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Tero Mustonen, Finnish Environmentalist, Born (1976)

Save the rainforest!  That’s what we hear over and over—and for good cause.  But at the other ends of the earth, there are also valuable ecosystems, doing valuable work to sustain our lives.  Tero Mustonen is a champion for Arctic ecosystems, urging us to protect them from misuse, and doing his utmost to make that happen.

Tero Mustonen (Photo courtesy of University of Eastern Finland)

Tero Mustonen was born (June 23, 1976) and raised in the small Finnish village of Selkie in far eastern Finland, only 35 miles from the Russian border.  “I grew up in a fishing family. We were close to nature, living without running water in a small village in the boreal forest each summer.”  He still lives in Selkie, where he continues to fish commercially and has become the head of the village.  He believes that indigenous knowledge is essential to keeping Arctic ecosystems—all ecosystems, really—functioning properly.  “In most places around the world, we do not know how things were prior to the 1900s, so indigenous memory can inform about changes and ecosystems….Without indigenous peoples and their wisdom, there would not be nearly enough preserved biodiversity.”

But Mustonen also understands that modern science and techniques are necessary tools to sustain nature.  “I decided I needed scientific training to understand properly what was going on in the landscapes I knew.  I often say that I first went to a real school, fishing on the ice, and then I learned the analytical tools to make the link to scientific knowledge.”  He learned well, earning his doctorate in 2009 from the University of Eastern Finland.

That scientific knowledge helped Mustonen put his experience into a broader context—a context built on peat.  About 30% of Finland is covered in peat, a compressed material of soil and decomposing vegetation.  The peat does not decompose completely due to insufficient oxygen, thereby absorbing and storing huge quantities of CO2.  Peat has been used locally throughout time as a fuel source.  But the local practices were sustainable, and the vast peatlands of Finland were hardly changed until the end of World War II.  Then, the country drained nearly half of its peatlands for mining.  Mustonen recently noted, “Intact peatlands were seen as unproductive wastelands….we have lost approaching half of our wet peatlands and their wildlife—more than 12 million acres.”

Mustonen has developed a comprehensive strategy for combating these losses and restoring the peatlands—rewilding, he calls it.  In 2000, he created the Snowchange Cooperative “…to integrate Indigenous knowledge with science and to advance the voices of traditional communities in the North, while helping them maintain fisheries and reindeer herding in the face of climate change and other threats.”  

Peatlands store huge quantities of partially decomposed plant material, providing both a fuel sources and a carbon dioxide sink (photo by Wojsyl)

And it works.  He and his colleagues at Snowchange talk with Indigenous people and village elders to learn the history of the local peatlands.  They use that knowledge to employ modern techniques to make initial restoration changes.  “I’m not a big fan of machinery, but we need excavators at first to block ditches, raise [water] tables and restore water flow.”  Then they let nature take over, accepting that the results will occur gradually and that the peatlands are unlikely to return to their former state.  “We do rewilding rather than strict ecosystem restoration…. But we can recover rich, biodiverse wetlands.”  The restored sites attract native wildlifeand once again begin to remove CO2 from the air.  “One moonscape we took over in 2015 has gone from three bird species to 210, including rare waders such as Terek sandpipers.”

They started small, working in Mustonen’s home village of Selkie in 2010.  When a mining company began working around the village, acid mine drainage began killing fish.  But the company agreed to let Snowchange restore three wetlands.  From there, the group began buying abandoned industrial sites and “rewilding” them.  Today, Snowchange has about 80 sites under rewilding, covering 130,000 acres.

Mustonen has expanded his efforts across the Arctic and also into the Pacific, particularly with the Maori of New Zealand (unfortunately, their work in Russia ended when Russia invaded the Ukraine).  That process seeks to restore not only ecosystems, but also Indigenous peoples.  “We never wanted to be just a conservation organization.  We are appalled that the Sami people in northern Finland … are the only Indigenous peoples in Europe who don’t have proper land rights.”

In the U.S., Mustonen’s approach is called community-based conservation.  Making local people, including Indigenous peoples, part of the decision-making and implementation processes grows friends rather than enemies and develops partners rather than resisters.  For his approach, Mustonen won one of the six 2023 Goldman Environments Prizes, often called the “Green Nobels.”  And I noble approach it is!   

References:

Goldman Environmental Prize.  2023.  Tero Mustonen.  Available at:  https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/tero-mustonen/#recipient-bio.  Accessed January 20, 2024.

Pearce, Fred.  2023.  Finland Drained Its Peatlands.  He’s Helping Bring Them Back.  Yale Environment 360.  Available at:  https://e360.yale.edu/features/tero-mustonen-interview.  Accessed January 20, 2024.

