Better Know an Educator: Ray Bransfield

In the grand web of environmental conservation, Ray Bransfield has found his niche. Bransfield is a Senior Biologist for the Palms Springs Department of Fish and Wildlife, where he has served for the past 33 years. He works under a specific section of the Endangered Species Act to assess the environmental impacts of and put holding actions on prospective development projects in order to keep threatened species from sliding past the point of return. Bransfield’s primary focus is the desert tortoise. When he thinks about the tortoise, whose population in the Mojave Desert is struggling to survive due in large part to industrial developments and collisions with highway and off-highway vehicles, he reflects on the importance of preserving a world where the tortoises are still there for the next generation. For Bransfield, it is not just about the desert tortoise though, but also about maintaining the biodiversity of the Mojave Desert and keeping wild places everywhere.

Bransfield focuses on the positive things he can do for the tortoise, and aims to best use biology, the law, and cooperation with people from all sides to protect ecosystems and endangered species. He affirms that at times the legal system is an important aspect of achieving conservation goals, and also believes that education is a critical piece to this puzzle. If the public appreciates and cares for their desert ecosystems they will decrease activities that threaten habitat and demand that companies take responsibility for protecting the environment. 

By Abby Popenoe

Meet Our Speakers: Susan Sorrelis

Surrounded by natural springs spilling from the hillsides, Susan Sorrelis grew up in a very different Shoshone California than she returned to. As a fourth generation Shoshoen, home called after her beginning her career in Europe as an international relations writer and photographer. Ever since returning, it has been her dream to restore Shoshone’s wetland and desert landscapes back to the pristine ones she grew up in. Living close to the land throughout her childhood, riding horses before she could walk, she has become an adamant supporter of restoring ecosystems. Her soft voice weaves reason into words as she proudly explains that she has always been environmentally committed. She believes that when people destroy their environment they are also destroying their future. By restoring ecosystems in Shoshone she has helped return the endangered Death Valley Pupfish to populations in the thousands. Her success is rooted in ensuring that an entire ecosystem is created, one that is good for all creatures, including humans. On her own property Susan has enthusiastically protected and opened up this place as a conservation model centered in community. She tells us about architect Richard Neutra’s thought that, “When humankind becomes disconnected from nature they begin to lose their humanity.” Enthusiastic and hopeful that there may one day be an Amargosa River National Monument to come visit, she is driven by the successes of this journey. Rooted in place, she has united the community in her drive to help their home thrive.

Meet Our Speakers: Tanya Henderson

In the town of Shoshone, California—population: 31—residents know conservation intimately. Shoshone is home to the Amargosa Conservancy, a small organization devoted to the conservation of the Amargosa River Basin and its biodiverse ecosystems. Spearheading this immense effort is Tanya Henderson, executive director of the Conservancy. After graduating from Whitman College in 2005, Henderson began to focus on conservation, eventually arriving in Shoshone and becoming the Amargosa Conservancy’s stewardship program manager. Over the summer, she transitioned into the role of executive director. Tanya Henderson and the Conservancy currently focus on the conservation of two endangered species in the area: the Amargosa vole and the desert pupfish. As their species names suggest, neither of these animals are charismatic megafauna, like wolves or bison. Henderson, however, still believes firmly in the need for conservation of all endangered species. She asks, “why not do what we can to save a species,” saying that such organisms are “life on the planet, and we should care about those things.”. However, one obstacle continues to make the Conservancy’s work difficult. Like many federal agencies focused on conservation, it’s difficult for the Amargosa Conservancy to find money to complete projects. Henderson recognizes this impediment to conservation, saying that “funding is crazy…it costs a lot do that kind of consistent work.”

