Lisa Busch in March received the environment award in the Volvo for Life competition for her work to mend rifts between environmentalists and former pulp mill workers in Sitka, Alaska. She credits her reporting skills for her success in starting Sitka Trail Works, an organization that gives former mill workers new jobs on trail building crews. She’s now president of the organization, which has built over $2 million worth of trails. Details of her work are published online at:
http://www.volvoforlifeawards.com/cgi-bin/iowa/english/heros/hero2004/5380.html.
Carie Call, who lives on Pine Island off Florida’s central west coast, has taken a position as an environmental planner with the Lee County Department of Environmental Sciences. After 20 years in journalism, she says, “I wanted to do more to help instead of just writing about other people helping, and telling other people what they should be doing.” She and her husband, Barry, are still wrangling with banks and insurance companies to get funds to repair the extensive damage to their home sustained during Florida’s brutal 2004 hurricane season. The island was battered by four separate storms. They’ve made progress with helping to restore some of the island’s lush flora, however, taking advantage of fine spring weather to plant lavender, geraniums, passion flowers, and mango, avocado, bottle brush and live oak trees. Contact Carie at cobenchain@comcast.net.
John Flesher just had an article published in a Michigan regional magazine on the theme of environment and religion, a subject he pursued during his fellowship year. Last fall he also wrote a series of articles for the Associated Press on water use in the Great Lakes region, including whether Great Lakes water could ever be diverted to the West.
Dan Grossman won the Media Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and first prize in the in-depth radio reporting category in the Society of Environmental Journalist’s Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment competition. Both awards were for “The Penguin Barometer,” a Radio Netherlands documentary on the impact of climate change on ecosystems. Also check out his most recent endeavor, a multi-media website on people and nature in Madagascar, at www.wbur.org/special/madagascar.
Todd Hartman and Rocky Mountain News colleague Jerd Smith published a 5-part series called "The Last Drop," which detailed the damage Colorado's thirsty Front Range is causing to mountain streams on the Western Slope. The project won a first place award from the American Planning Association and was co-winner of the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy award in the print media category.
John Kotlowski has turned his camera towards the National Parks, seeking to document Americans' relationship with their parks. He writes: “I am looking for the people in these photographs, or signs of them—the parking lots, the cars, the trash, the cameras, the crowds, the umbrellas, and so on." In recent months, his project has taken him to Arches National Park, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky Mountains. John is also working on a project in Poland, where he is using photography, film and video to document traditional farming villages and the residents' way of life, which persists against the backdrop of corporate farming.
Friday, April 1, 2005
Alumni Updates
Chelsey Baker-Hauck ('00) is still working as director of the periodicals department at the University of Denver and managing editor of the University of Denver Magazine. Although she mostly writed about science and research for the magainze, she's also been able to dabble in other topics, from snowboarding to classical music. Right now she's working on a feature article about the role of atmospheric aerosols in climate change.
Josh Blumenfeld ('03) took a giant leap north from Wichita Falls, Texas, to start a new job as meteorologist for WKBT, the CBS affiliate in La Crosse, Wisc. "I'm definitely glad to be moving on in my career!" he says.
Josh Blumenfeld ('03) took a giant leap north from Wichita Falls, Texas, to start a new job as meteorologist for WKBT, the CBS affiliate in La Crosse, Wisc. "I'm definitely glad to be moving on in my career!" he says.
Meet the 2005-06 Ted Scripps Fellows
Five journalists have been selected as 2005-06 Ted Scripps Fellows in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The fellowships are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
The new fellows include:
Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.
The fellowships are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
The new fellows include:
- Bebe Crouse, environment editor for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. She oversees NPR's environmental and general news coverage in 12 western states and edits staff and freelance environment stories from other regions. Crouse's career includes five years at CBS News where she wrote daily news analysis and commentary for Dan Rather and produced other feature and live segments for the network. She also spent three years as a Mexico City-based independent producer and reporter. Among her journalism honors are the 2003 National Headliner Award for Investigative Reporting for a team-produced look at malfeasance within the U.S. Border Patrol and the 2001 Peabody Award for NPR's team coverage of 9/11. Crouse earned a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and natural science from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a master's certificate in international journalism from the University of Southern California/El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. Her fellowship project involves developing a feasibility plan and outline for a new public radio program focused on environmental issues.
- Don Hopey is an environment reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His writing displays a mix of local, state and national investigative stories and issue-oriented outdoor features. He has produced articles about pollution caused by the nation's hazardous waste incinerators, shortcomings in Pennsylvania's regulation of longwall coal mining, and an 80-mile canoe trip through the Wild and Scenic sections of the Allegheny River. Hopey has traveled to Central Europe to research and report about a range of environmental problems. His work has been recognized by a number of local and regional awards. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and studied law at Duquesne University and journalism at Pennsylvania State University. Hopey's independent project will focus on the health and environmental effects of coal-burning power plants.
- Jeff Johnson is senior editor for Chemical and Engineering News in Washington, D.C. He covers energy, the environment, science policy, chemical accidents and economics. Topics he has written about include air emissions and the Clean Air Act, mercury pollution, renewable energy from the ocean, cleanups at former Department of Energy nuclear weapons plants and "clean coal." Previously, Johnson worked for Environmental Science & Technology, a monthly environmental science magazine, and the Daily Environment Reporter, a Bureau of National Affairs publication where he covered the environmental activities of Congress. He earned a BS in industrial engineering at California State Polytechnic University and a master's in journalism at the University of Oregon. He intends to write a series of articles on energy and the environment for his fellowship project.
- Greg Stahl is the senior reporter at the Idaho Mountain Express in Ketchum, Idaho. Working in rural Idaho, Stahl has covered public land issues such as user conflicts between backcountry skiers and snowmobilers, resource issues such as forest health, and endangered species issues including gray wolf reintroduction. His co-authored series examining a wilderness area designation for the state's Boulder and White Cloud mountains won the 2004 National Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest in the investigative reporting category. In addition to reporting, Stahl coordinates teams of reporters and photographers working on in-depth articles for the twice-weekly newspaper. Previously, his freelance articles ran in publications such as High Country News and Sun Valley Art magazine. He earned a bachelor's degree in English at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo. His professional project will examine water shortage issues and legislative action involving the Snake River and Snake Plain Aquifer.
- Andrea Welsh is a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She writes about trends in Brazil's beverage, auto, mining, and steel sectors. Welsh led the way in writing about Brazil's appeal as a global steel-making center and in covering the country's beer sector during the takeover of a local brewer by Belgium's Interbrew. She previously worked as Latin America reporter for Petroleum Argus, a Houston-based trade publication and covered the oil workers' strikes in Venezuela and the coup against President Hugo Chavez. Prior to that she served as correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Santiago, Chile and wrote about everything from capital market reforms to trade talks with the United States. Welsh holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Temple University in Philadelphia and a master's in Latin American studies and communications from the University of Texas at Austin. Her professional project will focus on small-scale sustainable economic projects in the Amazon.
Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.
U.S. Environmental Journalism in Critical Condition, Say World Affairs Panelists
By Wendy Worrall Redal
Environmental journalism may be an endangered species, according a panel of media observers at the 57th annual Conference on World Affairs held at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus.
"This Just In: The Environment is Out" was the title of the April 7, 2005, session that featured CNN's Peter Dykstra, executive producer for science, technology, space, environment and weather; Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, an international research organization whose focus is an environmentally sustainable future; Marley Shebala, senior reporter for the Navajo Times; and Harvey Wasserman, an environmental activist and senior editor of Free Press Online.
Panelists agreed the session's provocative title was largely not apt in much of the world, but in the U.S., coverage of the environment is threatened as news becomes increasingly commercialized, often nudging environmental stories to the margins or eliminating them altogether.
A case in point, Dykstra said, is CNN's decision to cancel its science, technology and environment show as of May 1, accompanied by a raft of layoffs. Dykstra's own litany of titles is further evidence: they are the result of four other executive producers being laid off. "I said to my bosses, 'You guys want me to be in charge of everything you don't care about?'" he quipped.
What's really needed to jump-start environmental coverage, according to Dykstra, is a major environmental disaster with a visible human and economic toll. Unlike the late 1960s, when Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught fire as its chemical-laced waters ignited, when the stacks of coal-fired power plants poured inky pollutants into the sky, when Pittsburgh businessmen took an extra white shirt to work, there have been "no dramatic disasters – by TV standards – in the last 15 years," said Dykstra, not since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound, spreading an oil slick across the pristine wilderness.
