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Mark Madison speaks with Lisa Mighetto
No full textLisa Mighetto is the Executive Director of the Amerian Society for Environmental History.MARK MADISON: Hi. Today is May 11, 2011, and this is Mark Madison at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and on today's Podcast we're very fortunate to have Lisa Mighetto, who is an environmental historian and currently the Executive Director of the American Society for Environmental History.
Welcome, Lisa. Thanks for coming out here.
LISA MIGHETTO: Well, thank you for having me.
MARK MADISON: Lisa, why don't you tell us a little bit about what the American Society for Environmental History does.
LISA MIGHETTO: We are a nonprofit organization of educators and scholars. We study the history of human interaction with the natural world over time.
Basically what we do is provide context for current environmental issues. For example, we have people who study natural disasters, the historical background for hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods. We have people who study public lands, fish and wildlife. We have people who study environmental justice issues, urban issues. Very broad interests.
MARK MADISON: If people wanted to learn more about ASEH, is there a web site they could go to?
LISA MIGHETTO: Yes, it's www.aseh.net.
MARK MADISON: Great. You're also an environmental historian. Could you give us a case study for environmental history that you might have worked on?
LISA MIGHETTO: Well, this could provide an example of what environmental historians do and how-- basically if you're interested in the environment, you're interested in environmental history, because it provides the background, as I said, for current issues.
I worked before I became director of ASEH as what's called a public historian, that's history outside the university, and I worked on many contracts for government agencies, such as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Forest Service. And I did a lot of work on salmon issues since I live in the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest. That work basically assisted biologists who were looking at endangered species.
A lot of this work intensified in the early 1990s and late 1990s, coinciding with endangered species listings, and there was a need to research the many stocks of salmon in the Northwest in terms of their population distribution and their habitat, the changing habitat conditions. And historians often know where little-known records are that can help biologists document.
MARK MADISON: Were there some interesting things you learned about salmon and their history?
LISA MIGHETTO: Yes. This, again, gives an example of sort of the range that environmental history provides. When you look at salmon, you could look at commercially important species. You could look at planting records, that is, fish culture and how biologists try to propagate fish. You could look at policy issues and regulations. You could look at, for instance, how the so-called trash fish that were deemed inconvenient were removed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You could look at social history, even, user groups, from tribal fishers and Native peoples to sport fishers to government biologists to just people who are recreating on weekends and all these groups interact. You could look at the history of the importance of an animal like salmon, or fish, in terms of cultural history, how important it's been to Native peoples, to sport fishers in literature over time. So the history of ideas becomes important, too. But that's how wide ranging, just by looking at one example, like salmon, and if you expand that out into many, many species--
MARK MADISON: Are there other case studies you've worked on?
LISA MIGHETTO: Oh, well, yes, there are many, many. I used to research wolves-- well, because fish and wildlife was my specialty, that's what I--
MARK MADISON: That's good.
LISA MIGHETTO: Right. I thought that might be of interest here.
One of the things that interested me was I also did work on litigation support for large court cases, and the court often had a need in large litigation cases to establish the state of biological knowledge at a certain time. Environmental historians analyze that and study that. And I remember one biologist who I worked with who was very, very good in his field, in fact a leader in his field in the Seattle area, and we were talking about how this one area we were studying in terms of changing habitat conditions, they had removed all of the crud in the streams because they thought, well, we'll clear it out and make it nice and tidy for fish. Well, of course, now, when you look at that and you say, well, what about all that large woody debris that was there that we needed?
We also looked at the bounties on trash fish and how some of those trash fish had been removed and the repercussions, the consequences. And I said to him, jokingly, "Well, these mistakes had been made in the past." And he said, "Yeah, they didn't know what they were doing then." And I said, jokingly, "Oh, but we know what we're doing now, right?" And I was kidding, but he was serious, and he said, "Yes, now we're correcting the mistakes of the past." And I thought, well, this is why you need the historical perspective, because it shows you how the state of knowledge evolves over time. Scientific knowledge is not a static thing.
MARK MADISON: Yes, perspective is critical.
LISA MIGHETTO: Right.
MARK MADISON: Now, we have a journal. There is an environmental history journal. That's a great place to get an introduction to the field. Were there any environmental history books that influenced you?
LISA MIGHETTO: Well, I studied with Roderick Nash in the '70s. So that was quite a while ago. "Wilderness in the American Mind" was one of the books that founded the field. But ASEH was founded in 1977, so it coincided with the emergence of the environmental movement.
But we have lists of books on our web site, which again is aseh.net, if anybody is interested in looking at the most influential books in environmental history. I noticed just walking around NCTC all of the photographs of important people like George Bird Grinell, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Ira Gabrielson, Ding Darling. The list goes on and on. Our members have written books, biographies, very good books, about these individuals and their impact. And those books are listed in these bibliographies.
MARK MADISON: Well, Lisa, thank you very much. Lisa Mighetto is the Director for the American Society of Environmental History. If you wanted to learn more about them, you could go to their web site, www.aseh.net.
You look like you wanted to add something, Lisa. Jump right in.
LISA MIGHETTO: Not only do we have a journal, but we have an annual conference that brings together not only academics but journalists and activists and government agency people.
MARK MADISON: Where's the 2012 conference going to be?
LISA MIGHETTO: In Madison, Wisconsin.
MARK MADISON: I like the sound of that. It's going to be right near Aldo Leopold's shack.
LISA MIGHETTO: We're going to visit Aldo Leopold's shack and we're going to visit John Muir's farmstead. So it will be an interesting conference.
MARK MADISON: Actually, before we let Lisa go, she knows quite a bit about John Muir. Tell us a little about your experience with John Muir and why he's important to us today.
