Queering ecology means hosing out the pigeonholes. The queer movement bravely claims that humans are inherently capable of a much wider range of behaviors than the powers-that-be give us credit for. Queer ecology is the extension of that claim to all life on Earth. All living things, we are now learning, are capable of a wide variety of behaviors.

The most basic task of queer ecology is to throw light on “the biases and limitation of the human observer,” as Bruce Bagemihl says in the introduction to his groundbreaking Biological Exuberance. Happily, I am not the first or only “queer ecologist.” Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands has provided much of the scholarship for the burgeoning field. She co-edited the recently published Queer Ecologies, the first collection of academic essays on the subject. I expect and hope more will follow.

Q. People just love to celebrate facts proving that Nature in general and animals in particular are pure, straight, and monogamous. What’s the problem with that?

A. I wouldn’t call it love, per se, that drives people to project concepts of purity, straightness, and monogamy onto non-human life. It’s a problem of convenience. When the prevailing interpretation of sexuality in our culture is that there’s the straight (biologically fit) folks and then the gay (biologically anomalous) folks, it’s easier to assume the same thing for Nature too. The assumption is: gay geese wouldn’t stand a chance. Turns out, our prevailing interpretation is all wrong. Life doesn’t need monogamy or heterosexuality to survive. It needs riotous, messy, mysterious diversity.

Q. In your Orion magazine piece, you discuss how Nature at once celebrates and defies romanticism. What’s a good example of that?

A. Just to be clear, I don’t think the more-than-human world — individually or collectively — gives a damn how humans interpret it. I do think the irony, in certain cases, is rich. Take the non-sexual example of the bald eagle, for instance. The animal has come to represent all of those qualities that our nation romantically claims to possess: independence, determination, courage, strength, wisdom, even physical and moral cleanliness. It doesn’t take many hours of field observation of bald eagles to witness a whole variety of behaviors that don’t fit those assumptions. They often scavenge road kill. Many prefer to steal already-caught fish than try for their own. And in Juneau, Alaska, the town landfill has a special permit to shoot firecrackers at the protected birds because their opportunistic flocks have become such a nuisance.

Q. What’s your advice to activists in applying the concept of a queer ecology to their work on mineral-extraction issues, environmental justice, or the like?

A. Queer ecology begins by questioning our understanding of sexuality in relation to Nature, but it certainly does not end there. As I suggest in my essay, if straight identity means “I am,” and gay identity means “I am not,” then queer can mean “I am also.” I see no end to the application of I-Am-Also as we work to protect the integrity of the world’s ecological whole. Over the past year, I’ve been a part of a movement to stop Exxon from shipping massive mining equipment through Idaho and Montana on its way to the tar sands of Alberta. What I love about the campaign is that it’s a collection of people shouting, I am also: a local, a truck driver, a vessel of cultural wisdom, a living being. I am also: concerned about the economy, about feeding my family, about posterity. I am also: deserving of the right to fish, hunt, recreate, and live life free of cancer.

Q. How might this new perspective change science and/or the environmental movement? 

A. Our popular culture often falsely concludes that truth is the foundation of science. Throughout modern history, however, the greatest scientists have tried to tell us over and over again what is really the foundation, well-spring, and unending constant of science: mystery. Queer ecology is a reminder that what we don’t know about the living world will always be far greater than what we do know — and it is an entreaty to act according to that most basic of truths. 

A candidate for a master’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Montana, Johnson edits Camas: The Nature of the West and is director of outreach for All Against the Haul, working to stop the creation of a permanent tar-sands industrial corridor through Idaho and Montana. He has led conservation crews across much of Alaska and the western U.S., and this summer, he and his partner, Pete, will attempt to float the entire Yukon River in a canoe. From this journey he will produce a full-length book on the subject of queer ecology. Find his excellent blog here.