And without striking visuals, it's hard to get the public to pay attention, Dykstra observed.
Perceptible environmental problems galvanized public opinion several decades ago, leading to grassroots activism, the nation's first Earth Day, and Richard Nixon's signing of "some of the most inclusive and progressive environmental legislation," Dykstra recounted, citing the passage in the late 1960s and early 1970s of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The movement became complacent with success but was re-engaged in the 1980s with the appointment of James Watt as Ronald Reagan's Interior Secretary, as well as events like the disasters at Bhopal and Chernobyl, the ozone hole and acid rain, all of which "were key by the end of the 1980s," Dykstra said.
The 1990 Earth Day was a major television event, he recalled, and membership in environmental organizations had grown dramatically in the prior decade. "Bush I at least had to pay lip service" to the environment as a result.
But today's environmental crises are different, and that's a problem when it comes to news coverage.
"There are less telegenic but potentially more lethal events taking place" now, such as climate change, Dykstra explained. But since you can't see it, "TV pays no mind…The view from the top in my business is that everything's fine." Alongside a Congress that is "less concerned with environmental values," there is little incentive for news organizations to pursue environmental stories.
And while "TV is lashed to the spectacular visual," Dykstra said, TV stories are getting ever shorter, making it next to impossible to give environmental topics the coverage they deserve. Since the average CNN story is just 55 seconds, he said, the network is unlikely to do a story on the real costs of energy, for example.
He also said "consolidation of media is a real problem." U.S. policy has helped create enormous corporations whose leadership is "generally conservative," Dykstra said, citing News Corporation head Rupert Murdoch, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons as "heavy Republican contributors."
That political persuasion at the helm "shows itself in our failure to cover the environment responsibly," Dykstra said. "Gatekeepers at the top are personally unfamiliar with environmental issues" and thus vulnerable to influence from industry and conservative think tanks. They're more likely to believe that climate change is a hoax, he said.
The media also "increasingly focus on the cult of personality." And there is no charismatic figure in the environmental movement to focus on, like Martin Luther King, Jr. was for the Civil Rights movement, he said.
What's gotten lost is the public-service ethos, according to Dykstra, at the expense of making more money. "TV is responding to the standard of entertainment, not the standard of journalism."
"On a global basis," however, "the environment is definitely not out," according to Worldwatch president Chris Flavin. "Environmentalism is growing worldwide," especially in Europe, he said, and most nations' news organizations are striving to cover it. Unlike the current U.S. administration, European ministers "all understand the centrality of environmental issues."
While the U.S. "led the wave of modern environmentalism in the 1970s," it is now one of very few countries without a full cabinet-level department of the environment, Flavin said.
Even China is surpassing the U.S. in environmental awareness, he said. "Seven or eight years ago it was illegal to have an environmental organization in China. Now there are more than 2,000 environmentally related NGOs in China." And most General Motors cars can't be sold in China today because they would be illegal, he added, explaining that China now has tougher fuel-economy standards than the U.S.
Environmentalism is "one of the fastest-growing areas of civil society in the world," said Flavin. "The U.S. is out of step with the rest of the world."
Yet if you ask individuals in the U.S. whether they care about the environment, they say they do, according to Flavin. Citing a recent poll, he said more than half of Americans call themselves environmentalists, and "a majority believes that global climate change is a significant threat."
Yet "clearly in terms of the political fight, environmentalists are not doing all that well in the U.S. today," said Flavin.
Why? His assessment mirrored some of Dykstra's observations. "The problems that got the environmental movement going were really in your face. Rivers were burning, the air was dark, garbage was piling up." Yet many problems today remain out of sight, he said, "mainly affecting minority and poor communities with little political power."
Other problems are big in scale and happening as part of a process, not exactly a draw for the news media's bias toward concrete detail. Flavin cited the loss of biological diversity, the condition of the oceans and global climate change which are "long-term problems unfolding gradually over a period of time and are not that visible to the public."
Such complex problems "feel abstract but clearly have major consequences," Flavin said.
"We're like a frog in water that's being slowly heated up. It will jump out of boiling water, but dies when it's gradually warmed," he warned. "If climate change suddenly erupted the way it was depicted in the film The Day After Tomorrow, people would act."
Compounding the dilemma, and in stark contrast to Nixon, Flavin said, is the "anti-environment Republican president we have today."
Conservative economic and ideological forces have become much more organized against the environment, according to Flavin. He cited examples such as Exxon getting government scientists fired when their findings shed negative light on the company, or the ability of industry to get its people appointed to government oversight positions.
Flavin also pointed a finger at the power of right-wing think tanks to influence media coverage of the environment.
"They've become very successful in providing what they call facts and information…They feed ammunition to Rush Limbaugh and his compatriots, they write speeches for Representatives on Capitol Hill…[It's] a much more organized, well-prepared opposition we have today.
"They're not winning the battle for hearts and minds, but they are winning the political war," Flavin claimed.
Harvey Wasserman concurred. "The sky, if not falling, is certainly heating up…We're in territory now where there's no turning back. We must err on the side of caution," he urged, especially with regard to climate change.
For Marley Shebala's people, the Dine, or Navajo, of Arizona and New Mexico, that's not news. "The people have always understood that you take care of Mother Earth, she takes care of you." But tribal elders have been convening recently to discuss unusual environmental events, such as the season's heaviest snow two weeks earlier, an anomaly that interfered with the tribe's centuries-old ceremonial schedule. They are concerned about the changes taking place, and she, as a reporter, has a duty to explain what is happening.
"As journalists, we are looked at by our people as storytellers," Shebala said.
If environmental stories are not being told, or are being told inaccurately or ineffectively, the public is not being served – on this the panelists agreed.
Far from conceding defeat, however, Flavin offered a set of guidelines to improve media coverage of the environment and garner more attention for environmental issues:
Wasserman advised linking the environment to the economy as the most effective way to galvanize the public's interest.
What might have happened, he asked, had the U.S. followed Denmark's lead in developing wind power in the 1990s, a decision that made the Danes a wealthy country now that wind energy is a multi-billion dollar industry? Or if U.S. automakers had developed the hybrid vehicle before the Japanese? "Ford did not produce the Prius," and that's as much an economic story as an environmental one, said Wasserman.
Journalists could also cover the hidden health care costs of oil- and gas-based energy production, noting that solar and wind energy are "way ahead in true cost accounting" when you factor in effects of air pollution such as asthma, Wasserman said.
The challenge to improve the public's understanding of complex environmental issues doesn't rest solely on the news media, though. Citizens, too, have a role to play, the panelists contended.
If people want better environmental news, they need to "look for reporting that shows as many voices as possible," Shebala said. In the Native world, that includes "even the voice of the animals."
The tendency of audiences, though, is to gravitate toward coverage that reflects what they already believe, Dykstra noted. It's a growing problem with the rise of blogs and ever more niche-oriented media where even news is now likely to be colored by a self-conscious ideological stripe, as on the Fox network.
Citizens should consult more independent news sources, said Shebala, where journalistic values prevail over a purely business approach. Independent media are able to cover issues that other papers, stifled by corporate pressure, won't.
But corporate media aren't impervious to change, Dykstra suggested. "The media business is incredibly sensitive to criticism." If you don't like what's on offer, you have to "push back from the other direction," he said, citing groups like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (www.fair.org) as an organized example of such an effort.
Environmental journalism may be an endangered species, according a panel of media observers at the 57th annual Conference on World Affairs held at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus.
"This Just In: The Environment is Out" was the title of the April 7, 2005, session that featured CNN's Peter Dykstra, executive producer for science, technology, space, environment and weather; Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, an international research organization whose focus is an environmentally sustainable future; Marley Shebala, senior reporter for the Navajo Times; and Harvey Wasserman, an environmental activist and senior editor of Free Press Online.
Panelists agreed the session's provocative title was largely not apt in much of the world, but in the U.S., coverage of the environment is threatened as news becomes increasingly commercialized, often nudging environmental stories to the margins or eliminating them altogether.
