Many thanks to Sharon and Natural Resources Council of Maine for this wonderful recognition, and to all my dear friends that have worked so hard right along with me for lo, these many years.
I feel wicked accepting an award, for doing something I love doing with greatest people imaginable, and making friends along the way. This last being quite amazing considering how bossy I am and how hard I have made them all work.
I was lucky to have joined the Land Trust movement almost at its very beginning in Maine. That was so long ago that we took it for granted that public access to the open woods and trails were provided and protected perfectly well by three important things:
• State and National Parks
• Private property owners; and
• Paper companies
Of course, overlaying this system and protecting our wilderness from crowds of people from away was the dependable, great, (though nearly Invisible) force -----Blackflies. I was reminded of this when I was at the Blueberry Festival in Machias last August and visited the people at the Maine Blackfly Breeders Association booth. Their motto is, “We breed ‘em, you feed ‘em.” Blackflies, the Defenders of the Wilderness.
In 1976 I was pulled into trail advocacy through my interest in bicycling with my family. A small group of us received a grant and built Maine’s first off-road paved bike path, and on-road bike-lanes through Orono, the University of Maine and into Old Town. My passion for off-road bike and multi-use trails continues. Now, the Sunrise Trail Coalition with whom I have worked for fifteen years, hopes to see an 87-mile, multi-use four-season trail completed from Ellsworth to Ayers Junction, near Calais, in 2007.
In 1986 I was launched into conservation work one day as I walked in the woods on a lovely trail with a friend from Oregon. I was lamenting the fact (as I often do to my friends) that the very parcel we walked on was to be sold and this would break the continuity of our traditional trail system that could be followed from one end of Orono to the other. Seldom did any of us consider that we had that trail system primarily by the grace of the private land-owners. It was just “there.”
It was at that moment my friend uttered those fateful words, “Why don’t you form a land trust and buy it?” I turned to him and inquired, “What is a land trust?” Things have never been the same for my family and friends since that innocent conversation.
Coincidentally, this was the beginning of exponential growth in the land conservation movement not just in Orono, but all over Maine and the country! At that time Maine had nine land trusts. Now it has over a hundred.
As we became painfully aware, it also was the beginning of exponential growth in the work required of land trust volunteers. All extraordinary people.
Since the incorporation of the Orono Land Trust twenty years ago we have preserved over 1600 acres by fee acquisition or by easement. Twenty miles of Orono public trails are maintained by OLT. We have remained an all-volunteer organization.
We have recently started a collaboration with the Bangor Land Trust and five towns. We call it the Caribou Bog-Penjajawoc Project. The purpose of this collaboration is to help control sprawl and connect large conservation blocks to form an unfragmented corridor for wildlife habitat and recreational trails close to a major population center. To do this we need to preserve over 6500 acres in an 18,000-acre focus area north of Bangor following the eastern shore of Pushaw Lake. You will see part of this corridor at Orono Bog Boardwalk today on your field trip.
¬In 1987 I had the honor to receive an NRCM Maine Conservation Award on behalf of the Orono Land Trust. In the first year of our incorporation we had conserved the very parcel upon which I learned about the existence of land trusts. We had done it in such a convoluted, unusual and baffling way, that it must have seemed like magic. Hence, the award. I was still very naïve, and the land trust community was very new. At the picnic preceding the award ceremony I sat down next to a very tall, handsome man with strawberry blond hair. I had no idea who he was, so I said, “Hi, I am Sally Jacobs.” He said, Hi, I am Brownie Carson.” That seems inconceivable today! Today, everybody knows Brownie Carson!
This year’s NRCM Theme- -“Extraordinary Places, Extraordinary People,” is especially meaningful to me. It is a very short story of the evolution of my view of conservation.
I have come to view the important aspects of conservation as a triangle.
In the earliest days conservation was all about Extraordinary Places—do the deal, get the land protected. That side of the triangle is still essential, of course.
However, building the relationship of people to our earth—a NRCM specialty—is just as important and is the second side of the triangle.
Over the years, I have worked with all kinds of people interested in conservation for all kinds of reasons. What has become most important to me is the bond built between all these Extraordinary People, based on their relationship to the earth. This is the third side of the Conservationist’s Triangle.
Lastly, thank you to NRCM for their great work in building a conservation-conscious community, a geodesic dome of sorts, based on this Triangle. NRCM has helped us to realize the importance of connecting us all as a community through our individual connections to the earth, an Extraordinary Place.
Remarks by Dudley Greely, University of Southern Maine
Thank You for USM’s Award for its Green Building Program
Thank you all. When first notified about this award, I thought it was being presented to The University of Southern Maine. It was clear to me others at the University and elsewhere deserved this recognition: Faculty members who have endured endless meetings working to integrate a new world view, sustainability, into the curriculum. Administrators and engineers who envisioned and are carrying out USM’s Green Building Program – a large team built Maine’s first LEED gold building – a building completely powered by the wind and the sun! And you’re giving ME the award? Funders and fund raisers who have made worthy projects possible. And the students, I can’t begin to count the student contributions. NRCM didn’t give me a fair hearing on the matter of where credit was due so I bring evidence directly to you of the broad-based nature of USM’s efforts. I have selected the following brief excerpts from student writers of “FootPrint”, the sustainabilities issues column that has appeared weekly in the Free Press, the campus newspaper, for the past four years. As I remember, my boss, David Early, suggested the column and it was started by a student. I played only a small role in the following events.
Sarrah Ferriter wrote: “We should always leave the campsite better than we found it. Ask yourselves, how does USM's campsite look? How can we do better?”