LISA MIGHETTO: Well, at the time that I was writing about John Muir, I mean, that was many years ago, but I should mention that there's been a resurgence of interest in John Muir. So if you're at all interested in John Muir, there's a new movie coming out, "John Muir and the New World," I think it's called. There's a recent biography by Donald Worster about John Muir. So, very important naturalists. And I grew up on the West Coast, so, of course, he was a--
MARK MADISON: Kind of a founding philosopher of the Park Service ideology and the Sierra Club.
LISA MIGHETTO: And an important Sierra Club figure.
MARK MADISON: Great. Thank you-- go ahead, Lisa. I interrupted you.
LISA MIGHETTO: Thank you for having me.
MARK MADISON: Well, thank you, Lisa. And once again, it's Lisa Mighetto, Executive Director of the American Society for Environmental History, and thank you for taking the time to listen
Mark Madison speaks with Taggard Siegel
No full textQueen of The Sun is an in-depth investigation to discover the causes and solutions behind Colony Collapse Disorder; a phenomenon where honeybees vanish from their hives, never to return. Queen of The Sun follows the voices and visions of underrepresented beekeepers, philosophers, and scientists around the world, all struggling for the survival of the bees. The film unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping, highlighting how our historic and sacred relationship with bees has been lost due to highly mechanized industrial practices. Featuring Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva, Gunther Hauk and beekeepers from around the world, this engaging, alarming and ultimately uplifting film weaves together a dramatic story that uncovers the problems and solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature. An independent filmmaker since the mid-1980’s, Taggart Siegel is best known as the director of the 2006 grass-roots hit The Real Dirt on Farmer John. This critically acclaimed feature documentary about a maverick visionary farmer, won 31 international film festivals awards and was released theatrically around the world.MARK MADISON: Hi. I'm Mark Madison, and today is May 10th, 2011 and we're talking today with Taggart Siegel, who's a filmmaker, whose most recent film was called "Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us".
Taggart, thanks for coming out to the National Conservation Training Center. Appreciate you showing your film out here this evening.
TAGGART SIEGEL: Thanks, Mark.
MARK MADISON: I guess the first question is: What are the bees telling us?
TAGGART SIEGEL: They're actually telling us a lot. I mean, where the bees are going right now, they're actually saying, let's-- I'm going to disappear if you don't start looking at the way we're treating them. And so bees have been really knocked down systematically by every system we put in place in agriculture, for example, and bees are-- they've kind of had enough. So from pesticides to mechanized beekeeping to trucking bees across the country is really hard on bees to over queen breeding, to feeding bees corn syrup, genetically engineered corn syrup. Oftentimes the bees are given that. And as Michael Pollan says, nothing more viscerally offensive than feeding the creators of honey genetically engineered corn syrup.
MARK MADISON: That's another great quote from Michael.
What does the film look like, for viewers that might want to go see it?
TAGGART SIEGEL: It's a really uplifting film, too. So it's not all doom and gloom. It's beautifully shot. There's characters from all over the world, from France, a beekeeper that tickles his bees with his mustache, to a woman dancing with 12,000 bees. But then we get very serious with Gunther Hauk, who is a biodynamic beekeeper and very philosophical and very-- like really guides us in what colony collapse is and what's caused it.
So even in New Zealand I loved the family that their whole family are beekeepers, the father, the mother, and the three daughters, and they roll their wax and sell it to support their ponies, their horses.
MARK MADISON: Why should we care about bees?
TAGGART SIEGEL: Bees are really what's keeping us alive, bees and all pollinators, and without them we could really-- the earth will not be the same. Birds will die out. Plants will die out. And eventually the ecosystems will collapse. There will certainly be things alive on earth, but it won't be the same earth that we see.
So one out of four bites that we eat are from bees, and we don't want to lose these valuable creatures. And not only that, our forests, we want to keep them intact, too, and so bees are the crucial link to our environment and they are the canary in the coal mine.
MARK MADISON: Who is the target audience for the film?
TAGGART SIEGEL: It's everybody. I really feel that this film needs to be seen by everybody, just as Rudolph Steiner says in the film, everybody needs to be a beekeeper or interested in bees because they are what's keeping us alive. So my feeling is that it could be for a scientific audience. It could be for somebody that's really interested in philosophy or in bees or in history. I really feel it kind of combines a lot of elements in this film to keep it kind of light and also heavy, and then at the same time, let's get us out of the mess.
MARK MADISON: Taggart, if people wanted to find out where the film is showing, how could they learn that?
TAGGART SIEGEL: Well, you could come to queenofthesun.com, come to our web site. You could Facebook us and like us. There's over 5,000 people now following us. It's a kind of film where it's grass roots oriented, where all these great organizations help get the word out, and also individuals that really care about the environment.
MARK MADISON: Thank you very much, Taggart. It's an extraordinary film. I had the pleasure of watching it a couple nights ago with my family. We all really enjoyed it. The title of the film is "Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?" It's in semi-wide release, I guess, around the country, including here in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and we hope to bring it back here. And, Taggart, we will be going to queenofthesun.com?
TAGGART SIEGEL: Yes, and it's opening in New York and L.A. on June 10th and June 17th, getting ready for Pollinator Week, which is June 20th. So we're going to be celebrating that with the bees.
MARK MADISON: Can't think of a better way to celebrate Pollinator Week. Go see "Queen of the Sun," and, Taggart, thanks for bringing the film out here for a screening.