A case in point, Dykstra said, is CNN's decision to cancel its science, technology and environment show as of May 1, accompanied by a raft of layoffs. Dykstra's own litany of titles is further evidence: they are the result of four other executive producers being laid off. "I said to my bosses, 'You guys want me to be in charge of everything you don't care about?'" he quipped.
What's really needed to jump-start environmental coverage, according to Dykstra, is a major environmental disaster with a visible human and economic toll. Unlike the late 1960s, when Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught fire as its chemical-laced waters ignited, when the stacks of coal-fired power plants poured inky pollutants into the sky, when Pittsburgh businessmen took an extra white shirt to work, there have been "no dramatic disasters – by TV standards – in the last 15 years," said Dykstra, not since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound, spreading an oil slick across the pristine wilderness.
And without striking visuals, it's hard to get the public to pay attention, Dykstra observed.
Perceptible environmental problems galvanized public opinion several decades ago, leading to grassroots activism, the nation's first Earth Day, and Richard Nixon's signing of "some of the most inclusive and progressive environmental legislation," Dykstra recounted, citing the passage in the late 1960s and early 1970s of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The movement became complacent with success but was re-engaged in the 1980s with the appointment of James Watt as Ronald Reagan's Interior Secretary, as well as events like the disasters at Bhopal and Chernobyl, the ozone hole and acid rain, all of which "were key by the end of the 1980s," Dykstra said.
The 1990 Earth Day was a major television event, he recalled, and membership in environmental organizations had grown dramatically in the prior decade. "Bush I at least had to pay lip service" to the environment as a result.
But today's environmental crises are different, and that's a problem when it comes to news coverage.
"There are less telegenic but potentially more lethal events taking place" now, such as climate change, Dykstra explained. But since you can't see it, "TV pays no mind…The view from the top in my business is that everything's fine." Alongside a Congress that is "less concerned with environmental values," there is little incentive for news organizations to pursue environmental stories.
And while "TV is lashed to the spectacular visual," Dykstra said, TV stories are getting ever shorter, making it next to impossible to give environmental topics the coverage they deserve. Since the average CNN story is just 55 seconds, he said, the network is unlikely to do a story on the real costs of energy, for example.
He also said "consolidation of media is a real problem." U.S. policy has helped create enormous corporations whose leadership is "generally conservative," Dykstra said, citing News Corporation head Rupert Murdoch, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons as "heavy Republican contributors."
That political persuasion at the helm "shows itself in our failure to cover the environment responsibly," Dykstra said. "Gatekeepers at the top are personally unfamiliar with environmental issues" and thus vulnerable to influence from industry and conservative think tanks. They're more likely to believe that climate change is a hoax, he said.
The media also "increasingly focus on the cult of personality." And there is no charismatic figure in the environmental movement to focus on, like Martin Luther King, Jr. was for the Civil Rights movement, he said.
What's gotten lost is the public-service ethos, according to Dykstra, at the expense of making more money. "TV is responding to the standard of entertainment, not the standard of journalism."
"On a global basis," however, "the environment is definitely not out," according to Worldwatch president Chris Flavin. "Environmentalism is growing worldwide," especially in Europe, he said, and most nations' news organizations are striving to cover it. Unlike the current U.S. administration, European ministers "all understand the centrality of environmental issues."
While the U.S. "led the wave of modern environmentalism in the 1970s," it is now one of very few countries without a full cabinet-level department of the environment, Flavin said.
Even China is surpassing the U.S. in environmental awareness, he said. "Seven or eight years ago it was illegal to have an environmental organization in China. Now there are more than 2,000 environmentally related NGOs in China." And most General Motors cars can't be sold in China today because they would be illegal, he added, explaining that China now has tougher fuel-economy standards than the U.S.
Environmentalism is "one of the fastest-growing areas of civil society in the world," said Flavin. "The U.S. is out of step with the rest of the world."
Yet if you ask individuals in the U.S. whether they care about the environment, they say they do, according to Flavin. Citing a recent poll, he said more than half of Americans call themselves environmentalists, and "a majority believes that global climate change is a significant threat."
Yet "clearly in terms of the political fight, environmentalists are not doing all that well in the U.S. today," said Flavin.
Why? His assessment mirrored some of Dykstra's observations. "The problems that got the environmental movement going were really in your face. Rivers were burning, the air was dark, garbage was piling up." Yet many problems today remain out of sight, he said, "mainly affecting minority and poor communities with little political power."
Other problems are big in scale and happening as part of a process, not exactly a draw for the news media's bias toward concrete detail. Flavin cited the loss of biological diversity, the condition of the oceans and global climate change which are "long-term problems unfolding gradually over a period of time and are not that visible to the public."
Such complex problems "feel abstract but clearly have major consequences," Flavin said.
"We're like a frog in water that's being slowly heated up. It will jump out of boiling water, but dies when it's gradually warmed," he warned. "If climate change suddenly erupted the way it was depicted in the film The Day After Tomorrow, people would act."
Compounding the dilemma, and in stark contrast to Nixon, Flavin said, is the "anti-environment Republican president we have today."
Conservative economic and ideological forces have become much more organized against the environment, according to Flavin. He cited examples such as Exxon getting government scientists fired when their findings shed negative light on the company, or the ability of industry to get its people appointed to government oversight positions.
Flavin also pointed a finger at the power of right-wing think tanks to influence media coverage of the environment.
"They've become very successful in providing what they call facts and information…They feed ammunition to Rush Limbaugh and his compatriots, they write speeches for Representatives on Capitol Hill…[It's] a much more organized, well-prepared opposition we have today.
"They're not winning the battle for hearts and minds, but they are winning the political war," Flavin claimed.
Harvey Wasserman concurred. "The sky, if not falling, is certainly heating up…We're in territory now where there's no turning back. We must err on the side of caution," he urged, especially with regard to climate change.
For Marley Shebala's people, the Dine, or Navajo, of Arizona and New Mexico, that's not news. "The people have always understood that you take care of Mother Earth, she takes care of you." But tribal elders have been convening recently to discuss unusual environmental events, such as the season's heaviest snow two weeks earlier, an anomaly that interfered with the tribe's centuries-old ceremonial schedule. They are concerned about the changes taking place, and she, as a reporter, has a duty to explain what is happening.
"As journalists, we are looked at by our people as storytellers," Shebala said.
If environmental stories are not being told, or are being told inaccurately or ineffectively, the public is not being served – on this the panelists agreed.
Far from conceding defeat, however, Flavin offered a set of guidelines to improve media coverage of the environment and garner more attention for environmental issues:
- "Don't marginalize issues as 'green.' Talk about the health of the public, the future of the economy. Keep stories mainstream. Don't let the opposition define 'environmentalist' as marginal."
- "Carry a positive message," Flavin said. Don't frame environmental stories so they're perceived as "all gloom and doom." "Fear and scaremongering do not work in the long run;" instead, focus on a "bright future," such as environmentally cleaner new jobs. "That's ultimately what motivates people," he said. "It's not that people don't care about the issues, it's that they feel it's become hopeless."
- "Talk directly about values. We can't leave values to the right wing and the fundamentalists." Flavin suggested focusing on respect for nature, the value of human health, the welfare of human societies and the world community as a whole, emphasizing a concern for future generations.
- "Welcome the religious community," Flavin encouraged, challenging stereotypes that Christians, even of a conservative stripe, are not concerned about the environment. "It's uplifting to see a significant portion of the evangelical community embracing stewardship of the planet," he said.
Wasserman advised linking the environment to the economy as the most effective way to galvanize the public's interest.
What might have happened, he asked, had the U.S. followed Denmark's lead in developing wind power in the 1990s, a decision that made the Danes a wealthy country now that wind energy is a multi-billion dollar industry? Or if U.S. automakers had developed the hybrid vehicle before the Japanese? "Ford did not produce the Prius," and that's as much an economic story as an environmental one, said Wasserman.
Journalists could also cover the hidden health care costs of oil- and gas-based energy production, noting that solar and wind energy are "way ahead in true cost accounting" when you factor in effects of air pollution such as asthma, Wasserman said.
The challenge to improve the public's understanding of complex environmental issues doesn't rest solely on the news media, though. Citizens, too, have a role to play, the panelists contended.
If people want better environmental news, they need to "look for reporting that shows as many voices as possible," Shebala said. In the Native world, that includes "even the voice of the animals."