By Fields Ford

Meet Our Speakers: Gaby Gonzales-Olimón

“I was a Westie for a week,” explains Gaby Gonzalez-Olimón, Semester in the West’s Sonoran Institute host and guide while in Mexico.  Two years ago Gaby was interning as a wildlife biologist in Grand Canyon National Park when she met Semester in the West students and staff through a bison-surveying project on the North Rim.  Gaby grew up in Baja California and when the planned Spanish translator for the program’s Mexico section fell through, program director Phil Brick hired Gaby as the new translator.  Gaby drove from the Grand Canyon to Mexico to live and work with a group she had previously only known for a couple days.  Once in Mexico, Gaby interfaced with the Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit organization working in the United States and Mexico to connect communities with their natural resources and preserve wildlife and habitat.  The Colorado River Delta Program of the Sonoran Institute was so impressed by Gaby they created a new position, Environmental Education Coordinator, just for her.   Gaby develops and implements environmental education programs and community workshops on restoration in the Colorado River Delta area.  She loves to take students and kids out into nature.  Many of these kids have lived their whole lives in urban areas and are initially terrified and brought to tears by the unfamiliarity of nature.  As an honorary Westie, Gaby’s advice to Semester in the West students is to “network and keep in touch with the people you meet.”  

By Hannah Trettenero

Meet Our Speakers: Michelle Hernandez and Fernando Contreras

In Mexicali, a few blocks from the U.S. border, Michelle Hernández and Fernando Contreras speak in front of a municipal drain recently cleared of trash with a clear sense of purpose. Both recent graduates of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Michelle and Fernando are now key players in the Sonoran Institute’s first urban restoration project in Mexicali. This project aims to remove vast amounts of trash from Mexicali’s drains, getting the community involved to discourage further littering and revitalizing these illegal dump sites with trees, benches, and paths. 

As Project Coordinator, Michelle writes plans and proposals for funding, helps form community volunteer groups to maintain restoration sites and collaborates with government agencies. However, the hardest part of her job, she says, is environmental education: changing some Mexicali residents’ mindsets on waste disposal is a great challenge. 

The Sonoran Institute has received funding to restore six of Mexicali’s many trash-clogged drains, and these sites were chosen with the mapping expertise of Fernando, the Institute’s GIS (Global Information Systems) Coordinator. Fernando uses ArcGIS to construct models of potential restoration sites, analyzing topography, groundwater depth, and other features to help select the optimum locations for restoration. In Mexicali, the drains that Fernando has chosen flow to California’s Salton Sea and have communities and schools nearby. In this way, Fernando and Michelle’s work benefits not only the residents of Mexicali, but thousands of U.S. citizens as well.

“Everyday we’re preparing and learning to do things better,” Fernando explains from a new litter-free path at the Dren (Drain) Internacional. “I like the work because I can really see the product of my efforts.”

By Thomas Meinzen

Meet Our Speakers: Yuliana Dimas

In 2014, an international effort secured the release of a pulse of water into the parched Colorado River delta. As ecologists delighted in the success of returning water to the natural channel of the Colorado River, communities in the Mexicali Valley celebrated as well. Yuliana Dimas, a social worker for one of Mexico’s leading environmental organizations, ProNatura Noroeste, recognizes the cultural significance of restoring the flow of the Colorado River through its natural delta. While ecologists continue to monitor the health of the ecosystem, Yulie studies the surrounding communities’ relationship with the pulse flow, which she says has largely been positive. Historically, communities in the Mexicali valley were very connected with the river and Yulie believes that the pulse flow is restoring those connections. When the water came, people gathered alongside the river banks to celebrate the long awaited sight of water flowing toward the sea. Yulie explains that children are learning about the river ecosystem and that families are volunteering with restoration projects which has “made the place happy, very happy.” The work of community advocates like Yulie means that returning water to the Colorado delta has strengthened the community as well as the ecosystem, reminding people of the joy of water.