Schueman, Lindsey Jean.  2023.  Climate Hero:  Tero Mustonen.  One Earth, April 25, 2023.  Available at:  https://www.oneearth.org/conservation-hero-tero-mustonen/.  Accessed January 20, 2024.

Snowchange Cooperative.  2024.  Home.  Available at:  http://www.snowchange.org/.  Accessed January 20, 2024.

University of Eastern Finland.  2023.  Tero Mustonen wins the Goldman Environmental Prize, a.k.a. the “Green Nobel.”  24.4.2023.  Available at:  https://www.uef.fi/en/article/tero-mustonen-wins-the-goldman-environmental-prize-aka-the-green-nobel.  Accessed January 20, 2024.

Back in 1971, The Keep America Beautiful organization teamed up with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to create Keep American Beautiful Day.  It was expanded in 1982 to a week, and then to the entire month of April in 1984. As spring takes hold of the weather and the landscape awaken with the greening of trees and grasses, the blooming of wildflowers and the melodies of nesting songbirds, we, too, ought to take special notice of our beautiful environment—and do something to, as they say, keep it beautiful.

A 2021 Keep America Beautiful clean-up team (photo by Ben Nelson)

Keeping America Beautiful was a cause well before 1971, however.  The Keep America Beautiful (KAB) organization began in 1953 in New York City with the goal of preventing litter. It was in the same year as the first Keep America Beautiful Day, that KAB developed one of the most successful public service announcements ever.  It featured a Native American who paddled his canoe down a polluted stream and stopped at a litter-strewn shore.  A passing motorist threw a bag of trash that landed at the Native American’s feet.  At the end, he turned to face the camera and shed a single tear.

One of the leaders of the early drive to beautify America was Lady Bird Johnson, wife of president Lyndon Baines Johnson.  As First Lady during the mid 1960s, she chose beautifying the countryside as one of her key initiatives (learn more about her here).  Her timing couldn’t have been  better, as the late 60s and early 70s was a time of environmental awakening in the U.S. and around the world.

Lady Bird Johnson in 1990 (photo by Frank Wolfe)

Another aspect of keeping the joint beautiful—and sustainable—also traces to April.  The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970.  The brainchild of U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day was intended to be a one-off (learn more about him here).  As we all know, Earth Day has occurred every year since then, has expanded to be a global celebration and continues to inspire us to treat the earth better (learn more about Earth Day here).

And it has all been working.  KAB reported in a major review of littering in 2020 that there are 50 billion pieces of litter despoiling our roadsides and riverbanks.  That’s a big number, but they counted carefully—only 6 billion of them are bigger than four inches.  The good news is that the amount of litter is down 54% since their previous 2009 study.  

A 2013 Earth Day celebration in Kobe, Japan (photo by MtiK)

Forget the statistics.  We all know that we want a beautiful world, and that litter is ugly.  So, how about helping to solve the problem.  Remember, every litter bit helps!

References:

Keep America Beautiful.  2020 Litter Study.  Available at:  https://kab.org/litter/litter-study/.  Accessed March 28, 2923.

National Day Calendar.  Keep America Beautiful Month — April.  Available at:  https://nationaldaycalendar.com/keep-america-beautiful-month-april/.  Accessed March 28, 20o23.

Kruger National Park Established (1898)

Well, we could have an argument about this date.  Most websites will say that Kruger National Park was established on May 31, 1926, when South Africa enacted a law allowing for ecosystem reserves that could be labelled as “national parks,” and named Kruger National Park as the first one in the country on that day.

Entry Gate (photo by Anagoria)

But I prefer the date on which a wildlife reserve, although not a national park per se, was established.  On March 26, 1898, South African President Paul Kruger declared a “Government Wildlife Park.”  Later that park would be renamed the Sabi Game Reserve, and later still, in 1926, would be renamed again, this time after the president who first created it—Kruger National Park.

Well, whichever date you choose as the birthday, Kruger is some kind of park.  It covers 7,580 square miles, more than twice as large as Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.  It is a long park, stretching 220 miles north to south and 56 miles east to west at its widest.  It is the largest national park in South Africa, but only the sixth largest on the African continent (the largest is Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania, roughly three times bigger than Kruger).  

Kruger has enormous biodiversity.  It holds 147 mammal species (including most of what we call charismatic megafauna), over 500 species of birds, and over 100 species of reptiles.  Consequently, it is classified by UNESCO as an important biosphere (called the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere).  The park has been enormously successful in allowing native plants and animals to thrive.  In early years, elephants numbered fewer than 100; today the population exceeds 31,000.  Rhinos had to be re-introduced from other habitats to restart a rhino population; today, there are about 3,000.

Rhinoceros (photo by Esculapio)

The park, however, has been marked by controversy from its earliest years.  When declared a national park in 1926, the native Tsonga people who lived inside the park’s boundaries.  The park was fenced to keep the animals and the native citizens apart.  Today, the park is ringed by human communities that lay right up against the fences, with more than 2 million residents.  Most of the people and communities are impoverished.