TAGGART SIEGEL: Thank you very much, Mark
Mark Madison speaks with Amy Vedder, author, conservation biologist with The Wilderness Society
No full textWhen Bill Weber and Amy Vedder arrived in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey, the gorilla population was teetering toward extinction. Poaching was rampant, but it was loss of habitat that most endangered the gorillas. Weber and Vedder realized that the gorillas were doomed unless something was done to save their forest home. Over Fossey's objections, they helped found the Mountain Gorilla Project, which would inform Rwandans about the gorillas and the importance of conservation, while at the same time establishing an ecotourism project -- one of the first anywhere in a rainforest -- to bring desperately needed revenue to Rwanda. Vedder’s book, In the Kingdom of Gorillas, introduces readers to entire families of gorillas, from powerful silverback patriarchs to helpless newborn infants. Vedder take us with them as they slog through the rain-soaked mountain forests, observing the gorillas at rest and at play. An expert in conservation and ecology, Dr. Vedder is Senior Vice President for Conservation at The Wilderness Society (TWS) in Washington, DC. She has worked for more than 30 years in dedication to wildlife and wildland conservation, applying ecological and social science to save biologically rich and threatened places. Amy Vedder is widely known for her pioneering studies of mountain gorillas in Rwanda during the late 1970s and as co-founder, with her husband Dr. Bill Weber, of the Mountain Gorilla Project. She is the author of several books, including In the Kingdom of Gorillas, which she wrote with Bill Weber, and is the subject of a biography written for middle school students titled, Gorilla Mountain.MARK MADISON: Hi. Mark Madison, and today is April 7th, 2011, and I'm at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and I have with me two folks that help conserve gorillas, mountain gorillas, in the wild in Africa. Very fortunate to have with us today Dirck Byler, who works for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for the Africa portion of our Great Ape Conservation Fund, and Dr. Amy Vedder, who works for the Wilderness Society as a Senior Vice President, and she is an expert on mountain gorillas, who recently reissued her book "In the Kingdom of Gorillas".
So, Dirck and Amy, welcome to NCTC. It's a pleasure to have you.
AMY VEDDER: Thank you.
MARK MADISON: And I think I'll start out with Dirck. Dirck, what does the Great Ape Conservation Fund do?
DIRCK BYLER: We fund projects all throughout Africa and Asia that focus on the different species of great apes... gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans, and also the lesser ape species of gibbons. We provide funding for applied research, for law enforcement, for work on infectious disease, community conservation/education, anything, really, that helps with conserving apes in the wild.
MARK MADISON: Great. Is there a recent project you've funded that you would like to describe in more detail that you thought worked out really well?
DIRCK BYLER: Well, we've got some great ongoing funding in West Africa, in particular in the Ivory Coast, which has been in the news recently, so I'll bring that one up.
One of the things we found over the years is in conflict areas sometimes conservation gets neglected because it's difficult to work in many of these places, but we've got a great project in Tai National Park in southwest Côte d’Ivoire that is keeping the park intact even during this time of crisis in the country. So they're doing a great job of protecting chimpanzees and making sure that the park stays intact during a civil crisis.
MARK MADISON: Great.
Well, Amy, you're reissuing your book "In the Kingdom of Gorillas" that you wrote with your husband Bill Weber. Tell us a little about the book.
AMY VEDDER: Well, the book was a labor of love and sort of a slice of our lives, and it started back with our first early career work going out and studying mountain gorillas and studying their conservation problems and issues and trying to get some conservation efforts going. But we've been really fortunate to be able to follow that story over more than 30 years and actually see the results of not just the launch that we were involved with but so much work with so many people who have made it a real success story.
MARK MADISON: Well, speaking of success stories, Dirck told me one of his projects that worked well. What did you and Bill do to help preserve gorillas that you thought worked well?
AMY VEDDER: Well, we were very interested in making sure, one, that the gorillas could be fully protected, but, two, that that protection would be something people locally cared about and the nation would be engaged in, and we worked mostly in Rwanda, which was considered the third poorest country in the world and the most highly densely populated country in Africa at the time. So you get that combination of huge human poverty in the midst of something biologically without value, priceless, and it's a real challenge. And so we felt that one of the most important things that we did was helping to set up what became known as an ecotourism project and getting people in to see gorillas from outside the country, paying good money to do so, and, therefore, producing local, and especially national, benefits in the process, and it has turned the country around to be strong, strong, strong supporters and implementers of conservation, and the gorillas have done well because of that.
MARK MADISON: Well, how are the gorillas doing in Rwanda?
AMY VEDDER: Surprisingly, the population actually spills over the border into Congo and Uganda, but that biggest of the two world's populations of gorillas, mountain gorillas, went from about 450 animals, so the biggest in the world was tiny to begin with, down to about 275, and a bit lower, and now over the last couple decades, despite war and genocide and all sorts of challenges, again, poverty, the population is back up to 480 we found out just a month or two ago. So, back above the original estimate. It's just incredibly exciting and wonderful to know.
MARK MADISON: That's great. Let me ask you one final question, Amy. You mentioned you've been working with this group of mountain gorillas for over 30 years. What's the biggest change you've seen in that period since when you started working with the gorillas up to the present?
AMY VEDDER: Well, the biggest change for them is that they're living in a more peaceful area, there are more gorillas, and the sizes of the families are bigger. So those people who are doing science now are studying families that are two or three or four times as big as they used to be. So all the social interactions that are really fascinating have changed given big sizes.
But I want to turn back to Dirck, too, and say the kind of work that the Great Ape Fund does is helping to ensure that gorillas like this or primates in other parts of the world or elephants and other species funds, they make a huge difference in protecting
these wild, wonderful creatures of this world. So thank you, Dirck!
MARK MADISON: That's a good segue. Dirck, if people listening to this Podcast wanted to learn more about international affairs work, protecting rhinos, elephants, great apes and so on, where might they look?
DIRCK BYLER: Well, you can look on our web site at www.fws.gov/international and you can choose your species from there.
MARK MADISON: Great. And, Amy, if they wanted to learn more about what you're doing now with the Wilderness Society, where should folks go?
