November is a pensive month for me. The leaves color and then let go. The plants lovingly cared for all spring and summer, decay. The days grow shorter and the nights longer. This will also be the first year that my brothers and I will not celebrate Mom’s November birthday, as she passed in July.
It is also the season of Thanksgiving.
Recently during his homily, my priest said, “gratitude is not optional, it is the foundation of our faith.” Truer words have never been spoken about Trout Unlimited and all of you who champion our rivers and streams.
TU makes it easy to be thankful
The foundation of Trout Unlimited stems from donors such as my friend, Greg, who is a member of our Coldwater Conservation Fund. When Greg learned of a proposal to overturn the protections of some of the most important trout and salmon habitat in the US, he asked how he could help. Greg’s support enabled a dozen TUers to come to the nation’s capital this week to advocate for protecting millions of so-called roadless areas on our National Forests.
Equally important was the earlier work of thousands of TU members who notified their Members of Congress and helped to beat back a boneheaded proposal in Congress to sell millions of acres of our public land legacy.
I am motivated by the work of TU, the state of Alaska, NOAA Fisheries and especially the Kinross Gold Corporation. These partners are restoring the aptly named Resurrection Creek in Alaska from the effects of historic mining.
I am inspired by people like Becky Humphreys and Jesse Vadala for their work to engage communities in the Adirondacks in watershed restoration.
After more than 20 years, the work of Nell Scott, Chrysten Rivard and many others to bring salmon back to the Klamath is the equivalent of a conservation sundae. The fact that our very own TU expeditions team witnessed the recovery is the cherry on top.
I am motivated by the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York and all our associated chapters for working with the federal government to help restore native brook trout. As Amy Wolfe so well said, “the very same streams that we’re working on will actually help to protect and restore the very same water that people hundreds of miles downstream are using for drinking water.”
I so appreciate partners such as The Nature Conservancy for their help in our efforts to remove the four dams on the Kennebec River in Maine.
I appreciate the National Wildlife Federation and TRCP joining TU to help secure water flows on iconic western rivers such as the Rio Grande.
I appreciate the National Mining Association helping Trout Unlimited to pass Good Samaritan legislation—thereby making it easier for organizations such as TU to clean up abandoned mines. Most important, I appreciate the leadership of my friends, U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Jim Risch (R-ID) for leading the effort to make the bill a law.
We couldn’t do it without you
The foundation of TU is its volunteers. I am grateful to Marcia Woolman, a volunteer leader in Virginia, who taught me the importance of saying “thank you.” Bill Lamberson from Missouri has donated more than 80 bamboo rods that he personally wrapped to TU causes. Dave Wood, the president of the Feather River chapter, like thousands of other TU volunteers, leads routine clean-ups of his chapter’s namesake river.
Corporations are often criticized for obsessing over their bottom line, but in places such as Colorado and the Little Snake in Wyoming, Laura Schneck and the conservation staff have worked with corporations such as PepsiCo, Microsoft, Frito-Lay, Intel, Coca-Cola and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) to make the bottom line include community well-being and ecological health.
I routinely, and rightly, highlight incredible wins of the conservation and science teams at TU. Less celebrated, but equally valuable are the people on the communication team that do such a good job of telling our stories. Our grant accountants will likely (perhaps, hopefully) never be quoted in a national newspaper or periodical, but they are grease that keeps the machinery of the organization churning. Not a single chapter board member became a volunteer leader for glory: They do it for the love of the mission and the organization. How could we not celebrate their service and selflessness?
I began my career with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service and am so thankful to the men and women who heeded the call of public service despite the headwinds of the past year. They are Trout Unlimited’s best partners and friends, and on a personal level, inspire me.
The Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
America is a richer country for all that you give, and I am grateful to you all.
Happy Thanksgiving.