One consequence is that poaching has long occurred, primarily for elephant tusks and rhino horns.  The extent of poaching has risen and fallen over the years, with a strong spike in the late 2010s.  Poaching is down now, due to aggressive and technologically assisted enforcement, but the rhino population continues to shrink.

The great success of the elephant population led to such large increases in numbers that the park culled elephant herds for several decades.  Culling was thought necessary to keep the elephants from over-grazing their habitats, but after continuing controversy, it was stopped in 2000.  Neither the elephants nor the habitat have appeared to suffer from the growing elephant numbers.

Tourism is big business to the people who lives around the nine entry gates to the park.  About 1.5 million people visit the park annually, their dollars supporting the local economies.  Kruger is also tourist friendly because the roads are paved and individuals can drive personal vehicles through the park.  

The African elephant is an enduring feature and controversy for Kruger (-hoto by Bernard Dupont)

So, choose the date you’d like for the birth of Kruger National Park.  But whichever date you prefer, my recommendation is to  visit for a fantastic wildlife viewing experience.

References:

Global Alliance for National Parks.  2013.  Kruger National Park.  Available at:  https://national-parks.org/south-africa/kruger.  Accessed March 19, 2023.

Pinnock, Don and Helena Kriel.  2022.  Beyond its exceptional beauty, Kruger National Park is on the ropes and hurting.  Conservation Action Trust.  Available at:  https://conservationaction.co.za/recent-news/beyond-its-exceptional-beauty-kruger-national-park-is-on-the-ropes-and-hurting/.  Accessed March 19, 2023.

South African National Parks.  Kruger National Park.  Available at:  https://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/tourism/history.php.  Accessed March 19, 2023.

Mexican Gray Wolf Listed as Endangered (1976)

The Mexican gray wolf made the news recently.  Good news it was, too.  But the story goes back much further.

Mexican Gray Wolf (photo by US Department of Agriculture)

The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) is the smallest of five subspecies of the gray wolf.  Males grow up to about 80 pounds and females about 50 pounds; they stand about two and one-half feet tall at the shoulder.  They have thick coats that vary widely in color from gray to brown, resembling at a distance the much smaller coyote.  They live in small packs, usually fewer than five individuals, and females have 1-6 pups annually.  Their natural range covers northern Mexico, plus the states of New Mexico, Arizona and western Texas.

That was the range, until the late 1800s, when livestock ranching became big business and ranchers wanted the wolves gone.  Along with a natural diet of deer, elk and smaller game, wolves ate livestock when available.  The U.S. government and western states began programs to shoot and poison Mexican wolves, including giving poisons to the nation of Mexico to use on their own wolves.  Populations of the wolf declined rapidly and, by the 1950s, the Mexican gray wolf was determined to be extinct in the wild.

With the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 (learn more about the ESA here) and under pressure from conservation organizations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Mexican subspecies of gray wolf as endangered on April 28, 1976.  Subsequent changes to the listing occurred on March 9, 1978 and February, 2015, but the subspecies continues to be listed as endangered.

Holding pens for Mexican Gray Wolves at Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (photo by USFWS)

Soon after the initial ruling in 1976, seven known wolves were gathered together for a captive breeding program, now centered at Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, south of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  The captive breeding proved successful (and continues to be so), and in 1998, wolves began to be released into the wild at locations in New Mexico and Arizona.

The reintroduced wolves have prospered.  A news release by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in February, 2023, reported that by the end of 2022, 59 wolf packs had established territories, 40 in New Mexico and 19 in Arizona.  The total estimated population is now 241, including 31 breeding pairs that had 121 pups last year.  The population grew by 23% between 2021 and 2022, a massive increase.

The Mexican gray wolf still has a long way to go, however.  In the latest revision of the recovery plan (September, 2022), the stated goals for delisting the sub-species include having two self-sustaining populations (one in the U.S. and one in Mexico) that average at least 320 (U.S.) and 200 (Mexican) individuals over an 8-year span, are growing year to year and are genetically diverse.  These conditions are expected by 2043.

Mexican Gray Wolf at Sevilleta NWR (photo by USFWS)

So, three cheers for the Mexican gray wolf and for the partners in the U.S. and Mexico who are making its recovery possible.  And let me say that it is an especially sweet story for a loyal fan of the North Carolina State University Wolfpack.  As we say here, “Go Pack!”

References:

Center for Biological Diversity.  Saving the Mexican Gray Wolf.  Available at:  https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/Mexican_gray_wolf/index.html.  Accessed March 6, 2023.