AMY VEDDER: Yeah, now my work is here in the U.S., and I love it. We save the most special, wildest places in this country. And it's easy. It's wilderness.org.
MARK MADISON: I like the simplicity of that. And thank you, Amy. Thank you, Dirck, very much for doing this Podcast with us. And thank you for taking the time to listen. And if you would like to see other Podcasts that we've done with conservation biologists, you can find us at training.fws.gov or you can look under "National Conservation Training Center" on iTunes University. Thank you very much
Mark Madison talks with John Francis
No full textJohn Francis was in his twenties when a 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay jarred his comfortable life. Even as he joined the volunteers who scrubbed the beaches and fought to save birds and sea creatures poisoned by petroleum, he felt the need to make a deeper, more personal commitment. As an affirmation of his responsibility to our planet, he chose to stop using motorized vehicles and began walking wherever he went. His decision was greeted with surprise, disbelief, and even mockery—but it was only the start of a much deeper transformation. A few months later he took a vow of silence that would last seventeen years. He founded Planetwalk in 1982 when he began his walking and sailing pilgrimage around the world. To date, Dr. Francis has walked across the U.S., sailed and walked through the Caribbean, and South America from Venezuela to Argentina and a walk in Cuba. Today Planetwalk consults on sustainable development and works with educational groups to teach kids about the environment. He is the author of Planet Walker, 22 Years of Walking 17 Years of Silence.MARK MADISON: Okay. Today is June 29th, 2011, and my name is Mark Madison at the National Conservation Training Center, and this week we're having a conference for bright high school kids from around the country who might want to pursue environmental careers called the Student Climate and Conservation Congress, and one of our speakers this morning was Dr. John Francis, who has an extremely interesting career and has been kind enough to come downstairs and talk with us a little bit for this Podcast.
Let me just tell you a little about Dr. Francis. Dr. Francis was energized in his 20s when the 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay jarred his comfortable life as he joined volunteers to help scrub the beaches and save the birds there. He felt the need to make a deeper, more personal commitment to the environment, and, boy, did he ever! He decided to stop using motorized vehicles and eventually took a vow of silence. He topped using motorized vehicles for 22 years, is that correct, Dr. Francis, and he stopped talking and only listened for 17 years, which is kind of an inspiration to us all.
So, Dr. Francis, thank you so much for coming to Shepherdstown.
JOHN FRANCIS: Well, thanks, Mark. You know, as I said, thanks for being here, you know, because it takes two to communicate, you know.
MARK MADISON: It does. I'm sure that's a lesson you learned from your 17 years of silence.
Tell us why you made these two decisions to stop using motorized transport and stop talking.
JOHN FRANCIS: Well, you know, the not riding in motorized vehicles, it seems kind of obvious. It's a connection that I had made when looking at an oil spill and looking at myself driving a motor vehicle and realizing that the reason they were in the Bay with the oil was partly because of the demand that I was part of to have them there to get oil cheaply as they could and as quickly as they could for my use. And so that was an easy, no-brainer, as they say, to make that choice to start walking.
The not talking was a little more difficult for me because I had looked at the practice of remaining silent in my earlier life as a religious person, going in the monastery, and I thought, that's not for me, not talking, come on! But because I was in so many arguments about the decision not to ride in motorized vehicles, when people in my community mentioned that I really wouldn't make a difference, one person couldn't make a difference, I decided on my 27th birthday to remain silent for one day, and it was that one day that I learned that I hadn't been listening, and so I listened a little more, and then I realized that it was even-- it was even more profound than just listening; it was being able to tell the truth; it was being able to recognize the truth and a lot of other things that came from the silence. And discovering who I was as a person, as an African-American was paramount. So I took that vow to be silent for a year, which I renewed every year.
And it's great to be here in Shepherdstown, because the students here are just so bright and so committed already in what they're doing. I applaud you on being able to find such students. It's almost like preaching to the choir except this is a very young choir, and they are looking for direction and they're looking for inspiration from all of us. So to have that opportunity to speak with them and touch them and be touched by them and to listen to them is a great opportunity for me.
MARK MADISON: Well, you were very inspiring, and the students had a lot of questions. We could have gone three hours with their questions. We had to cut them off. But I wonder what you think-- you made your choice to stop riding motorized vehicles and to stop talking. Do you think that's a choice they should make or do you think they ought to find their own voice, no pun intended, to speak out on these issues?
JOHN FRANCIS: I won't take that as a pun.
You know, I try to keep from saying what it is that a person's journey is, because I don't know. That is something that we have to discover for ourselves. I do say that being who you are and discovering that person and being that person is probably the most powerful thing that you can do for all of us, and so that I unreservedly will recommend.
Now, some students asked me about walking, if they should walk, or if they could walk. And I get lots of e-mails from people around the country who want to walk. And so what I will say, and what I'm trying to come up with is a way that instead of going to, you know, some far-off land for-- Europe to kick around for a year and find yourself, that maybe in your own community you can become a planetwalker and just give up riding in motorized vehicles and walk, and I don't know if you want to stop talking, but, I mean, that's a possibility.
I don't think that it's something that you'll suffer. I think it's something that would be a great learning experience for you, just as maybe going to some European country and kicking around for a year or two. But it's something that you can do right here at home, and I think it has measurable benefits. You can lower your carbon footprint, and you will definitely affect your family's lives and the lives of your friends and the community, I believe.
MARK MADISON: An internal journey versus an external trip.
JOHN FRANCIS: Yes.
MARK MADISON: Now, people might be surprised that when you were not riding motorized vehicles and not talking you were not limiting yourself to a small geographic area or a small career path. Tell us some of the things you did during those years. Because I think it's amazing, actually.
JOHN FRANCIS: I did get around.