The tendency of audiences, though, is to gravitate toward coverage that reflects what they already believe, Dykstra noted. It's a growing problem with the rise of blogs and ever more niche-oriented media where even news is now likely to be colored by a self-conscious ideological stripe, as on the Fox network.
Citizens should consult more independent news sources, said Shebala, where journalistic values prevail over a purely business approach. Independent media are able to cover issues that other papers, stifled by corporate pressure, won't.
But corporate media aren't impervious to change, Dykstra suggested. "The media business is incredibly sensitive to criticism." If you don't like what's on offer, you have to "push back from the other direction," he said, citing groups like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (www.fair.org) as an organized example of such an effort.
Journey into the Earth: Scripps Fellows Tour World's Largest Molybdenum Mine
By Wendy Worrall Redal
More than a half-mile below the surface of Red Mountain in the Colorado Rockies, it's a typical workday for Justin Whetton. He spends most of his 12-hour shift operating a gigantic loader inside a dark tunnel, scooping over 300 buckets of rock a day, hauling it from one shaft and dumping it down another where it falls into huge trucks that take it to a powerful underground crusher.
Whetton makes around $20 an hour for his labor, but each scoop of ore, weighing 10 or 11 tons, is worth $1,000. The value comes from a metal inside the rock, called molybdenum. About 44 lbs. of "moly," as it's known in the industry, is contained in each bucket Whetton moves at the Henderson Mine.
The mine, located below Berthoud Pass near Empire, Colo., is the largest primary molybdenum source in the world. Its owner, Climax Molybdenum, is a subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Corporation, the world's second-largest producer of molybdenum and copper after Codelco, Chile's state-owned mining company. Last year Phelps Dodge produced about 9 percent of the world's moly supply, some 28 million pounds, most of it coming out of Henderson's vast lode.
The Ted Scripps Fellows got a close-up look at a major underground mining operation when they visited Henderson on April 22. Donning hard hats, headlamps, safety goggles and a self-rescuing device designed to provide breathable air in the event of a mine emergency, the fellows and CEJ staff descended some 3,000 feet in a shaft elevator into the bowels of Red Mountain.
Here, as if inside a giant subterranean maze, they boarded tractors that negotiated a warren of tunnels to give them an overview of some of the world's most sophisticated hard-rock mining operations. In the process, they learned a lot about a metal called moly.
While many people have never heard of molybdenum, let alone tried to pronounce it, they have almost certainly benefited from its use. Chemical-grade moly, the pure form mined and milled at Henderson, is used for many industrial purposes. It makes pipelines more corrosion-resistant, acts as a smoke retardant for plastics, and is used in CO2 detectors, fluorescent light bulb tubes, computer heat sinks, and in the orange paint pigment bought by the U.S. Navy.
However high-grade moly is best known as a lubricant. It's used in the manufacture of lower-friction piston rings in the automotive industry, as a spray for bicycle chains, and is added to greases and oils. In Europe, where automobile oil has a higher moly content, you only need to change your car's oil every 15,000 miles, Mine Manager Kurt Keskimaki said, adding that such oil is expected before long in the U.S.
Moly is also used as a catalyst for getting rid of sulfur in petroleum refining, an important function in meeting clean-air standards. In fact, about half of the moly mined at Henderson goes to Houston where it's processed by Criterion, a division of Shell, which is a major buyer.
Production at Henderson began in 1976, following the ore body discovery in 1964. Initially found by Uranium Research and Development, or URAD, who thought it was uranium ore, it turned out to be molybdenum, an enormous deposit. Geologically, it was the perfect set of circumstances, 13 different mineralizing events that kept enriching the deposit with more layers of the purest moly in the world.
It's hard to get a handle on just how much of the mineral makes up the core of Red Mountain, but Keskimaki has the figures: "We sit on 166 million tons of moly ore, 600 million pounds of recoverable moly."
Shaft sinking commenced in 1968. Initial removal began at the 8,100-foot level, but current extraction is now at 7,210 feet. A quarter-million feet of long hole are drilled each year, using more than a million pounds of explosives. Once the ore is crushed at the bottom level of the mine, it's sent on a conveyor belt one mile up to the surface, then 14 miles further on the belt to the mill site across the mountains in the Williams Fork Valley.
Fellows and CEJ staffers marveled at the complex operation as they stood above the gyrating crusher on the mine floor, watching as 80-ton haul trucks, the biggest underground trucks in the world, dumped their load of rock into the crusher's bowl. Like a giant mortar and pestle, the device crunched the ore chunks into pieces of rock 4-8 inches in diameter, small enough to load onto the conveyor belt that whisks the ore over to the mill at about 50 mph. The process was noisy enough that the visitors were glad to have the earplugs provided, and at times the face masks necessary to cut the dust and exhaust that are inescapable amid such operations, despite mitigation efforts.
Mine ventilation is just one aspect of the Climax company's commitment to worker safety. "We move more tons of air in a day than tons of rock," said Keskimaki. That's a lot of air, since 21,300 tons of material are milled daily at Henderson.
Such complex ventilation systems are part of the reason why Henderson is Colorado's second biggest power user after Pueblo's steel mill. The mine and mill, which operate around the clock, use 47 megawatts a day for an average monthly energy bill of $1.5 million – less than half the steel mill's cost. Fellow Sam Eaton said he was "amazed at the amount of energy they use. It's mind-boggling."
The conveyor belts are also power-hungry components of the Henderson enterprise, using 11,000 hp engines to transport the ore uphill to the mill. There, it is processed by separating the moly from its granite casing. First, the host rock is ground down into particles as fine as beach sand. During the milling, water and reagents are added, the latter causing molybdenum particles to float when the slurry is mixed with air. The moly adheres to the bubbles, allowing the metal to be separated from its host. More grinding and flotation further refines the moly concentrate, which at this point resembles ultra-fine, powdery graphite, very shiny and dark gray. In its final form as it leaves the mill, the moly is concentrated to nearly 250 times what it was when it entered as incoming ore. The process doesn't end here, though: the concentrate is filtered, dried and packaged for shipment by truck to further processing plants in Iowa, England and the Netherlands.
What's left over are the slurry remains and ore tailings. These are transported to the 1,000-acre tailing area where the moly-free granite settles and the water goes through an extensive reclamation process to be reused in a closed system at the mill.
Fifteen miles away, the mine sits near the head of the Clear Creek watershed, a region of alpine meadows and crystalline streams. Dealing with industrial wastewater is thus Henderson's biggest environmental stewardship issue. Fellows got a close-up look at the company's state-of-the-art treatment plant built in 1997, which handles up to 1600 gallons per minute from the mine. A million gallons a day are pumped into the plant from underground.
Ridding the water supply of toxic levels of manganese and zinc is the primary goal of the treatment facility. Tony Lucero, Henderson's environmental coordinator, called this "the most prominent operation we deal with from an environmental standpoint."
Calcium oxide is used to raise the pH-level of the water to precipitate out the minerals, which are removed and trucked to the BFI landfill between Golden and Boulder. Sulfuric acid is then added to lower the pH before the water is discharged into Woods Creek.
The company has been so successful that a trout fishery thrives in the stream below the discharge site, and the city of Golden buys Henderson's reclaimed water for its drinking water supply.
Fellow Nadia White appreciated the chance to see Henderson's operations and environmental mitigation up close. "I always find it valuable to go to the site of large industrial activity to get a sense of the scope and the potential economic impact, and the economic contribution to a community."
Even moving millions of pounds of rock a day, Keskimaki estimates there are enough reserves still inside the Red Mountain lode – about 1.5 billion pounds -- to keep Henderson operating for 20 more years.
A building boom and demand for petroleum products in China is keeping current moly demand high, he said, as well as speculation that a parallel Alaska pipeline might be built if additional oil drilling is approved in the Arctic. But eventually the mine's rich reserves will be exhausted. When that happens, a major reclamation effort will be required on Henderson's 12,800-acre site.
Lucero said the most significant reclamation work will take place at the mill, where tailings will be removed and wetlands and dry islands created. The company is working already to thin scruffy forests near the mill where weak trees have succumbed to a pine bark beetle outbreak, leaving vast mountainsides of dead and dying trees.