New Mexico Game and Fish.  Mexican Gray Wolf.  Wildlife Notes.  Available at:  https://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/download/education/conservation/wildlife-notes/mammals/Mexican-gray-wolf.pdf. Accessed March 6, 2023.

US Fish and Wildlife Service.  2023.  Mexican Wolf Numbers Soar Past 200 in Latest Count.  Available at:  https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2023-02/mexican-wolf-numbers-soar-past-200. Accessed March 6, 2023.

US Fish and Wildlife Service.  2022.  Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan, Second Revision, September 2022.  Available at:  https://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/Final%20Mexican%20Wolf%20Recovery%20Plan%20Second%20Revision%202022%20signed_508%20compliant_1.pdf. Accessed March 6, 2023.

US Fish and Wildlife Service.  Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.  Available at:  https://www.fws.gov/refuge/sevilleta. Accessed March 6, 2023.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the first Women’s History Month in the United States, saying “From earliest times, women have helped shape our Nation. Historians today stress all that women have meant to our national life, but the rest of us too should remember, with pride and gratitude, the achievements of women throughout American history.”

(photo by George Gentry, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Why March, you ask?  Probably because the United Nations, in 1976, had declared March 8 as International Women’s Day.  Next question:  why March 8?  The answer goes back to 1917, when Russian women protested for their right to vote.  They did this on February 23 (and they won—four days later the Czar resigned and Russian women were given the right to vote).  Similar protests arose in many countries, all more or less timed with the Russian protest.  But, wait—Russia at the time still used the Julian calendar while most of the world had long before switched to the Gregorian calendar (the one we use today).  And on the Gregorian calendar the old February 23rd was March 8!

We shouldn’t need a month to recognize the contributions of women to our civilization—they are half the human population!  But since men’s accomplishments dominate the historical record, it is right that we take some time to stop, look and listen to what women have also contributed, and to commit ourselves to equality between men and women in all aspects of life.

And that includes conservation and environmental sustainability.  This calendar contains many entries that celebrate women’s contributions, but, still, only one-quarter of the stories of individuals in the calendar are about women.  I am committed to a better balance, so you can expect to see many more stories that chronicle women’s achievements.

But, to illustrate the importance of women to conservation, let’s take a look at some of the entries for March that highlight women and women’s achievements.  Lynn Margulis, one of the 20th Century’s greatest evolutionary biologists, was born on March 5 (learn more about her here) .  And nearly a century earlier, Martha Burton Williamson became one of the nation’s leading experts on mollusks as an amateur naturalist in Los Angeles (learn more about her here).

Marjorie Harris Carr, born on March 26, had a tremendous impact on the preservation of Florida’s great and unique ecosystems.  She is best known for stopping the infamous Cross Florida Barge Canal, a plan to cut a waterway for commercial vessels right through the center of the state (learn more about her here).  

We all know the standard definition of sustainability (live today so others can choose how they wish to live in the future).  That  definition was first appeared in the book Our Common Future, published on March 20, 1987.  The book was the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, led by one of history’s most influential conservationists, Gro Harlem Brundtland.  Brundtland was Norway’s first woman prime minister (three times!), and the world’s first woman environmental minister(learn more about her here) .

Helping girls see that they have a role in science, conservation and environmental sustainability is crucially important to our future.  A big step in that direction occurred on March 12, 1912, when the Girl Scouts were founded.  From the beginning the founder, Juliette Gordon Low, wanted girls to enjoy, study and care for nature.  And the organization’s programs in these areas have grown exponentially over the years (learn more about her and the founding of Girl Scouts here).

References:

The American Presidency Project.  Proclamation 5619—Women’s History Month, 1987. Available at:  https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-5619-womens-history-month-1987.  Accessed March 1, 2021

United Nations.  International Women’s Day.  Available at:  https://www.un.org/en/observances/womens-day/background.  Accessed March 1, 2021.

Spencer Fullerton Baird, First U.S. Fish Commissioner, Born (1823)

If you need an example of Type-A personality from the 19th Century, I’ve got your man.  Spencer Fullerton Baird, born on February 3, 1823 (died 1887), held several jobs at the same time and in the process created our great national museums and our first foray into fisheries management.  His name and picture should ber next to the dictionary definition of “overachiever.”

Spencer Fullerton Baird in 1850, when he began work at the Smithsonian Institution.

Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania.  His father was a lawyer, but also a devoted naturalist.  Father and son often tramped through the woods around Reading, studying the area’s natural history.  Baird wasn’t a very good student, preferring to learn by observing nature in the field (a trait that he maintained his entire life).  Obviously intelligent, he enrolled at Dickinson College at the age of thirteen and graduated with a B.S. four years later (right, when he was seventeen).  He became friends with ornithologist John James Audubon and was a devotee of the work of Louis Agassiz at Harvard (learn more about Audubon here).  After an unsuccessful try at medical school, he returned to Dickinson, receiving an M.S. in 1843.  While in school, he corresponded with many of the leading naturalists of the era, including George Perkins Marsh, collected voraciously around the mid-Atlantic states, and published papers in biological journals.  He became a professor of natural history and chemistry at Dickinson in 1845.