MARK MADISON: Yes, you do.
JOHN FRANCIS: I walked up-- from California, from near San Francisco, Pt. Reyes, about 500 miles every year to visit the [ inaudible ] Wilderness. It's not like one of those grand wildernesses like you can find up in northern Washington be the Paysaten, lots of views and mountains. This is kind of low elevation canyons and rattlesnakes and hornets and things like that, but it's nature, nonetheless. And I spent a lot of time there. And then I'd walk back in the fall. And I would do that, and eventually I made-- was befriended by a gold miner there and lived with a gold miner, Perry Davis and his wife Ruth, for a winter, and came out and went to school at Southern [ inaudible ] State College.
From there I returned to the bay area, apprenticed as a wooden boat builder, founded Planetwalk, started walking around the world as part of my education in the hope that I could benefit all of us, but figuring I'd figure that out along the way.
Went to Missoula, Montana, and did a master's in environmental studies there and then on across the country to Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, where I did my Ph.D. in oil spills and ended up working at the Coast Guard writing oil pollution regulations for the United States.
And from there I sailed through the Caribbean and then walked the length of South America. I started talking, though, in the East Coast of the United States in 1990.
So--
And now I'm headed back to Madison, Wisconsin to be a visiting professor there at the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies to teach Redefining Environment. And "environment" for me now has changed from just being about pollution and just being about climate change and the loss of species and habitats and things that we traditionally think of as environment, but to also have to include the human environment, because we're part of the environment, and as being part of the environment, it's our first opportunity to treat the environment in a sustainable way, or even to understand what sustainability is, is in the relationships we have with ourselves and each other. So it's a human rights and civil rights and economic equity and gender equality, and pretty much all the ways that we relate to one another that environment has to embrace in order to be effective. Because as we do all the work that we're doing, we really want it to make a difference, and I think we begin by making that difference in our own personal lives with our relationships with each other.
MARK MADISON: That sounds perfect. It's very-- a nicely-- I mean, the circle that you're at the Nelson Institute, because Gaylord Nelson, obviously, was the founder of Earth Day. He was very interested in getting humans incorporated into the environment. He was actually the first speaker we had out at this place shortly after we opened. He was a family friend, and I think he would be very thrilled that you're coming back to Wisconsin to make these connections.
JOHN FRANCIS: I would hope so. And, of course, Aldo Leopold is at Wisconsin, and John Muir is at Wisconsin, and so, yeah, I guess it's a great magnet for--
MARK MADISON: Breeding ground for conservationists.
JOHN FRANCIS: Yes, breeding ground for conservationists and activists.
MARK MADISON: John, this has been a very short Podcast, and, you know, you have had a fascinating life, and we just touched on a few episodes of it. Are there books or web sites people could go to learn more about Planetwalk and your career?
JOHN FRANCIS: Well, we have a web site, planetwalk.org, and that's a nonprofit web site, but also National Geographic, I'm a fellow at National Geographic, and my hope is this Podcast is heard on that web site as well. It has enormous reach. But National Geographic has also published two books... "Planetwalker," which will be made into a motion picture at some point, and "On the Ragged Edge of Silence: Finding Peace in a Noisy World" has just came out in March. So, yeah, you can get those at your bookstore or the National Geographic web site.
MARK MADISON: That sounds good. Do you have one take-home message for folks that are listening?
JOHN FRANCIS: Well, the take-home message for me, I think I said it before, but please take this to heart and take it home. The environment is about how we treat each other. So let's treat each other well.
MARK MADISON: Thank you, John. This is has been Dr. John Francis at the Student Climate and Conservation Congress for 2011, and he's just joining us for a brief broadcast. Thank you very much.
JOHN FRANCIS: Thank you, Mark
Denny Holland
No full textDenny Holland oral history interview as conducted by Mark Madison.
Denny discusses early life growing up on refuges, his father’s career – both outside of and within FWS, including stints at Carolina Sandhills, Kentucky Woodlands, Santee and etc. He also talks about the re-introduction of beaver/deer/turkeys/, watching the Army train for WWII on refuge property, segregation in the 40’s in Somerton. He talks about the start of his FWS career (up to 1962), introduction of uniforms to FWS – first uniform allowance.
Organization: FWS
Name: Denny Holland
Years: 1961-1989
Program: Refuges
Keywords: re-introduction of beaver/deer/turkeys/etc.; re-introduction of alligators; relocation of ducks; taking control of access issues at Back Bay Refuge.1
Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Denny Holland
Date of Interview: December 18, 2008
Location of Interview: NCTC
Interviewer: Mark Madison
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 30+
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Maintenance – Santee; Refuge Manager Trainee --??; Refuge Manger – Cape Romain; Refuge Manager - Holla Bend; Refuge Manager - Eufaula; Refuge Manager - Back Bay
Most Important Projects: re-introduction of beaver/deer/turkeys/etc.; re-introduction of alligators; relocation of ducks; taking control of access issues at Back Bay Refuge.
Colleagues and Mentors: Gerald F. Baker; Larry Givens; Smith Canunt; Paul Stern; Doctor Hunter Hancock.
Most Important Issues:
Brief Summary of Interview: early life growing up on refuges; father’s career – both outside of and within FWS, including stints at Carolina Sandhills, Kentucky Woodlands, Santee, etc. and the re-introduction of beaver/deer/turkeys/etc; watching the Army train for WWII on refuge property; segregation in the 40’s in Somerton; Army training/work; going back to college on the GI Bill; starting FWS career; introduction of uniforms to FWS – first uniform allowance; FWS career up to 1962.
