Celebrating the good work of our federal agency partners
When I was beginning my conservation career in the 1990s, a distinguished research hydrologist named Jack King let me stay with him in Idaho for a few months. It was there I had my first (and last) artichoke.
When my actual talent was betrayed by my lack of experience, a biologist named Kniffy Hamilton gave me a chance. She always had my back when my exuberance outran my skills.
A little while later, fisheries scientist Jack Williams taught me the value of relying on basic common sense in explaining complicated scientific concepts, which led to my enduring belief in the power of science for conservation.
Russ Thurow, a salmon scientist, taught me that the key to success was a combination of integrity and a commitment to working harder than anyone else—advice I still give today to anyone who wants to break into the field of conservation.
What do all these people have in common? They were all federal employees I met in the first 10 years or so of my conservation career, when I worked for the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.
I could go on and name three dozen other public servants who continue to inspire and motivate me, across the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Forest Service, BLM and other federal agencies.
I can’t help but think of these people as I read about the ongoing cuts in federal agencies across the country. I do not know a single person who supports waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, but it is important that we not lose sight of the committed, hardworking people doing invaluable work with us to care for and recover our rivers, lands and our fisheries.
The first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, a Republican appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, had the right idea about conservation. “Conservation,” Gifford Pinchot wrote, “is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good.” In my experience, that idea drives the work of most of the men and women I have worked with at federal natural resource agencies.
Appreciation for the dedication
I saw it firsthand in those first 10 years of my career, a decade that shaped me into the conservationist I am today.
By and large the people I worked with were dedicated public servants who were willing to teach a relatively clueless young man about conservation, public lands and the hard work of balancing multiple uses—fisheries conservation, recreation, energy development, wilderness management, logging, mining and so on.
As a seasonal employee of the Forest Service in Idaho, I learned from a fellow seasonal, Louis Wasniewski, how the integrity of the samples we took in the field was vital to accurate scientific research performed by the agency’s research lab. Even as seasonals, our work mattered.
Later, the range management staff at the BLM helped me understand the history of grazing on public lands and how collaboration could inform sound public land management. The balanced and collaborative Resource Advisory Councils that we established remain effective today, and it is no coincidence that in my years leading TU, we have practiced a brand of conservation that we call “collaborative stewardship.”
When I worked for Mike Dombeck, the chief of the Forest Service, my favorite days were when I would turn the lights on the fourth floor in the morning and turn them off when I left in the evening.
In those years, we had the audacious idea that we should protect 58.5 million acres of wilderness-quality roadless areas from future development. It was members of the agency’s forest management staff who helped me understand that the Forest Service had already “cut the face” of the national forests and that the backcountry areas were worth protecting. At the same time, they explained how judicious timber cutting, especially near communities, could provide wood for local timber mills, help make communities safer and restore the ecological health of forests.
I cherish the lessons I learned from my mentors in my years at federal agencies. I took them to heart, and today, I answer every phone call or email from a young (or not so young) person trying to break into conservation. Why? Because others did so for me, and it changed the course of my career.
I am not alone among TU staff who came to our organization from the federal agencies; some of us share space or duties with agency staff. All of us share an appreciation for the amazing contributions so many of our public servants make to help make our public lands and natural resources the envy of the world.