On the recommendation of George Perkins Marsh, in 1850, he was appointed to the Smithsonian Institution as Assistant Secretary of Natural History.  Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian, and Baird’s boss, was not interested in developing a large collection.  Nevertheless, when Baird reported for his job, he brought with him his personal collection of biological specimens, numbering in the thousands and reportedly filling two railroad boxcars and weighing 8.5 tons.  His job at the Smithsonian was generally routine and administrative, but he did the work willingly and with skill, earning the respect and tolerance of Secretary Henry.

Baird (in the center) and other leaders of the Smithsonian in 1880, shown in the unfinished entry of the new buiilding for the National Museum.

Tolerance was needed, because Baird never veered from his goal of building a large national collection (despite Henry’s indifference).  His second job at the Smithsonian was to oversee the development of the National Museum, the portion of the institution that we now know as the National Museum of Natural History.  In 1872, Secretary Henry formalized that work by appointing Baird as Director of the museum,  with full control of its operations. He developed exchange programs with collectors and museums around the U.S. and world, gradually building the Smithsonian’s collections.  His strategy, as he wrote to Marsh, was to accumulate such a large and unwieldy collection that Congress would be forced to appropriate money for both a building and the necessary staff to curate the specimens that filled it.

When Secretary Henry died in 1878, Baird was named his successor, becoming the second Secretary of the Smithsonian.  With a free hand to develop the institution as he wished, he worked to build a new museum building, which opened in 1881 (now the Arts and Industries Building, next to the Castle), created a small zoo beside the Castle that evolved into the National Zoo, and added a program to study American Ethnology, primarily the cultures of Native Americans.  He remained Secretary until his death in 1887.

Spencer Fullerton Baird (portrait by William Bell)

Baird’s other big job was one added to his responsibility in 1871.  Concerns over the status of marine commercial fish species prompted the Congress to create the U.S. Fish Commission to study the situation and advocate for its improvement.  They named Baird the first commissioner, a job that he was to undertake at the same time as pursuing his other responsibilities (with no additional pay) and that he also kept until his death.  

Fish Commissioner was a job that Baird loved, perhaps more than his role as Secretary of the Smithsonian.  He was always devoted to field work and natural history, although his leadership of the museum kept him from pursuing field studies as much as he wished.  But as fish commissioner, designing and directing field studies was his primary task.  To do so, he founded the Woods Hole Laboratory, which has become one of the world’s leading oceanographic and marine biological research institutions.  He also authorized the construction of the first federal fish hatcheries and built two ocean-going research vessels (the Fish Hawk and Albatross) (learn more about the Albatross here).  He spent as much time as possible at Woods Hole, especially during summer months when he invited the most distinguished marine scientists of his time to conduct research on the fish and aquatic biota of the Atlantic coast.

Baird was a distinguished leader and administrator of our nation’s greatest scientific bodies, a legacy enough for any person.  But he also remained a prolific scientist himself, publishing more than 1200 papers and reports over his life.  As the National Marine Fisheries Service writes in his biography, “Baird is credited with initiating the fields of marine ecology, fisheries biology or fisheries science, and laying the foundation of oceanography. He was also a pioneer in biogeography, the study of biological and geographic factors that influence the distribution of life on Earth.  He believed research and education went hand in hand. From the start, he invited visitors to see what researchers were studying by displaying aquaria full of local species. He was convinced that in a democratic society, people are entitled to know about the activities of the institutions maintained with public funds.”

So, as you roam the great museum on Washington’s National Mall, reflect on the great men and women who made these things possible.  Including one enormous overachiever named Spencer Fullerton Baird.

References:

Billings, John S.  1889.  Memoir of Spencer Fullerton Baird, 1823-1887.  National Academy of Sciences.  Available at:  http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/baird-spencer-f.pdf.  Accessed February 24, 2023.

NOAA Fisheries.  Spencer Fullerton Baird:  Founder of the Woods Hole Laboratory and Fisheries Science.  Available at:  https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/spencer-fullerton-baird-founder-woods-hole-laboratory-and-fisheries-science.  Accessed February 24, 2023.

Smithsonian Institution Archives.  Spence Fullerton Baird, 1823-1887.  Available at:  https://siarchives.si.edu/history/spencer-fullerton-baird.  Accessed February 24, 2023.

Dr. Mamie Parker, Pioneering African American Fisheries Scientist and Leader, Born (1957)

Music inspires many of us.  But it’s probably a first that a fisheries scientist was inspired to pursue her career by Marvin Gaye’s music.  No, not something she heard through the grapevine, but his song, “Mercy, Mercy, Me,” that reminds us about “radiation underground and in the sky; Animals and birds who live nearby are dying.”

