Chattermarks

Written by former NC Wild Student and Remarkable Young Leader, Kassandra Barnedt

The North Cascades – untouched, wild, remarkable, friendship, beauty, but most importantly life changing. Every trip to this mystical place is unique, but somehow these trips bring each one of us back to the same place. My journey with the North Cascades National Park began with family outings as a small child to the Newhalem Visitor Center. As I grew, so did my interest, and I began participating in youth programs. The North Cascades Wild Summer Youth Program was my first experience enjoying the wilderness of the North Cascades.

North Cascades Wild 2009 was two weeks of backpacking, canoeing, and hiking amongst breathtaking mountains and refreshing waterfalls. We also summited Desolation Peak at the north end of Ross Lake. The scenery was inspiring and the learning opportunities were great, but the thing that keeps everyone coming back were the relationships we formed while out in the wilderness. Something about the wild brings everyone together. Barriers are broken down and people learn to work together despite their differences. After this amazing two week journey I was left craving more of the North Cascades.

North Cascades Wild 2009 trip at lighting stock camp.

Searching for more opportunities to be involved with the North Cascades, I applied for an eight week job with the Youth Conservation Corps at the North Cascades National Park Nursery. We worked with National Park employees Mike Brondi and Cheryl Cunningham in the Marblemount  Nursery. I learned about seed collection, invasive species, revegetation, and how to clear roads. We even cleaned campsites and had the chance to work with staff in other maintenance areas. The summer was well worth the hard work. Again the next summer I could not resist and I applied to work as the Youth Conservation Corps Crew Leader.

» Continue reading Sharing My Love of the North Cascades

By Dr. James M. Ford

Recently I attended the annual Skagit Land Trust fundraising auction where some 240 people gathered to raise more than $50,000 to help conserve land and critical habitat right here in Skagit County. Corporate sponsors from throughout the county and scores of volunteers stepped forward to lend a hand. The event served as a timely reminder that the health of our environment is equally as important as a sound economy. Clearly, people throughout our community are working together to promote the well-being of this special place.

Although Earth has suffered a great deal of damage due to human activities, there’s growing interest in a healthy and maintainable environment by a broad diversity of citizens who realize that a healthier natural environment can nurture a more sustainable business environment. Business and industry leaders have long recognized the importance of locating in communities that offer plenty of opportunities for health and outdoor recreation.

As a biologist, I remember well when we would question, what is more important, “nature” or “nurture?” We soon realized that humans need both the gift of genetics as well as a healthy environment in order to develop and flourish. Likewise, a successful and productive economy requires a clean and healthy environment.

My generation made plenty of mistakes because of what we didn’t know. We believed that technology and invention could solve everything. Now, we understand that’s only one part of the solution. Our planet has been damaged but, thanks to a new generation that understand and appreciates what needs to be done to sustain a healthy world, it may get the tender care it needs.

Locally, many nonprofits are working to improve our environment. I have been involved with three that are working cooperatively to inform and inspire our citizens, including young people, and bringing hope for a more vibrant and healthy Skagit environment. These deeply dedicated groups are Skagit Land Trust, North Cascades Institute, and Friends of the Anacortes Community Forest Lands. They are responsible, well-managed and particularly effective at accomplishing their goals. In doing so, they are meeting an essential need of our community: to conserve and restore Northwest environments, the world my grandchildren, and yours, will inherit. Using sound scientific principles, an inclusive and nonjudgmental approach and powerful experiences in the natural world, these groups are helping kids and their families see that if we want a healthy, beautiful place to live, work and learn, then we must make careful decisions.

It’s important work and these three organizations are doing it well. Although the need is urgent given the breathtaking rate at which the global population is growing, we still have time to make the critical changes we need to make in order to meet this challenge. With the leadership of these dedicated organizations and thousands of volunteers throughout our community, effective strategies can be developed for preserving our environment.

Note: Kathleen Dean Moore will present her new book Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril at Village Books in Bellingham on Wed, February 9, at 7 pm; free!

Because of humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels, we are warming our earth beneath a cloak of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Here in Washington State, rising temperatures and a warmer climate are causing our glaciers to melt faster than they can replenish themselves. This is leading us towards a future with less fresh water for agriculture and drinking and less resources for inexpensive hydroelectric generation. Over 40 of our coastal communities are threatened by rising sea levels. Sagebrush-steppe and alpine ecosystems may disappear as the tree line shifts, and growing seasons will change in unpredictable ways. The loss of several amphibian species, alterations in bird and butterfly migratory patterns and invasions of unchecked, voracious insect infestations are already underway. Ocean acidification is choking the abundant life in Puget Sound and bays of the outer coast. Eastside forests are drying up and wildland fires will become more prevalent. We humans will face a deadly spike in infectious, respiratory and heat-related illnesses as the natural world around us smolders.

