During this past week, I have been saving various news stories on species extinction and its impact on our future and the environment we call home. I decided I wanted to write about this and then I gradually became uncomfortable with the idea. I love writing my personal stories and sharing them, but I avoid giving off any air of expertise about anything, beyond sorting out my personal experiences and what they mean to me. Christ, I’m not even an authority on my own life!
Once again, my longevity is the culprit. About fifteen years ago, I took on a responsibility I’d never dream of doing today. Alex was my former partner in the nature tourism business, one of the most exciting times in my life, without question. We spent a couple of years traveling around Central America, exploring ecotourism possibilities for a series of clients, including the Wildlife Conservation Society, owners of the Bronx Zoo. After parting company, he started a Costa Rican airline, Natureair and ran it brilliantly, a leader in environmental sensitivity and community investment.
Alex has a much better memory than I do and a very colorful style of recall. He will likely read this and tell me how badly I screwed up the details and he’d be right. Facts are no longer my forte, although they were an integral part of the story I am about to share. Somewhere around 2005, he got in touch with me to see about my getting involved with Natureair’s messaging. The first thing I did was a survey of hotel web sites to see if they were promoting a connection to his airline. It was fairly tedious, but the idea of being a fact finding detective was appealing to me at the time.
Some time after this initial connection, he asked me if I would start a conservation based blog. It seemed a little crazy to me for two reasons. I was living on Kauai and didn’t speak Spanish. Oh, I was also a technological boob and would have to provide the articles and the images to someone else, who would format them for this new blog.
Costa Rica is likely still the most unusual country in Central America. They have no army. They have a viable middle class. They’ve got a high literacy rate and decent health care. Their national park system is without peer and they have been a magnet for eco-tourism for years. However, the last time I checked, politics is a messy business and there are no angels. Between the United States and the European countries that birthed these colonies into countries, corruption and the abuse of power were the models to emulate.
Here’s where it gets a little murky in my memory, but it really doesn’t screw up the story at all. I took Alex up on his offer and decided I would don the white hat of truth and justice. While looking for places to hang my hat, I came across a story in 2009 about the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, a former recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, wanting to downgrade Las Baulas National Park, opening it up for commercial development. This park was a singularly important breeding ground for the Leatherback Turtle, a seriously endangered species.
Looking back, I’ve got no idea what I was thinking. Nearly all the news was in Spanish and the story seemed pretty much confined to the internal politics of the country. I got a translator and started writing and calling world famous conservationists and began communicating, building credibility. I started posting news on the blog and it began circulating internationally. I would put together stories, which started out as pieces of paper and index cards all over my floor. I did this without ever having met a turtle. These guys have been around over 100 million years and can weigh a thousand pounds. I swear it felt like an honor to fight on their behalf.
God Bless Alex, he always loved a fight and the airline was getting some blowback, because of the blog. The reasoning behind commercializing the park was bullshit and the legislation was ultimately defeated and I am pretty sure I had something to do with it. I made a goddamn difference!
The catalyst for this current story was my looking down and seeing sloppily cut pieces of paper strewn over the floor surrounding my chair, a reminder of my turtle times. Each one contained quotes and facts regarding the state of our natural world. I had this flash of embarrassment. Who the hell am I to be writing about issues of extraordinary importance? Who cares what I think? Then, I remembered about that time in my life when my words actually made a difference and all of a sudden I didn’t feel awkward donning the white hat.
“If we do not do things differently, we are finished,” Jane Goodall recently said. “We can’t go on very much longer like this.” In addition to urging the world to urgently shift away from factory farming and the destruction of wildlife, she acknowledged the need to end poverty, war and violence worldwide to protect nature.
Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University is quoted in a recent study and I was caught by one of his comments, “The biodiversity crisis is real and urgent. But-and this is the crucial point-it is not too late. To transition to a sustainable world, we need to tread more lightly on the planet.”
We seem to be surrounded by such dire circumstances, no matter where we look. Our climate crisis, species extinction and our mistreatment of each other feels like a conspiracy of events, too overwhelming to do anything about. However, there is a thread in the quotes from both Goodall and Ehrlich that captured my attention. There is still time. It is not too late.
I want to write more and I want to do more, because there is time. There is a choice to be made between impotence and empowerment. We can feel penalized for finding ourselves in the world right now or privileged to be able to do something about it.
Where’s my hat?