Other people mentioned in interview: Mr. May Johnson, Mr. Brad Sullivan, Arthur Knox ?, General Patton , Miss Lenore Broughton, Thurgood Marshall, Briggs versus Elliot -- Mr. Briggs and Mr. Roddy Elliott, Mr. Fran Gillette, Tom Martin, John Eadie.2
Mark Madison – Alright, today is Thursday, December 18th, 2008, and we’re doing an oral history with Denny Holland. And interviewing him is Mark Madison; and we’re doing it at NCTC. So, welcome Denny, it’s good to have you here, finally. Got you in the chair.
Denny Holland – Well it’s nice to be up here, for the first time, which is a… real experience.
[General laughter]
Mark Madison – Just for the note of the transcriptionist -- that is a lie.
[General laughter]
Mark Madison – Alright, Denny. Well, this is going to go on several tapes, and I should mention for the transcriptionist this is Tape One. But, tell us a little about your youth, actually; where you were born; what year; growing up.
Denny Holland – Okay. I was born in a fire watchman’s house, at the foot of a fire tower, believe it or not, in Mar’s Bluff, South Carolina. Rural -- no hospital, so… midwifed…. And, at the time, my dad was working part-time for the South Carolina Forestry Commission, as a watchman. And… for watching for forest fires… and that was 1934 – August the 21st, 1934. And then my dad was… went to work with the Florence Fish and Oyster Company as a traveling route man. This was in the height of the Depression, and jobs were few and far between. So, he was doing that all week long. And on the weekends he would go pick up fish, oysters - depending on what the season was - and then, during the week, dropping it off at rural grocery stores, throughout South Carolina. So, anyway, when the opportunity came along, in 1939, to go to work with the Bureau of Biological Survey, he took a big pay cut to do that. But… a hundred dollars a month was what his pay was, and a house. So, free house and a hundred dollars a month. And the big thing was -- he only had to work five and a half days a week. Saturday was a half day.
[General laughter]
Denny Holland – That was a big improvement for him. And this was at Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge. And he went to work there in April of 1939. So, from April ’39, until… gosh, long time later, we were there at Sandhills. Actually, until August the 21st, 1942. And when we moved to Decatur. But that’s slightly jumping ahead. But, Sandhills came from the Resettlement Administration. It had been burned over, turpentined… long leaf pine, and all of these pine trees that were remaining, had been cat-faced for turpentine. And so, even as a kid, I mean, as a small child, there were a lot of turpentine stills that were still left there, and you could find all of the amber, the rosin, the left over [indecipherable]. So, it was very interesting. There was no wildlife to speak of. Almost none. As one of… Mr. May Johnson, this old timer that was there, told me that ‘I don’t know what yur doin’ here, there ain’t a damn thing here except rattlesnakes, bobcats, and wire grass.’
Mark Madison – [Laughter] 3
Denny Holland – So that we used… I used to ride with Dad on the trails that the WPA and CCC had developed, you see. Oh, by the way, there was a big WPA camp and CCC camp there. CC Camp was down at [Cheraw], but they did the recreation type developments on that. But, anyway, used to ride the trails, looking for deer track. If you found a deer track - that was something to note. And looked in a lot of Dad’s old diaries, you know, found ‘da…da…da…da…’ and, you know, from a small kid, I was looking for tracks - animal tracks. ‘What kind of track is that, Dad? Hmmm… that’s a coon. Okay.’ Riding around, looking for such things. And, in 1940, we… I say ‘we’, the Refuge brought in a bunch of deer that had been trapped at Bulls Island, which is part of Cape Romain Refuge. And they brought them up there and released them. Seems as if there’s something like four does and one buck that was in the first release. And I do recall that these were awfully nervous critters. Whenever they turned loose, no matter, gracious, they would, you know, just very high strung. Jumping. And they took off. And of course, we made a great effort to follow up and see if we could see any more tracks of them, which we did. Okay. Also in 1940, one of the Predator and Rodent Control agents, his mane was Smith Canunt, trapped and brought beaver - about a dozen beaver - and we released them there on the Refuge. And I was with Pop whenever we did that. And later, you know, people said ‘where’d all these beaver come from?’ ‘Cause they were plugging up culverts and everything else. ‘Don’t know.’ But it… but they created so much wood duck habitat, you know, just they… just perfect [indecipherable]. And it was really beautiful, the first time I saw a beaver dam. And it was like ‘oh, my gracious! Look at that!’ Never seen one before. And the other thing, of course, was, here again, from Bulls Island, was wild turkeys. They were released later. That was… God, that was in, I guess that was in about 1950, just before we went to Santee. So, anyway, during the early ‘40’s, we were at Carolina Sandhills. And then, in… on my birthday, we arrived… August the 21st 1942 we arrived at Wheeler Refuge and Dad was promoted from… his title when he went to work for Bureau of Biological Survey was ‘laborer / patrolman’ and as I said, for a hundred a month. And he got promoted during World War II to Assistant Refuge Manager. And that was really an accomplishment now. He was… Dad was an educated person. He had a won a scholarship to the Citadel, at South Carolina, and so he had a more education than 95% of the rest of the citizens, even though he was only there for, I think, about two years. But his background was… well, he knew what he was doing. he went… somewhere along the way, he went to work for General Electric, and they sent him to school in Lynn, Massachusetts. He ran a steam plant back in South Carolina after GE trained him how to use steam and service the generators. Anyway, back to his career with Fish & Wildlife. He did construction, so he was… oh, by the way, he grew up on a farm, so he knew farming, too, as….
Mark Madison – Knew how to work. [Laughter]
Denny Holland – Oh, yeah, you know….
Mark Madison – People underestimate that.