As for the fate of the mine, it may have a sci-fi future. Keskimaki said Henderson is in the running to be a deep underground laboratory for nuclear physicists to study subatomic particles called neutrinos. Since cosmic rays above the Earth's surface can interfere with neutrino behavior, scientists need to observe them by blasting them at high speeds thousands of feet below ground, shielded by a deep rock overburden. Just thinking about it makes the moly mining process seem downright simplistic.
Keskimaki thinks the odds are good that Henderson could be selected, given its proximity to a major airport and the Denver metropolitan area. In the meantime, mining moly by the thousands of tons continues, out of view of the backcountry skiers and hikers and fishermen who frequent the high country above the mine's expansive underworld.
Check out these Web sites for more on the Henderson Mine, NSF plans to build a deep underground neutrino lab, and what neutrinos are and why scientists want to study them.
More than a half-mile below the surface of Red Mountain in the Colorado Rockies, it's a typical workday for Justin Whetton. He spends most of his 12-hour shift operating a gigantic loader inside a dark tunnel, scooping over 300 buckets of rock a day, hauling it from one shaft and dumping it down another where it falls into huge trucks that take it to a powerful underground crusher.
Whetton makes around $20 an hour for his labor, but each scoop of ore, weighing 10 or 11 tons, is worth $1,000. The value comes from a metal inside the rock, called molybdenum. About 44 lbs. of "moly," as it's known in the industry, is contained in each bucket Whetton moves at the Henderson Mine.
The mine, located below Berthoud Pass near Empire, Colo., is the largest primary molybdenum source in the world. Its owner, Climax Molybdenum, is a subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Corporation, the world's second-largest producer of molybdenum and copper after Codelco, Chile's state-owned mining company. Last year Phelps Dodge produced about 9 percent of the world's moly supply, some 28 million pounds, most of it coming out of Henderson's vast lode.
The Ted Scripps Fellows got a close-up look at a major underground mining operation when they visited Henderson on April 22. Donning hard hats, headlamps, safety goggles and a self-rescuing device designed to provide breathable air in the event of a mine emergency, the fellows and CEJ staff descended some 3,000 feet in a shaft elevator into the bowels of Red Mountain.
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| Ted Scripps Fellows deep inside Henderson Mine (Photo/Andrew Silva) |
Here, as if inside a giant subterranean maze, they boarded tractors that negotiated a warren of tunnels to give them an overview of some of the world's most sophisticated hard-rock mining operations. In the process, they learned a lot about a metal called moly.
While many people have never heard of molybdenum, let alone tried to pronounce it, they have almost certainly benefited from its use. Chemical-grade moly, the pure form mined and milled at Henderson, is used for many industrial purposes. It makes pipelines more corrosion-resistant, acts as a smoke retardant for plastics, and is used in CO2 detectors, fluorescent light bulb tubes, computer heat sinks, and in the orange paint pigment bought by the U.S. Navy.
However high-grade moly is best known as a lubricant. It's used in the manufacture of lower-friction piston rings in the automotive industry, as a spray for bicycle chains, and is added to greases and oils. In Europe, where automobile oil has a higher moly content, you only need to change your car's oil every 15,000 miles, Mine Manager Kurt Keskimaki said, adding that such oil is expected before long in the U.S.
 |
| Fellow Nadia White talks to Mine Manager Kurt Keskimaki (Photo/Andrew Silva) |
Moly is also used as a catalyst for getting rid of sulfur in petroleum refining, an important function in meeting clean-air standards. In fact, about half of the moly mined at Henderson goes to Houston where it's processed by Criterion, a division of Shell, which is a major buyer.
Production at Henderson began in 1976, following the ore body discovery in 1964. Initially found by Uranium Research and Development, or URAD, who thought it was uranium ore, it turned out to be molybdenum, an enormous deposit. Geologically, it was the perfect set of circumstances, 13 different mineralizing events that kept enriching the deposit with more layers of the purest moly in the world.
It's hard to get a handle on just how much of the mineral makes up the core of Red Mountain, but Keskimaki has the figures: "We sit on 166 million tons of moly ore, 600 million pounds of recoverable moly."
Shaft sinking commenced in 1968. Initial removal began at the 8,100-foot level, but current extraction is now at 7,210 feet. A quarter-million feet of long hole are drilled each year, using more than a million pounds of explosives. Once the ore is crushed at the bottom level of the mine, it's sent on a conveyor belt one mile up to the surface, then 14 miles further on the belt to the mill site across the mountains in the Williams Fork Valley.
Fellows and CEJ staffers marveled at the complex operation as they stood above the gyrating crusher on the mine floor, watching as 80-ton haul trucks, the biggest underground trucks in the world, dumped their load of rock into the crusher's bowl. Like a giant mortar and pestle, the device crunched the ore chunks into pieces of rock 4-8 inches in diameter, small enough to load onto the conveyor belt that whisks the ore over to the mill at about 50 mph. The process was noisy enough that the visitors were glad to have the earplugs provided, and at times the face masks necessary to cut the dust and exhaust that are inescapable amid such operations, despite mitigation efforts.
Mine ventilation is just one aspect of the Climax company's commitment to worker safety. "We move more tons of air in a day than tons of rock," said Keskimaki. That's a lot of air, since 21,300 tons of material are milled daily at Henderson.
Such complex ventilation systems are part of the reason why Henderson is Colorado's second biggest power user after Pueblo's steel mill. The mine and mill, which operate around the clock, use 47 megawatts a day for an average monthly energy bill of $1.5 million – less than half the steel mill's cost. Fellow Sam Eaton said he was "amazed at the amount of energy they use. It's mind-boggling."
 |
| Fellows "journey to the center of the Earth" (Photo/Andrew Silva) |
The conveyor belts are also power-hungry components of the Henderson enterprise, using 11,000 hp engines to transport the ore uphill to the mill. There, it is processed by separating the moly from its granite casing. First, the host rock is ground down into particles as fine as beach sand. During the milling, water and reagents are added, the latter causing molybdenum particles to float when the slurry is mixed with air. The moly adheres to the bubbles, allowing the metal to be separated from its host. More grinding and flotation further refines the moly concentrate, which at this point resembles ultra-fine, powdery graphite, very shiny and dark gray. In its final form as it leaves the mill, the moly is concentrated to nearly 250 times what it was when it entered as incoming ore. The process doesn't end here, though: the concentrate is filtered, dried and packaged for shipment by truck to further processing plants in Iowa, England and the Netherlands.
What's left over are the slurry remains and ore tailings. These are transported to the 1,000-acre tailing area where the moly-free granite settles and the water goes through an extensive reclamation process to be reused in a closed system at the mill.
Fifteen miles away, the mine sits near the head of the Clear Creek watershed, a region of alpine meadows and crystalline streams. Dealing with industrial wastewater is thus Henderson's biggest environmental stewardship issue. Fellows got a close-up look at the company's state-of-the-art treatment plant built in 1997, which handles up to 1600 gallons per minute from the mine. A million gallons a day are pumped into the plant from underground.
Ridding the water supply of toxic levels of manganese and zinc is the primary goal of the treatment facility. Tony Lucero, Henderson's environmental coordinator, called this "the most prominent operation we deal with from an environmental standpoint."
Calcium oxide is used to raise the pH-level of the water to precipitate out the minerals, which are removed and trucked to the BFI landfill between Golden and Boulder. Sulfuric acid is then added to lower the pH before the water is discharged into Woods Creek.
The company has been so successful that a trout fishery thrives in the stream below the discharge site, and the city of Golden buys Henderson's reclaimed water for its drinking water supply.
Fellow Nadia White appreciated the chance to see Henderson's operations and environmental mitigation up close. "I always find it valuable to go to the site of large industrial activity to get a sense of the scope and the potential economic impact, and the economic contribution to a community."
Even moving millions of pounds of rock a day, Keskimaki estimates there are enough reserves still inside the Red Mountain lode – about 1.5 billion pounds -- to keep Henderson operating for 20 more years.
A building boom and demand for petroleum products in China is keeping current moly demand high, he said, as well as speculation that a parallel Alaska pipeline might be built if additional oil drilling is approved in the Arctic. But eventually the mine's rich reserves will be exhausted. When that happens, a major reclamation effort will be required on Henderson's 12,800-acre site.