Dr. Mamie Parker, judging the 2013 Duck Stamlp contest (photo by USFWS Midwest Region)

That fisheries scientist is Dr. Mamie Aselean Parker, born on October 14, 1957, in Wilmot, Arkansas.  And it wasn’t just Marvin Gaye who inspired her.  As Mamie tells it, “My mother was an avid angler, a sharecropper, had 11 children.  I’m number 11.  The rest…did not want to be outdoors, but she wanted a companion and taught me life lessons out there.  She passed away when I was fairly young, and I decided to do this in her honor.”  

Her mother was determined that Mamie would get a college education, and she worked hard to make her mother’s wishes come true.  Parker ranked second in her high-school class and then earned a B.S. from the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff in 1980.  She went on to get advanced degrees (M.S. and Ph. D.) from the University of Wisconsin in fisheries and wildlife and limnology.  She took an internship with the U..S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Wisconsin, as she said, “quite frightening for a Southern girl like myself that had hardly been north of Little Rock.”

But she never looked back.  She spent 29 years working for the Fish and Wildlife Service, from the Mississippi River watershed and eastward, accomplishing many firsts for an African American woman along the way.  She reached the highest levels in the agency, eventually serving as Regional Director for the 13 Northeastern states, Chief of Staff and Assistant Director for Fisheries (the agency’s highest position related to fisheries).  In a radio interview, she recalled her unique journey:  “I remember my first job here in the D.C. area, and the janitors in the building, they just kept coming and peeking in, and I thought “What are they looking at?” And finally I saw one in the bathroom, and she said, “I’ve been here for almost 40 years,” and she said, “No African-American woman has been in here except to clean this office.”

Parker receiving the 2020 John L. Morris Award from the Association of Fisheries an dWildlife Agencies (photo by Dadayzee)

Parker has had enormous influence on sustaining our nation’s aquatic resources.  She has worked across the range of aquatic issues, from fish culture to fisheries management to pollution abatement. She led negotiations with General Electric to reduce pollution of the Hudson River.  Under her leadership, the Atlantic salmon was added to the endangered species list.  On behalf of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, she worked with major corporations, including Walmart and PetSmart, to reduce their environmental footprints.

For her efforts, Parker has received innumerable awards and recognitions, again often a first for an African American woman.  She was appointed to the board of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, later serving as the chair of the board and achieving major advances in migratory bird protections for the state.  She was the first African American woman elected to the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame.  The list of her honors and leadership positions is too long to cover here, but one illustrates her impact:  She received the Presidential Rank Award, the highest award given to a civilian employee of the federal government.

I have been privileged to know Mamie Parker for many years, having worked with her on various projects of the American Fisheries Society and other organizations.  She is a wonder—intelligent, insightful, dauntless and charming.  Her optimism makes the sun shine on the cloudiest of days.  And she is an inspiration to all of us in conservation, but especially to women and members of underrepresented groups.  

In your own career, wherever it might take you, please remember these words that she shared:  “And then also, mentors are so important — having the right individual there for you when you think about quitting or you want to cry. A lot of times, I had to cry on the shoulders of those janitors in that building. You know, they were the ones that were there for me, telling me to get up and get back in the race again.”

Be like Dr. Mamie Parker, and always get back in the race, and help someone else who needs a hand to get back in her or his own race.

References:

DEL.  Dr. Mamie Parker.  Diverse Environmental Leaders National Speakers Bureau.  Available at:  https://www.delnsb.com/team/dr.-mamie-parker

Encyclopedia of Arkansas.  Mamie Aselean Parker (1957-).  Available at:  https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/mamie-aselean-parker-4127/.

Mamieparker.com.  Mamie Parker, PhD.  Available at:  https://mamieparker.com/about/.

Martin, Michael.  2015.  From Fishing With Mom to Becoming A Top Fisheries Official.  Morning Edition, July 14, 2015.  Available at:  https://www.npr.org/2015/07/14/421141198/from-fishing-with-mom-to-becoming-a-top-fisheries-official.

Natural Areas Organization.  Biography — Dr. Mamie Parker.  Available at:  https://www.naturalareas.org/docs/Mamie_Parker_Biography.pdf.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford President declared the first official Black History Month, making February an “opportunity  to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

But we begin with a short video in which I speak with Dr. Myron Floyd, Dean of the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University. Dr. Floyd is a leader in conservation and one of his areas of expertise is expanding the access to the environment for Black Americans.

