Last Sunday, we shuttled our kayaks to the banks of the Sopchoppy River in the Apalachicola National Forest. Our intended launch site is remote and beautiful, abutting the Bradwell Bay Wilderness Area. My husband Jeff spotted a black bear running across the dirt road in broad daylight. But we were much more startled and a bit frightened to find the familiar put-in site occupied by people who had organized their tents and fire ring around a Confederate flag. Even though … Continue
Category Archives: Advocacy
I’d never heard of southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears until President Obama declared that enormous landscape a National Monument last December. As Jeff and I planned our spring break trip, the thought of this just-protected place intrigued me. For the last four years, we’d been getting to know the marvelous red rock country protected in the Beehive State. Those wildlands are so different from our pine forests and emerald Gulf waters, and I find that … Continue
On January 13, I offered these brief thoughts to the attendees of the Mickee Faust Inaugural Bawl. in Tallahassee I hope you will find them of use. Imagine yourself on a gorgeous, wild island, maybe the most beautiful in all the world: St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge. Imagine that from dawn until sunset, you have tramped the beaches and the forest and the marshes, searching out every kind of bird you could identify and count, from the largest eagle to the … Continue
Dear Friends: On Sunday, December 18, 2016, this report on my brief visit to Standing Rock will be featured in the Tallahassee Democrat. I’ll be sharing Part 2 of what I learned at Standing Rock after the holidays. During the first week of December, I traveled with my niece Erin Canter to a snowy, stinging cold North Dakota prairie south of Bismarck, where encampments at Standing Rock have evolved into the longest running protest in modern history. In … Continue
Dear Friends and Family: To support native rights, and on behalf of the rivers, I am going to Standing Rock, South Dakota for a week, with Erin Josephine Canter. We will join with Deena Metzger and others. Deena writes: “in the past, when a people were gravely threatened, Chiefs, Medicine People, Healers, Shamans, and Elders, called Councils. …People gathered in times of crises; we are gathering now.” We go because what is happening on the banks of the Missouri River … Continue
Today, every one of us is trying to figure out how to live with, or through, the results of last night’s election. I am grateful for the wisdom and support of my family and my community in this dark time, as we grieve and regroup. My parents raised me up with the greatest respect for our United States of America. Above all I was taught that our land was a place of refuge for all in need of safety, mercy and … Continue
I never expected to see a flock of shorebirds amongst the high peaks of Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness last week. Golden eagles, yes. Elk and mule deer and marmots, yes. Single spotted sandpipers, sure. But there they were, in a synchronous flock, spinning like snowflakes over glacial Dewey Lake, more than 9000 feet above sea level. I don’t carry my excellent binoculars backpacking anymore. In my 60s, I aim to shoulder the lightest possible weight on our seven-day hikes (somewhere in the neighborhood … Continue
June 23, 2016 Yesterday I spent 9 hours witnessing a public hearing held in Eastpoint, regarding a second hunt of Florida black bears. While it was in many ways a very anxious day for me, I was absorbed and impressed with the speakers (I was Speaker # 66 and there were several dozen more behind me). I didn’t anticipate our collective courage and brilliance. When I first made a pitch to this Commission, in 1984, regarding a nongame wildlife program … Continue
Rights of the Rivers (This is a slightly revised version of a keynote talk I presented at the annual gathering of the Apalachicola Riverkeepers on 3/26/16. It’s longer than usual!) You cannot live in the Southeast without noticing how rivers define the places where we live. They bring us fresh water and so much more, but their geographical delineations of bioregion are among their most magical qualities. I first noticed how the rivers embrace us in the early 1990s, when I traveled … Continue
The beautiful urgency of the garden has brought me to my knees. Spring harvest and spring planting require that I turn away from the concerns of our suffering world for the hours it takes to grow our family’s food. Rows of Garden of Eden pole beans shake free from their brown seed jackets so they can climb. The tomatoes are still orderly, restrained by the cool of these nights. I keep pace with their growth by pinching off side shoots and tying … Continue