Lucero said the most significant reclamation work will take place at the mill, where tailings will be removed and wetlands and dry islands created. The company is working already to thin scruffy forests near the mill where weak trees have succumbed to a pine bark beetle outbreak, leaving vast mountainsides of dead and dying trees.
As for the fate of the mine, it may have a sci-fi future. Keskimaki said Henderson is in the running to be a deep underground laboratory for nuclear physicists to study subatomic particles called neutrinos. Since cosmic rays above the Earth's surface can interfere with neutrino behavior, scientists need to observe them by blasting them at high speeds thousands of feet below ground, shielded by a deep rock overburden. Just thinking about it makes the moly mining process seem downright simplistic.
Keskimaki thinks the odds are good that Henderson could be selected, given its proximity to a major airport and the Denver metropolitan area. In the meantime, mining moly by the thousands of tons continues, out of view of the backcountry skiers and hikers and fishermen who frequent the high country above the mine's expansive underworld.
Check out these Web sites for more on the Henderson Mine, NSF plans to build a deep underground neutrino lab, and what neutrinos are and why scientists want to study them.
Parks Project Unveils Mongolia's Natural Treasures
By Wendy Worrall Redal
Even the most well-traveled vagabonds have likely never heard of Altai Tavaan Bogd National Park. Tucked away on the far western fringe of Mongolia, near the juncture of Kazakhstan, China and Siberia, lies a one and half million-acre reserve where glaciated peaks rise more than 14,000 feet above some of the most pristine lakes in the world.
The park's forests and tundra are home to many species, some endangered or rare, including snow leopards, wolves, argali mountain sheep, ibex and elk. Golden eagles soar above the mountain valleys, where nomadic herders train and use them in hunting, as ethnic Kazahks have done for centuries.
Several outfitters in Mongolia offer visitors the chance to explore this remote backcountry on horseback, stopping to hike through flower-filled meadows and along rivers tumbling with glacial till from ice-bound slopes above. Travelers may be invited to share a cup of mare's milk tea, Mongolia's most common form of hospitality, inside a local family's yurt, the traditional round, felt-covered dwelling most herder families call home.
Few tourists, even among "adventure travelers," have been privileged to see the Tavaan Bogd peaks, or Mongolia's other magnificent national parks, including Lake Khovsgol, perhaps the clearest lake on the planet. Only a few hundred thousand visitors come to Mongolia each year. That's changing, however, as word is getting out about the country's dramatic natural gifts.
That growing awareness, translated into more tourism that focuses on Mongolia's unique landscapes, may be the key to protecting Mongolia's threatened natural ecosystems. It's the intent at the heart of a novel project launched by two journalists, both alumni of CEJ programs, who are working to provide maps, postcards and interpretive guides for Mongolia's national parks. The goal is to enhance visitors' experiences through education and information while returning profits through the sale of such materials to conservation efforts in the parks.
Writer Jeremy Schmidt and photojournalist Ted Wood, longtime friends and professional colleagues, founded Conservation Ink in 2003, a not-for-profit organization based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., as an avenue to "give back" to the world's threatened natural places they've built most of their careers covering, Wood said.
Their mission is to help developing countries protect their parks through funds made available from publications produced by Conservation Ink, not unlike the support for U.S. national parks that's provided by non-profit associations that return profits from visitor center book and gift shops back to the parks.
Wood was a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2001-02, and both Wood and Schmidt attended the 2001 Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment. It was during the Institute, in fact, that the first germ of their idea began to flower. Mongolia's then-environment minister, and D. Galbadrakh, director of the Mongolian Society for Environmental Education, were also attending the Institute. Wood and Schmidt struck up conversations with them, and learned of Mongolia's needs. Their imaginations began to take flight, and two years later, Conservation Ink was born.
Mongolia is Conservation Ink's pilot project. Like many developing countries, Mongolia's natural beauty and environmental health are threatened by a lack of financial resources. Struggling economically after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Mongolian government is looking to industrialization and resource development as paths to a vital market economy and brighter economic future. Often, however, exploiting natural resources comes at the cost of destroying natural landscapes and fragile ecosystems.
Wood acknowledged that while Mongolia's government has made an impressive effort so far in setting aside land for protection, about 13 percent of its total area, the economic pull to go in the other direction is strong. Parks have to be able to pay for themselves if they are to survive.
That's where Conservation Ink comes in. If the group's effort can help prove that a sustainable tourism economy is possible, much of the battle will be won. To make that happen, though, people have to know about places like Altai Tavaan Bogd and Lake Khovsgol National Parks.
Those are the first two Mongolian destinations that Conservation Ink has produced materials for. With a seed grant from National Geographic, Wood and Schmidt took several field research trips to Mongolia, horsetrekking with local guides to experience, study and photograph the parks. They also spent time in the capital, making connections that would lead to the opening of an Ulaanbaatar-based sourcing and distribution office for Conservation Ink.
They brought the first sets of map-guides and postcards back to Mongolia to distribute in the fall of 2004, where they are being sold to park visitors and in shops in Ulaanbaatar. CI is also connecting with tour operators, so they can make the materials available to their clients. The publications will help build regional tourism economies, where infrastructure is also a problem, as well as spreading the word (and images) of Mongolia worldwide through sales over the Internet.
Schmidt and Wood are actively pursuing the additional financial support CI needs to continue its Mongolia work and expand into other countries. Other donors, including USAID, have come on board as word of the non-profit's mission meets a receptive audience.
The initial maps and postcards produced by Wood and Schmidt are gorgeous. The text is enlightening and the photography stunning. Take a first-hand look at them on Conservation Ink's web site, www.conservationink.org, where you can also read in greater detail about the organization and its activities.
Look for an update in the fall edition of CEJ News/Views on Conservation Ink's continuing work in Mongolia during the summer of 2005.
Even the most well-traveled vagabonds have likely never heard of Altai Tavaan Bogd National Park. Tucked away on the far western fringe of Mongolia, near the juncture of Kazakhstan, China and Siberia, lies a one and half million-acre reserve where glaciated peaks rise more than 14,000 feet above some of the most pristine lakes in the world.
 |
| Altai Tavaan Bogd National Park (Photo/Ted Wood) |
The park's forests and tundra are home to many species, some endangered or rare, including snow leopards, wolves, argali mountain sheep, ibex and elk. Golden eagles soar above the mountain valleys, where nomadic herders train and use them in hunting, as ethnic Kazahks have done for centuries.
Several outfitters in Mongolia offer visitors the chance to explore this remote backcountry on horseback, stopping to hike through flower-filled meadows and along rivers tumbling with glacial till from ice-bound slopes above. Travelers may be invited to share a cup of mare's milk tea, Mongolia's most common form of hospitality, inside a local family's yurt, the traditional round, felt-covered dwelling most herder families call home.
 |
| Traditional Kazakh eagle hunter (Photo/Ted Wood) |
Few tourists, even among "adventure travelers," have been privileged to see the Tavaan Bogd peaks, or Mongolia's other magnificent national parks, including Lake Khovsgol, perhaps the clearest lake on the planet. Only a few hundred thousand visitors come to Mongolia each year. That's changing, however, as word is getting out about the country's dramatic natural gifts.
That growing awareness, translated into more tourism that focuses on Mongolia's unique landscapes, may be the key to protecting Mongolia's threatened natural ecosystems. It's the intent at the heart of a novel project launched by two journalists, both alumni of CEJ programs, who are working to provide maps, postcards and interpretive guides for Mongolia's national parks. The goal is to enhance visitors' experiences through education and information while returning profits through the sale of such materials to conservation efforts in the parks.
Writer Jeremy Schmidt and photojournalist Ted Wood, longtime friends and professional colleagues, founded Conservation Ink in 2003, a not-for-profit organization based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., as an avenue to "give back" to the world's threatened natural places they've built most of their careers covering, Wood said.
Their mission is to help developing countries protect their parks through funds made available from publications produced by Conservation Ink, not unlike the support for U.S. national parks that's provided by non-profit associations that return profits from visitor center book and gift shops back to the parks.
Wood was a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2001-02, and both Wood and Schmidt attended the 2001 Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment. It was during the Institute, in fact, that the first germ of their idea began to flower. Mongolia's then-environment minister, and D. Galbadrakh, director of the Mongolian Society for Environmental Education, were also attending the Institute. Wood and Schmidt struck up conversations with them, and learned of Mongolia's needs. Their imaginations began to take flight, and two years later, Conservation Ink was born.