Heard this laundry list of doom before? Most likely you have, and it’s because scientists have done an impressive job of both studying the phenomenon of global climate change and communicating the causes and effects to the public. The effort has be so heroic that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

While the data, interpretations and subsequent warnings from the scientific community are essential pieces of this puzzle, Kathleen Dean Moore, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University, recognized that something was missing. Moore, the author of personal essay/nature writing books like Riverwalking, Holdfast and Wild Comfort, teaches environmental ethics and moral reasoning to students and she soon realized that the scientists’ arguments, no matter how comprehensive, were not going to inspire us to act to save our world.

“Clearly, information is not enough,” she writes. “A piece is largely missing from the public discourse about climate change: namely an affirmation of our moral responsibilities in the world that the scientists describe. No amount of factual information will tell us what we ought to do. For that, we need moral convictions… Facts and moral convictions together can help us understand what we ought to do – something neither can do alone.”

In the new volume Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, co-edited by Michael P. Nelson for Trinity University Press, Moore assembles eighty of the world’s leading visionaries, leaders and writers to create a compelling call to action to confront the challenges of climate change based on moral and ethical grounds. Moore and Nelson have orchestrated a chorus featuring the sterling voices of the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, Desmond Tutu, John Paul II, Barbara Kingsolver, Paul Hawken, Thich Naht Hanh, E.O. Wilson, Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, bell hooks and many, many others from cultures and countries around the planet.

“Do we have a moral oblication to take action to protect the future of a planet in peril?” the editors asked of their contributors, “and if so, why?”

The answers – inspiring, creative, sobering and grounded in reason – are presented in thematic clusters, including “Yes, for the survival of humankind,” “Yes, to honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity, “Yes, for the stewardship of God’s creation, “Yes, because justice demands it,” “Yes, because the world is beautiful.”

Moral Ground strives to start the conversation about “who we are when we are at out best, what we must do to be worthy of our gifts” and how we might live on Earth “respectfully, responsibly and joyously.” These are essential questions to ponder here at the most crucial turning point our planet has ever faced.

The days are getting longer, but slowly, and there are still plenty of dark, rainy evenings this winter for reading.

If, as a member of the Institute community, you wish to broaden and deepen your knowledge of conservation history – We are into “conserving and restoring northwest environments through education” are we not? – then I have the perfect read for you. As a bonus, this one book will take you through to spring. It is Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (Harper, 2009, 940 pages).

While there are multitudes of books about Theodore Roosevelt, no one has explained and dissected how natural history and conservation were central to his life and work with the thoroughness and insight Brinkley brings to the task. He describes the young Roosevelt’s fascination with the natural world, the influences on his interests of his eccentric Uncle Rob, the centrality of Darwin’s theorizing upon his thinking, and how his fascination with the American West formed many of his ideas about land in general and public land in particular.

» Continue reading The Wilderness Warrior

Springtime is slowly and reluctantly arriving in the North Cascades. I’ve been delighted to hear some familiar bird songs returning; brightening up the forest and telling me that while there is snow on the ground, spring is coming!

While the birds are announcing spring, the Cornell Ornithology Lab, in partnership with many conservation organizations and government agencies, is announcing the State of the Birds Report. The State of the Birds Report is a comprehensive evaluation of the health of United States bird populations (The full report, can be read here). The diagnosis is not good: bird populations have been declining severely in the past 40 years. However, the report includes some successes and a plan for how we all can help protect our valuable natural resources and our bird populations.

» Continue reading The State of the Birds

Wolf pups, from one of Conservation Northwest’s remote cameras.

Daylight Saving Time has sent the sun to bed early. I step out of my cabin to walk to dinner and the world has already slipped into pure night. It’s cold, my breath immediately plumes in the light of my headlamp. Small glowing circles form out of the lights from the other buildings down the hill, seemingly miles away. Through the trees I can barely see the glimmer of lights from the lake and the dam.

Out of the silent dark forest a strange eerie noise reaches my ears. Howls, a chorus of howls. Long and echoing in the new early darkness. Wolves? Yes, but just cubs of the human variety: our traditional “Meal Time!” call for Mountain School. Thirty 5th graders and a handful of adults calling out. Some are eager to howl, some take some coaxing. It’s all I can do not to join in. I love the howl.

» Continue reading Wolves