Sarah had plenty of ideas about how USM could do better and she was plenty vocal about them. She put those ideas into action. In a marvelous example of constructive civic engagement, USM students voted by a 5:1 margin to support use of biodiesel at USM. As a result, USM now heats five of its buildings with B20, burns biofuel in its contract buses, and has a reduced idling policy sitting on the president’s desk.
I would like to thank NRCM’s staff, board, and its members for decades of tending Maine’s campsites, both real and metaphorical. We can all make better individual daily choices that support the principles of sustainability but NRCM provides opportunities for us to speak with one powerful voice, directly to decision makers, and change public policy.
In a column titled “Safety First” Sarah Wolpow wrote about making a decision to buy a new car: “To some extent, we buy the world we want to live in. And I would prefer to live in a world in which we’re not playing dice with our climate.
Before we decided which car to buy, a close family friend said that our choice would send a message to his teenage daughter about the way she should behave. In other words, we were role models (Gulp!). His comment was a bit heavy handed but he was right. When we called his daughter a few weeks ago to take her to a movie, she asked us to pick her up in our new hybrid because it sounded “cool”. I hung up feeling optimistic. The ripple effect of small actions among friends and neighbors is part of what fuels change.”
The Natural Resources Council of Maine is a refreshing wave that has a ripple effect on the entire nation. Its legislative victories on mercury reduction and electronic waste are two of many examples. Thank you, NRCM, for making waves. We all enjoy the ripples.
(Sarah’s family’s new car is one of those ripples. They now get over 65 mpg and her husband has since been free from speeding tickets - largely because the car’s instant fuel economy readout lets him know how his driving style affects fuel economy – MELLOWER, cleaner driving.)
Sean Neely told readers about the experiences of five USM students who traveled to Harvard to participate in a national clean air conference. He titled his column: “The Way Air Should Be”. Great title and wonderful students.
Using one kilowatt hour of electricity – that’s the power needed to light a 100 watt bulb for ten hours - results in power plant emissions of about a pound of pollutants and green house gas emissions. Universities use lots of lights. Can schools teach without threatening air quality?
Yes.
USM’s College of Nursing and Health Professions is now powered by clean, Green-e certified renewably generated electricity. USM’s nursing faculty know it doesn’t make sense to teach the next generation of health professionals how to treat Maine’s asthma patients if the teaching process itself contributes needlessly to Maine’s high asthma rate.
NRCM and its thousands of members have been taking both public and private steps for decades to improve Maine’s air quality. Each of you has my thanks for these efforts.
In a column on the Mars Hill Wind Project, Jackie Vachon noted that Mars Hill may become a more prosperous community because of the wind farm. Jackie wrote: “the town tourist bureau at a community with a similar wind farm reported an increase of 60,000 visitors to their town per year.” We might call this “turbine tourism”.
I grew up in a small coal mining town in southeastern Kentucky and am delighted that communities accept wind turbines on their ridges. In Kentucky, the real-time alternative to wind is practiced daily. American homes use an average of over 900 kWhs per home per month and this demand will be met. In Kentucky and elsewhere, Corporate Coal REMOVES the ridge, the entire mountain, and its wildlife. Often what is left can’t be lived with and the human neighbors move too. NRCM and members demonstrate daily that Americans can lead better lives with fewer Watts and more of those Watts can come from sustainable sources. Thank YOU for the contributions you each make to reductions in energy waste and for your use of cleaner power.
Charity West wrote in a column titled “From Environmental Science Student to Environmental Activist”:
“I made my first trip to the State house to lobby for cleaner cars… I was so nervous my armpits were sweaty and it was only 40 degrees outside. What was most interesting is that the majority of individuals speaking at the hearing were concerned citizens of Maine who just want to make the environment a better place.”
Charity was writing about concerned citizens like you who take the time to write to your papers and contact your legislators. NRCM helped Charity with her advocacy and she included NRCM’s website in her column. Thank you all for your help.
I will close with a Student’s Reflections on a University field trip (organized by criminology professor Sandy Wachholz) to the Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve in New Harbor.
Kelly Stevens wrote:
“I have lived in Maine my whole life but have never visited a more beautiful place. My eyes have been awakened to the beauty of the coast. We should all spend a day with an environmentalist…”
I am honored that NRCM has made it possible for me to spend today with you. Kelly was right. It IS great to spend time with environmentalists. Without you as neighbors, Maine would not be such a beautiful place.
I thank you for this recognition.
 |
| Eric Brown (center) with NRCM Board president, Sharon Tisher and NRCM executive director, Brownie Carson |
"GangGreen"- from People's Choice Award winner Eric Brown, founder of "Gang Green," an environmentally aware group of students and faculty at Lawrence High School in Fairfield.
Do you feel strongly
Mother Earth is treated wrongly
Of course not everywhere
But enough so that you've begun to care
You're willing to do more than your fair share
Carbon dioxide absorbing plants are being burned
Fewer glaciers are being formed
Our global climate is being warmed
No longer can we be quiet as a mouse
Do it for yourself, the kids or the spouse
Gases accumulate toward the greenhouse
Bye-bye permafrost and essential sea ice
Polar bears agree this is not nice
Take it or leave it, here's some advice
Join our group here at school
We'll talk, laugh, cry: it'll be cool
"What can we do to help?" will be our rule
Do you feel strongly
Mother Earth is treated wrongly
Lack of oxygen causes tissues to die
Purple to blue to black.....why?
Gangrenous tissue only needs one try
Our group will be nice, we're not mean
Our goal is to educate, it is our dream
Join us today for a meeting, we are GANG GREEN