Mongolia is Conservation Ink's pilot project. Like many developing countries, Mongolia's natural beauty and environmental health are threatened by a lack of financial resources. Struggling economically after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Mongolian government is looking to industrialization and resource development as paths to a vital market economy and brighter economic future. Often, however, exploiting natural resources comes at the cost of destroying natural landscapes and fragile ecosystems.
 |
| Lake Khovsgol, in northern Mongolia, is one of the clearest, cleanest lakes in the world (Photo/Ted Wood) |
Wood acknowledged that while Mongolia's government has made an impressive effort so far in setting aside land for protection, about 13 percent of its total area, the economic pull to go in the other direction is strong. Parks have to be able to pay for themselves if they are to survive.
That's where Conservation Ink comes in. If the group's effort can help prove that a sustainable tourism economy is possible, much of the battle will be won. To make that happen, though, people have to know about places like Altai Tavaan Bogd and Lake Khovsgol National Parks.
Those are the first two Mongolian destinations that Conservation Ink has produced materials for. With a seed grant from National Geographic, Wood and Schmidt took several field research trips to Mongolia, horsetrekking with local guides to experience, study and photograph the parks. They also spent time in the capital, making connections that would lead to the opening of an Ulaanbaatar-based sourcing and distribution office for Conservation Ink.
They brought the first sets of map-guides and postcards back to Mongolia to distribute in the fall of 2004, where they are being sold to park visitors and in shops in Ulaanbaatar. CI is also connecting with tour operators, so they can make the materials available to their clients. The publications will help build regional tourism economies, where infrastructure is also a problem, as well as spreading the word (and images) of Mongolia worldwide through sales over the Internet.
Schmidt and Wood are actively pursuing the additional financial support CI needs to continue its Mongolia work and expand into other countries. Other donors, including USAID, have come on board as word of the non-profit's mission meets a receptive audience.
The initial maps and postcards produced by Wood and Schmidt are gorgeous. The text is enlightening and the photography stunning. Take a first-hand look at them on Conservation Ink's web site, www.conservationink.org, where you can also read in greater detail about the organization and its activities.
Look for an update in the fall edition of CEJ News/Views on Conservation Ink's continuing work in Mongolia during the summer of 2005.
Now 100, Forest Service Takes a Long Look Back
By Emily Cooper
"…where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run."
Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot's oft-quoted exhortation to the agency he created is the bedrock on which the agency's "multiple use" mission was founded. One hundred years after its founding, the service reflects on the past century in a new documentary entitled "The Greatest Good."
Two Forest Service administrators and one of the filmmakers were on hand April 13 for a screening of the film on the University of Colorado's Boulder campus. Not merely a celebration of the agency's accomplishments, the film is illuminated by the bitter conflicts of the past century over forest fires, the impacts of recreation and—perhaps most contentious of all—logging in the national forests. Without offering any neat answers, the film asks its audience, What really is the greatest good? And for whom?
"We didn't want to make a film that just said, 'Oh boy, Forest Service, aren't you great,'" filmmaker Dave Steinke said during the panel discussion following the film. "Because we wouldn't want to watch that, and I'd assume you [would] not either."
"Multiple use" means that public lands should satisfy a variety of needs of the American people, from conserving open space to generating income. To that end, the 1960 Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act directed the Forest Service to manage the lands for recreation, grazing, timber, water and fish and wildlife—a tall order, and one that has probably never been met to anyone's satisfaction. But even if the act codified the concept of multiple use, the roots of the ideal go back to the agency's founding document, a letter ostensibly written by Agriculture Secretary James Wilson to Gifford Pinchot, but which was most likely authored by Pinchot himself. It was in that letter, written in February 1905 at the founding of the modern Forest Service, that Pinchot's famous "greatest good" quote was recorded.
It was not an idea that came out of nowhere for the man the film called "America's first homegrown forester."
Pinchot came from money, with a family that sent him to study forestry in Europe and later bankrolled the first forestry school in the United States at Yale University. He also had connections, one of his best-known friends being Theodore Roosevelt. Both Pinchot and Roosevelt chafed at the actions of the "robber barons" who were, in their eyes, raping the land of its natural resources for their own financial gain. At the same time, the Interior Department's General Land Office couldn't give federally owned land away fast enough. In response to the two pressures of privatization and exploitation of the public lands, Roosevelt and Pinchot began setting aside forest reserves.
While two previous presidents—Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland—had created some forest reserves, Teddy Roosevelt outdid them many times over. In his second term alone, he set aside upwards of 80 million acres. In 1907 Congress responded to his zeal with the Fulton Amendment, an appropriations rider that took away the presidential power to reserve forest lands. Roosevelt signed the bill, but not before adding another 16 million acres to the national forest system—lands that were designated by Pinchot and his assistant, who circled them on a map the night before Roosevelt signed the bill. These last-minute reserves are called Roosevelt's "midnight forests."
Once the forests reserves had been created, the debates began over how to use them. Americans would never have accepted the idea of forest reserves if the intent was to set land aside for its own sake, historian Alfred Runte said in the film. Instead, Pinchot promised that the land would be used for the people. The 1905 manual, The Use of the National Forest Reserves: Regulations and Instructions, written by Pinchot and his staff, states:
But societal values shift, and in the last century the Forest Service has found itself in the middle of a sometimes bitter conflict over how best to use the national forests.
In 1935 a small group of men that included Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall—both of whom had cut their teeth in the Forest Service—founded the Wilderness Society. Concerned with the impacts that roads and facilities were making on the public lands, the men argued for the preservation of some of that land in its "natural" condition.
As early as 1924 the Forest Service, at Leopold's behest, had set aside the 500,000 acre Gila Wilderness as an administrative wilderness area. But in later years, the Forest Service fought against passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, which defined wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Preserving land as wilderness, the agency reasoned, was a single use of the land and didn't fit within the agency's multiple-use mandate.
But there was another reason, too, why the service chafed at the popular legislation. The Forest Service was "used to thinking of itself heroically," environmental historian William Cronon said in the film. And it was also famous for its stubborn can-do attitude that one audience member at the screening characterized as "sometimes wrong but never in doubt." That attitude likely exacerbated the fight that was soon to erupt over logging in the national forests.
In the middle of the twentieth century, more and more people turned to the woods for recreation and solitude. At the same time, the Forest Service was facing immense pressure to "get the cut out," or produce as much timber as possible for the burgeoning post-World War II population and the homes that would shelter them. As hikers and picnickers came face to face with ugly clearcuts in their national forests, a conflict was inevitable.
Before World War II, the average annual timber cut in the national forests was ?? billion board feet [gotta look that number up]. In the 1980s, it skyrocketed to nearly 12 billion board feet per year, which caused a major backlash from many environmentalists and recreationists. That battle mirrored a similar one inside the service itself. Jeff DeBonis, a timber sale planner in Oregon's Willamette National Forest, became fed up with the high timber cut and founded Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, with the goal of pushing the Forest Service to manage its lands in a more ecologically and economically sustainable manner.
Looking back, even some high-level Forest Service employees acknowledge in the film that they went too far during the 1980s. Orville Daniels, former Forest Supervisor for the Lolo and Bitterroot National Forests in Montana, said that during those years the agency "went to the dark side" in its attempt to get the cut out. Dale Robertson, Forest Service Chief from 1987 to 1993, said the agency during the timber-hungry 1980s really stretched the multiple-use concept by taking timber at a rate that was not sustainable.
But in the post-film panel discussion, Rick Cables, forester for the Rocky Mountain region, challenged the film's criticism of the agency as a whole, saying the timber frenzy was isolated in one area of the country.
"The Northwest, northern California, Idaho, Montana is where the whole agency got painted with one broad brush—that we all went to the dark side," he said. "And I don’t accept it, personally. Because that never happened to me."
Still, he and other panel members acknowledged that the public is more skeptical of the Forest Service now because of the perception that the service went too far with logging.
"Trust was lost, and that still plagues us," said James Bedwell, forest surpervisor for Colorado's Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland.
That distrust was illustrated by one audience member, who said President Bush's Healthy Forests Restoration Act could be called the "leave no tree behind act." Cables responded that such a characterization is "patently absurd." Still, he acknowledged the public's distrust as an obstacle the agency still has to face.