What President Ford said in general is surely true of conservation and environmental areas in particular.  The accomplishments of Black Americans are poorly represented in the history of conservation.  And, I must admit, that is also true about this calendar of conservation history.  Despite my efforts to feature diversity in this calendar, I’ve still fallen woefully short of giving due honor to all those Black Americans who have contributed so meaningfully to our global journey towards sustainability. 

But rather than dwelling on that, let’s get started and then keep going, recognizing individual African-Americans, groups and actions that have contributed so much.  Here are several whose biographies appear here.

Lisa Jackson

Lisa Perez Jackson was the first African-American EPA Administrator when appointed by President Obama in 2009.  A chemical engineer by training, she spent her early career working as a staff engineer for EPA and then as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.  She now directs the environmental efforts for the Apple Corporation. (learn more about Lisa Jackson here)

Going back over a century, Charles Young was the first African-American superintendent of a U.S. national park.  In 1903, Young, an army major, was assigned to oversee Sequoia and General Grant National Parks.  He set the standard for energetic leadership as he and his squadron of Buffalo Soldiers built many miles of roads and trails, stopped poaching and illegal grazing and protected the world’s largest trees from over-visitation. (learn more about him here)

Robert Bullard (photo by David Brenner)

Dr. Robert Bullard is known as the “father of environmental justice.”  In his early years as a professor at Texas Southern University in Houston, he documented the reality that landfills, high-polluting industries and other toxic sites were typically built in minority communities.  His work established the environmental justice as a substantive field of research and advocacy. (learn more about him here)

Just type “the beach lady” into your web browser to find another unique and important African-American environmental standout.  MaVynee Betsch was once a famous opera singer, especially renowned in Europe.  Later in life she returned to her home near Jacksonville, Florida and began her efforts to preserve American Beach, once the most popular beach destination on the East Coast for African-American vacationers.  Because of her actions, part of the beach is now in the national park system. (learn more about her here)

These are just a few of the Black heroes in the conservation movement.  There are many, many more who deserve to be recognized and celebrated, both in Black History Month and on every day of the year. And so I’ll keep looking for, finding and highlighting their accomplishments.  I hope you will, too.

Michael Regan, EPA Administrator, Born (1976)

For the second time, an African American is leading the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The first African American Administrator of the EPA was Lisa Jackson, who served under President Obama (learn more about her here).  The second, and current, Administrator is Michael Regan.

Michael S. Regan was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on August 6, 1976.  His mother was a nurse and his father, a Vietnam veteran, spent a career in the North Carolina National Guard and also served as an agricultural extension agent.  Regan grew up hunting and fishing with his father and grandfather, experiences that gave him the impetus for a career as an environmentalist.

Michael s. Regan (photo by EPA)

He graduated with a B.S. in 1998 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a major in earth and environmental science.  He immediately went to work for the EPA in North Carolina, serving for a decade and rising to lead programs on air pollution reduction and energy efficiency.  He went on to work for the Environmental Defense Fund from 2008 to 2013.  He eventually became the Associate Vice President of U.S. Climate and Energy for the EDF.  He left there and opened his own consulting firm.  While working, he earned a Master of Public Administration from George Washington University.

In 2017, he was appointed Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.  While secretary, he negotiated several high-profile pollution cases, including a settlement with Duke Energy to remediate coal-ash wastes at a cost to the company of more than $1 billion.  He also created an Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory board to address long-standing issues related to environment blight in African American communities.

Regan left his position as secretary in 2021 to become EPA Administrator under President Biden.  He was approved by the U.S. Senate 66-34, the bi-partisan endorsement fostered by North Carolina’s two Republican senators.

References:

Influencewatch.  Michael S. Regan.  Available at:  https://www.influencewatch.org/person/michael-s-regan/. Accessed January 19, 2023.

North Carolina Department f Environmental Quality.  Michael S. Regan.  Available at:  https://deq.nc.gov/about/leadership/michael-s-regan. Accessed January 19, 2023.

US Environmental Protection Agency.  EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.  Available at:  https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-administrator.  Accessed January 19, 2023.

World Pangolin Day

It was the second day of our Tanzanian wildlife safari when our grandson ran into our tent, excited and out of breath.  “They’ve seen a pangolin.  Let’s go!”  We piled into our safari vehicles and made a mad dash into the bush.  Soon, we were at a site where two game wardens waited.  They pointed to a pangolin waddling slowly along the ground.  They were beaming, and we were astonished at our luck.  Seeing a pangolin is like winning the lottery.

Pangolin in Tanzania (photo by Larry Nielsen)

The pangolin, actually the eight species of pangolin found in Asia and Africa, is among the most endangered species in the world that you’ve probably never heard of.  According to the IUCN, all species are at least vulnerable, and most are endangered or critically endangered.  