Denny Holland – Yeah. Yeah. How to work. How to work from can do to cain’t. So, that was his philosophy. But in 1942, he was transferred to Wheeler. And I recall seeing steam paddlewheel towboats. And first time we were out on the Tennessee River… and that was really, my gosh, look at that! We didn’t go to the movies, because, you know, we didn’t have any money. And besides, who 4
could afford it. But the… I recall seeing the stacks on that towboat, and just belching black smoke, and the wake from that. The Refuge had three inboard boats. one of them was a Crisscraft and the other was a work boat that, in retrospect, it had to have a Model ‘A’ engine in it, but, you know, [indecipherable] very simple. Very simple boat. But it got the job done. Most of the transportation was by vehicle, of course, but the Refuge encompassed both sides of the Tennessee River for a number of miles. All the way… all the way to Huntsville… Redstone Arsenal. Redstone Arsenal was part of the Refuge before [it] became the arsenal. So, in 1941, ’42, it was taken for Redstone. Anyway. So there was a lot of [indecipherable] work, and I got to go with him on many occasions. First time I saw a catfish that was so much bigger than I was. I mean, that was a monster. Taken on a tout line. And… mussel fishermen were catching… draggin’ for mussels. Just common, everyday, experience for us. See that kind of thing. [Whuuu – sound effect.] We burned down the school, too. I didn’t do it. I mean…
[General laughter]
Denny Holland – I was glad to see that school burn [indecipherable]. We went to elementary school… my two older sisters and I went to elementary school there in… outside of Decatur, in a little community called [indecipherable]. It’s no longer a little community. Kathy and I were there just a couple of weeks ago and it’s [schwooo… ummm – sound effects] something else. But, during the war… they… TVA… I guess it was TVA, I’m not sure who actually built the facilities, but, very modern. Everything was modern brick houses. The manager’s quarters were just beautiful. Ours was much smaller -- considerably smaller. But it didn’t have power in it yet. We… as I said, we moved in and there was no electricity yet. Hadn’t been put in. so, Dad and the patrolman dug the ditch from the service building to the house, which was… oh, I don’t know, probably 50 yards, at least 50 yards, and buried the cable to pull in the electricity. And I was… like I say, we were there couple of weeks ago, and it’s… I guess it’s the same underground service that was put in then. And the Army Air Corps was doing… they had a landing strip across the highway -- it wasn’t a highway, it was a dirt road at the time -- that ran by the front of the [indecipherable] course there, across over there. And they were… primary pilot training, with oh… bi-wing Steerman aircraft. And one of the things that I noted was that the road to what is now the Refuge Visitor Center is called ‘Airport Road.’ So I asked the Interpretative Specialist there, I said, ‘do you have any idea where that name came from?’ They said ‘no’ and I said, ‘as a kid I was used to watch pilot training right here, right out in front here it was.’
[General laughter]
Denny Holland – Yep, that was… it was… just everyday… everyday over and over and over. So, it was… we were there for… let’s see, from ‘42 until… Dad then transferred back to Carolina Sandhills when the Manager at Sandhills got drafted. Dad was older, so he… with three kids, he was exempt. He did have an offer to go in Navy and it… accept a commission, and he kinda figured ‘ummm… perhaps I ought not to.’ I’m glad he didn’t, ‘cause I would not have been able to ride around and see the things I did. So we went to… he went as Manager, back at Carolina Sandhills, where he had started. And he had started in 1939. And then, in 19… December of ’44, he went back as Manager. And then, in that interim period, Carolina Sandhills then… was then being used as a bombing range and as an aerial gunnery range. And 5
the bombs were 100 pound practice bombs, with a ten pound black powder charge in it. And every new class of pilots and bombardiers, you know, would scatter those things all over the place. And then fires were erupting everywhere. So from… from then, I got a little experience fighting fires. And I was… what? 10 years old then, I guess. Yeah, about 10 years old.
Mark Madison – Never too young to learn...
Denny Holland – Never too young to learn…
[Overlapping voices]
Denny Holland – I wasn’t… oh, the manpower pool was pretty dog-gone low. Old, elderly, gentlemen became the whole work force there. And Mr. Brad Sullivan, I think, was 70 at the time when he was working. And [Arthur Knox ?] was also about 70. They did as well as they could. And everybody pitched in when they could. And it was it was, needless to say, an interesting time. We survived. we had a garden big garden we… oh, yeah, one of the things that was permitted on refuges back in those times was… and they were furnished – chicken houses were furnished, barns, and pasturage, was part of the package that you were allowed to utilize. And of course, we had a garden, too, growing [indecipherable]. And I quickly was assigned the job of milking the cow. Now, listen, let me tell you something. I learned so much from that cow. That is certainly extremely rare in all of my life, up ‘till now. And I learned two things quite well – patience, which I have worn pretty thin a number of times; but the other thing was how to cuss. You could have the most aggravating, damn thing, you know, where you want to get [indecipherable] I learned those. And a garden [ummm… whuuu – sound effects] – there was no such thing as insecticides, so you had to go out there and check the tomato plants for hornworms - tomato hornworms – and, you know, it didn’t take long for worms to eat up a bunch of tomato plants. And beetles that get on your cabbage and collard greens. Oh, Lord, did we grow some collards! We lived off the land an awful lot. And we survived the War years. Everything was scarce, but we had a cow; we had chicken. So we had plenty of milk; plenty of butter; plenty of eggs. And we raised a lot of chickens. My job was… well, my job was to catch and kill the chickens. And, you know, you could do it several ways. I got to the point where, you know, just catch a chicken – and that was a job, you know. If you didn’t make sure that the chicken was in the pens… then you could corner them. But if they was outside – aw, forget it. Well, let’s wait ‘till they go to roust, and then you get them. But, anyway, catch a chicken and [bloup bloup – sound effects], snap the head off, you know, wring the neck very quickly, and good. Also, you know, I know it sounds kind of bloody, and it was, if you chop the head off, you know, my god, the chicken… you wouldn’t believe how much a chicken can jump after you [indecipherable] head off. We ate fryers. Every Sunday mama would have a fried chicken. And so we, you know, it took a lot. Broilers, I guess, was the proper term to use. We called them fryers. And you mentioned the fire in town. Uhh… yeah. You see, we had a woods fire [indecipherable], and the army, which was responsible for the ranges, and there was a black tent… by the way, that the army… enlisted men were part of the fire protection on the range. and so, the army furnished a city fire truck, which wasn’t worth a toot to go out in the woods, ‘cause, you know, you just… what we had was… what the Service had developed was just plain old two-&-half tonne truck with 6
a 500 gallon water tank and something like a Briggs & Stratton engine on it. And you climb up on the fender and drive along right beside the burning fire and use this spray nozzle… varied… one nozzle that you could, you know, knock the fire down. Well, the people behind them could use rakes, and rake the embers and everything away. All your job to do with the hose was to knock it down, cool it down enough, so that, you know, the following crew could secure the line. And anyway, Daddy was out, and Mr. Gardner was somewhere else, and our telephone system was… it wasn’t a public system. It was a loop within the Refuge, which was, you know… 92000 acres is a pretty good sized territory. So, we had three different fire towers in there. And one of the towermen called. He was close to the little town of McBee, says ‘there’s a house on fire in McBee’, you know. And Mama answered the call on the telephone ‘cause we didn’t have anybody [indecipherable] the area. So she told me ‘somebody’s house is on fire in McBee’. So the neighbor kid and I jumped on the truck and ran it. I was 11 years old at the time, I think. So I drove the truck into town; put out the fire; [laughter] came back. Ohh, did I get a butt whipping for that.