"The only way that you rebuild trust that I know is you make promises and you keep them," he said.
The Greatest Good is primarily a chronological overview, a history of great men—and a small handful of women—who created the Forest Service of today. For people who care about the public lands, it's a fascinating and enlightening journey. But most intriguing, perhaps, are the questions and the conflicts that it leaves unanswered.
In looking toward the future, filmmaker Steinke said he hopes the next documentary would tell a story about a Forest Service that survived budget cuts, avoided being absorbed into a "Department of Natural Resources," and maybe even managed to expand its land base.
"And it would be really neat to see another Pinchot, and another Leopold, and another [early forester Elers] Koch…" he said. "And I think another Earth First!, and another—maybe not Earth First!—maybe a better Sierra Club, to have that passion, I think, that makes for great story telling."
For more information about "The Greatest Good," including background material, interviews with the producers and upcoming screening dates, see the Web site at www.fs.fed.us/greatestgood.
"…where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run."
Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot's oft-quoted exhortation to the agency he created is the bedrock on which the agency's "multiple use" mission was founded. One hundred years after its founding, the service reflects on the past century in a new documentary entitled "The Greatest Good."
Two Forest Service administrators and one of the filmmakers were on hand April 13 for a screening of the film on the University of Colorado's Boulder campus. Not merely a celebration of the agency's accomplishments, the film is illuminated by the bitter conflicts of the past century over forest fires, the impacts of recreation and—perhaps most contentious of all—logging in the national forests. Without offering any neat answers, the film asks its audience, What really is the greatest good? And for whom?
"We didn't want to make a film that just said, 'Oh boy, Forest Service, aren't you great,'" filmmaker Dave Steinke said during the panel discussion following the film. "Because we wouldn't want to watch that, and I'd assume you [would] not either."
"Multiple use" means that public lands should satisfy a variety of needs of the American people, from conserving open space to generating income. To that end, the 1960 Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act directed the Forest Service to manage the lands for recreation, grazing, timber, water and fish and wildlife—a tall order, and one that has probably never been met to anyone's satisfaction. But even if the act codified the concept of multiple use, the roots of the ideal go back to the agency's founding document, a letter ostensibly written by Agriculture Secretary James Wilson to Gifford Pinchot, but which was most likely authored by Pinchot himself. It was in that letter, written in February 1905 at the founding of the modern Forest Service, that Pinchot's famous "greatest good" quote was recorded.
It was not an idea that came out of nowhere for the man the film called "America's first homegrown forester."
Pinchot came from money, with a family that sent him to study forestry in Europe and later bankrolled the first forestry school in the United States at Yale University. He also had connections, one of his best-known friends being Theodore Roosevelt. Both Pinchot and Roosevelt chafed at the actions of the "robber barons" who were, in their eyes, raping the land of its natural resources for their own financial gain. At the same time, the Interior Department's General Land Office couldn't give federally owned land away fast enough. In response to the two pressures of privatization and exploitation of the public lands, Roosevelt and Pinchot began setting aside forest reserves.
While two previous presidents—Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland—had created some forest reserves, Teddy Roosevelt outdid them many times over. In his second term alone, he set aside upwards of 80 million acres. In 1907 Congress responded to his zeal with the Fulton Amendment, an appropriations rider that took away the presidential power to reserve forest lands. Roosevelt signed the bill, but not before adding another 16 million acres to the national forest system—lands that were designated by Pinchot and his assistant, who circled them on a map the night before Roosevelt signed the bill. These last-minute reserves are called Roosevelt's "midnight forests."
Once the forests reserves had been created, the debates began over how to use them. Americans would never have accepted the idea of forest reserves if the intent was to set land aside for its own sake, historian Alfred Runte said in the film. Instead, Pinchot promised that the land would be used for the people. The 1905 manual, The Use of the National Forest Reserves: Regulations and Instructions, written by Pinchot and his staff, states:
"Forest reserves are for the purpose of preserving a perpetual supply of timber for home industries, preventing destruction of forest cover which regulates the flow of streams, and protecting local residents from unfair competition in the use of forest and range. They are patrolled and protected, at Government expense, for the benefit of the community and the home builder."
But societal values shift, and in the last century the Forest Service has found itself in the middle of a sometimes bitter conflict over how best to use the national forests.
In 1935 a small group of men that included Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall—both of whom had cut their teeth in the Forest Service—founded the Wilderness Society. Concerned with the impacts that roads and facilities were making on the public lands, the men argued for the preservation of some of that land in its "natural" condition.
As early as 1924 the Forest Service, at Leopold's behest, had set aside the 500,000 acre Gila Wilderness as an administrative wilderness area. But in later years, the Forest Service fought against passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, which defined wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Preserving land as wilderness, the agency reasoned, was a single use of the land and didn't fit within the agency's multiple-use mandate.
But there was another reason, too, why the service chafed at the popular legislation. The Forest Service was "used to thinking of itself heroically," environmental historian William Cronon said in the film. And it was also famous for its stubborn can-do attitude that one audience member at the screening characterized as "sometimes wrong but never in doubt." That attitude likely exacerbated the fight that was soon to erupt over logging in the national forests.
In the middle of the twentieth century, more and more people turned to the woods for recreation and solitude. At the same time, the Forest Service was facing immense pressure to "get the cut out," or produce as much timber as possible for the burgeoning post-World War II population and the homes that would shelter them. As hikers and picnickers came face to face with ugly clearcuts in their national forests, a conflict was inevitable.
Before World War II, the average annual timber cut in the national forests was ?? billion board feet [gotta look that number up]. In the 1980s, it skyrocketed to nearly 12 billion board feet per year, which caused a major backlash from many environmentalists and recreationists. That battle mirrored a similar one inside the service itself. Jeff DeBonis, a timber sale planner in Oregon's Willamette National Forest, became fed up with the high timber cut and founded Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, with the goal of pushing the Forest Service to manage its lands in a more ecologically and economically sustainable manner.
| Clearcutting in the 1960s, especially in the Pacific Northwest (above), inspired radical environmentalists such as those in Earth First! (below) to campaign against the Forest Service. |
 |
Looking back, even some high-level Forest Service employees acknowledge in the film that they went too far during the 1980s. Orville Daniels, former Forest Supervisor for the Lolo and Bitterroot National Forests in Montana, said that during those years the agency "went to the dark side" in its attempt to get the cut out. Dale Robertson, Forest Service Chief from 1987 to 1993, said the agency during the timber-hungry 1980s really stretched the multiple-use concept by taking timber at a rate that was not sustainable.
But in the post-film panel discussion, Rick Cables, forester for the Rocky Mountain region, challenged the film's criticism of the agency as a whole, saying the timber frenzy was isolated in one area of the country.
"The Northwest, northern California, Idaho, Montana is where the whole agency got painted with one broad brush—that we all went to the dark side," he said. "And I don’t accept it, personally. Because that never happened to me."
Still, he and other panel members acknowledged that the public is more skeptical of the Forest Service now because of the perception that the service went too far with logging.
"Trust was lost, and that still plagues us," said James Bedwell, forest surpervisor for Colorado's Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland.
That distrust was illustrated by one audience member, who said President Bush's Healthy Forests Restoration Act could be called the "leave no tree behind act." Cables responded that such a characterization is "patently absurd." Still, he acknowledged the public's distrust as an obstacle the agency still has to face.
"The only way that you rebuild trust that I know is you make promises and you keep them," he said.
The Greatest Good is primarily a chronological overview, a history of great men—and a small handful of women—who created the Forest Service of today. For people who care about the public lands, it's a fascinating and enlightening journey. But most intriguing, perhaps, are the questions and the conflicts that it leaves unanswered.
In looking toward the future, filmmaker Steinke said he hopes the next documentary would tell a story about a Forest Service that survived budget cuts, avoided being absorbed into a "Department of Natural Resources," and maybe even managed to expand its land base.
"And it would be really neat to see another Pinchot, and another Leopold, and another [early forester Elers] Koch…" he said. "And I think another Earth First!, and another—maybe not Earth First!—maybe a better Sierra Club, to have that passion, I think, that makes for great story telling."
For more information about "The Greatest Good," including background material, interviews with the producers and upcoming screening dates, see the Web site at www.fs.fed.us/greatestgood.
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