Pangolins are small mammals, usually a foot or two long and weighing a few pounds, covered over their entire body with thick scales made of keratin (like fingernails).  Also called scaly anteaters, pangolins move slowly.  Their defense mechanism is to roll into a tight round ball, their sharp scales deterring all their natural predators.  They feed on ants and termites, using their long front claws to tear apart insect nests and termite mounds, then using their long, sticky tongues to lap up the exposed six-legged morsels.

A pangolin rolled into a ball for protection (photo by flowcomm)

They are protected from natural predators by rolling up and playing dead, but not from humans.  The various species are endangered because individual pangolins are so easily captured by humans.  And the over-exploitation is severe, with several species having been reduced in abundance by half in recent years.  Only about 50,000 individuals of all species combined live in Asia and Africa in total.  According to several sources, pangolins are the most illegally trafficked wildlife in the world.

And why?  Two reasons—tradition and greed.  First, traditional Chinese medicine considers the scales to have medicinal qualities, but those qualities, like so much of Chinese traditional medicine that utilizes animal parts, have no basis in fact.  Using them as medicine is like chewing your fingernails to get over cancer.  Second, some Asian cuisines consider pangolin meat a delicacy, served in the most exclusive and expensive restaurants.  To satisfy these two demands, poachers and smugglers have heavily exploited pangolins, first targeting populations in Asia and more recently in Africa.  And let’s not be complacent in the U.S.  Customs officials continue to intercept smuggled pangolin products coming into the U.S., several thousand cases per year.

The pangolin’s long, sticky tongue allows it to capture ants and termites efficiently (photo by Larry Nielsen)

The plight of pangolins has recently begun to get more attention, perhaps because of the work of one Rhishja Cota, an advocate for stopping the illegal wildlife trade.  She began World Pangolin Day in 2012, held on the third Saturday in February (the 18th in 2023).  Years ago, when I asked people if they ever heard of pangolins, the usual answer was “no.”  Today, however, a larger percentage is answering “yes.”  And then condemning what has been happening to these strange and vulnerable creatures.

May the fame of pangolins continue to grow around the world—and their fate change from endangered to beloved.

References:

Annamiticus.  Our Story.  Available at:  https://annamiticus.com/about-us/our-story/. Accessed January 18, 2023.

Center for Biological Diversity.  Pangolins.  Available at:  https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/pangolin/index.html. Accessed January 18, 2023.

Center for Biological Diversity.  2020.  U.S. Agrees to Decide Pangolin Protections.  Available at:  https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/us-agrees-decide-pangolin-protections-2020-08-18/. Accessed January 18, 2023.

Cota, Rhishja.  World Pangolin Day.  Available at:  https://www.pangolins.org/author/rhishja/. Accessed January 18, 2023.

IUCN.  Pangolin.  International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Red List.  Available at:  https://www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=pangolin&searchType=species. Accessed January 18, 2023.

This Month in Conservation

March 1
Yellowstone National Park Established (1872)
March 2
Theodore Geisel, or Dr. Seuss, Born (1904)
March 3
World Wildlife Day and Creation of CITES (1973)
March 3
Isle Royale National Park Authorized (1931)
March 4
Hot Springs National Park Established (1921)
March 5
Lynn Margulis, Evolutionary Biologist, Born (1938)
March 6
Martha Burton Williamson, Pioneering Malacologist, Born (1843)
March 7
Luther Burbank Born (1849)
March 8
Everett Horton Patents the Telescoping Fishing Rod (1887)
March 9
The Turbot War Begins (1995)
March 10
Cape Lookout National Seashore Established (1966)
March 11
Save the Redwoods League Founded (1918)
March 12
Girl Scouts Founded (1912)
March 12
Charles Young, First African American National Park Superintendent, Born (1864)
March 13
National Elephant Day, Thailand
March 14
First National Wildlife Refuge Created (1903)
March 15
Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Born (1874)
March 16
Amoco Cadiz Runs Aground (1978)
March 17
St. Patrick and Ireland’s Snakes
March 18
Nation’s First Wildlife Refuge Created (1870)
March 19
When the Swallows Return to Capistrano
March 20
“Our Common Future” Published (1987)
March 21
International Day of Forests
March 22
World Water Day
March 23
Sitka National Historical Park Created (1910)
March 24
John Wesley Powell, Western Explorer, Born (1834)
March 25
Norman Borlaug, Father of the Green Revolution, Born (1914)
March 26
Marjorie Harris Carr, Pioneering Florida Conservationist, Born (1915)
March 26
Kruger National Park Established (1898)
March 27
Trans-Alaska Pipeline Begun (1975)
March 28
Joseph Bazalgette, London’s Sewer King, Born (1819)
March 29
Niagara Falls Stops Flowing (1848)
March 30
The United States Buys Alaska (1867)
March 31
Al Gore, Environmental Activist and U.S. Vice President, Born (1948)
January February March April May June July August September October November December