[General laughter]
Denny Holland – Daddy says, “You could have wrecked that truck.”
Mark Madison – [Laughter]
Denny Holland – That was his concern, you know. Not that we had done anything…
Mark Madison – An 11 year old had fought fire…
Denny Holland – “What would have happened if you would have wrecked that truck?” “I had the siren going, Dad.”
Mark Madison – [Laughter]
Denny Holland – Anyway, we were the heroes to other people, except [laughter] except my daddy…. Ahh… yeah, when you grow up on a refuge, and money is almost nonexistent, you learn to do a lot of things. And I was at my daddy’s side every opportunity. So I was learning from him how to do things. And I haven’t regretted… I’ve enjoyed every bit of it, so far. How’s the water supply? I need a…. well, you know, it was kind of unusual that my father was on Carolina Sandhills on three… three different occasions. He started to work there in 1939. His first job as a manager then was in 1944. And then, in 1950, he went to Santee, and then later to Kentucky Woodlands and… which no longer exists by that…. But, he developed a… along the line there, prostate gland cancer, and his health got to the point there that [indecipherable], his Supervisor of Refuges, down in Atlanta, you know, asked him where he would like to go. And Dad’s position was in South Carolina. So, it’s a pretty long commute from western Kentucky to South Carolina. So he asked Larry if he could possibly go to Sandhills. So Mr. Givens worked out a swap with the managers down there. So Paul Stern went to Kentucky Woodlands, and Dad went to back to Sandhills, for his third time. And, I guess it was just about… before Kathy and I got married, and that was in 1959. So in 1959 Dad went back to Sandhills. And, anyway, by then I was working with 7
the Service, so then… I’m going to rest a little bit… I’d come down on a visit so Kathy and I… I was in school, and then when I went to work with Fish & Wildlife Service, guess what -- I started at Santee. So, they’re about 90 miles apart. So we’d go up to McBee and visit Pap. Well, Sandhills is full of small streams, you know, just these beautiful little… we call ‘em branches... crystal clear water that’s… people… no contamination of any sort. So Dad always had some favorite places where he’d stop and get a cup of water, and of course, on occasion, he might even reach under the seat and pull out something else and have dip of water to go along with it. Maybe. And… but, very frequently, he would say ‘whoow,’ you know, ‘here is a good stopping point.’ So we’d stop. And we’d get out of the truck. And ‘Dad, you keep sprinkling the bushes around here’ and he says ‘son, one thing that you don’t know yet is you never want to pass up a good opportunity to pee.’ I can appreciate that now. I know exactly what he means. Because, at that time, it didn’t mean a thing to me.
[General laughter]
Denny Holland – So, you know, if I can give any advice - you never want to, you know, pass up an opportunity. You might never have that opportunity again. So, [indecipherable]…. Anyway, that was little bit of his life there. One of the things that through the years that my father developed was a great friendship with the local people. And, his legacy lingers to this day. That there are a number of people that are now my age that remembered my dad, and the respect that folks had for him. Because, you know, they… rules were one thing, integrity was something else you [indecipherable]. ‘I will do everything within my power to assist you.’ And part of that, of course, was law enforcement. ‘Now, you can’t hunt on this wildlife refuge. I don’t care if you don’t have anything to eat. I will assist you in getting something to eat. Just don’t bring that gun over here. Don’t let me see you shoot in here.’
[General laughter]
Denny Holland – ‘There’s not anything here that you can do.’ Preventive law enforcement was very effective in…. Well, let’s see, how would I express it. ‘Cause I used it myself, a number of times. ‘I’ll take this information, and I’ll give you an opportunity to not do this again. If you do violate that ,rest assured, I will see you when we go to court’. And, so, we handled things administratively, up to a point. Ahh. Anyway, back during the 40’s and so forth, after the War, it… you know, there were a lot of veterans that came back to hunt. An awful lot of people came back to try to find something to work, and something to do. And, you know, some of the stories that I heard from people that lived nearby and had been in different areas of combat… theaters of operation, I guess, would be the proper term, were taking advantage of everything - training in particular
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