By Sarah Dunn

Meet Our Speakers: Bonnie McKinney

Standing in the shade of the porch in a pair of beautifully worn cowboy boots, Bonnie McKinney introduces herself quickly. She runs though the professional paths she has followed until she arrived here, at the Adams Ranch in Southern Texas, as the Wildlife Coordinator.  McKinney’s work takes place on a large piece of land owned by The El Carmen Land and Conservation Company.  This private conservation area sits strategically between the Texas Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, Big Bend National Park and a CEMEX conservation project in the Sierra Del Carmen Mountains of Mexico. In this important transnational wildlife corridor, it is McKinney’s job to document animals, protect habitats and facilitate projects done on this land. Bonnie McKinney was the right woman to hire for this job. She had worked on CEMEX’s conservation project in Mexico for the 14 years prior and before that was employed by Texas Parks and Wildlife.  Work in the outdoors is what has come most naturally to McKinney who grew up hunting and fishing in Virginia. She says of herself, “I was outside my whole life. I was in the creek catching minnows and my mom was always trying to get me inside the house to learn to cook, and that never happened.” McKinney has made a career out of what she loves most and is helping to protect the deeply unique environment of these desert borderlands in doing so. 

By Grace Butler

Meet Our Speakers: Billy Pat McKinney

Billy Pat McKinney grew up in both the United States and Mexico, flitting across a border marked only by the Rio Grande. McKinney told us that—as a boy—nature lovers were the butt of his jokes. Clearly people change because in 1969, hoping “to make a quick buck” he found a job as a field biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Reminiscing, he told the westies it’s the things you stumble upon that make you happiest. McKinney made live captures to study animals and quickly mastered his job. He’s a “do it yourself” guy, living to defy the maxim, “conservation without money is just conversation.” He currently works for CEMEX, a global cement company operating in over 50 countries. The company owns the Adams Ranch, a large parcel of land in the Big Bend area and dedicates it to conservation with the goal of corporate responsibility. Cemex employs a team, under the direction of McKinney, to oversee the conservation area. Among their responsibilities are re-wilding and reviving wildlife populations. They strategically place supplemental feed for quail and water guzzlers (which harvest and store rainwater) for mule deer, big horn sheep, and birds. To further aid wildlife, McKinney suggests giving certain animals game status. Though it sounds counterintuitive, this gives species protection until their population bolsters to a viable size. He enjoys his vocation: protecting wildlife. “I fell in love with this work, and the romance continues.”

By Griffin Cronk

 

Meet Our Speakers: Josiah Austin

“We have to manage conservation,” Josiah Austin tells the westies over a bowl of cereal. His 30,000-acre Adams Ranch in Big Bend, Texas is surrounded on three sides by conservation areas–National Park on one side, Wildlife Management on another, and a privately-held international corporate conservation area to the southeast, straddling the US-Mexico border. Austin began buying up Texas ranch properties in 1982 with the intention of restoring landscape and habitat. “When we first started doing watershed restoration, we didn’t really know what we were doing, but we learned quickly.” He and his wife moved over a thousand miles from their home in Manhattan to a double-wide on El Coronado Ranch in Texas. “I don’t think my wife had any clue what a double-wide even was,” Austin smiled. Josiah is tall and thin, and even when he’s wearing Crocs he appears authoritative. He dropped out of high school, talked his way into college, and graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in finance. After a career in the stock market, he went west to pursue his passion for open spaces. “I guess my love for open space started on my family’s farm in Maryland,” he explained, “on New Hampshire Avenue.” At the Adams Ranch Headquarters in Big Bend, it seems Austin’s got all the open space he could ever want. 

Meet Our Speakers: Nathan Schroeder

On a warm afternoon outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Spa in Santa Ana Pueblo, Nathan Schroeder stands in blue jeans, a short sleeved button up work shirt, and black sunglasses. As the Restoration Division Manager for Santa Ana Pueblo in south-central New Mexico, Nathan works  to restore native ecological systems to the Rio Grande river corridor. After spending his undergraduate years at Bowling Green State University, he earned masters degree in natural resources management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Having worked for contract restoration firms in Chicago for several years, Nathan moved to New Mexico after the Great Recession. Nathan enjoys living and working in Santa Ana despite numerous obstacles to the restoration he’s tasked with completing, foremost among them the gradual strangling of the river by both the Jemez and Cochiti Dams upstream. Operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, these dams have significantly degraded the Rio Grande to the point where “the river we have now is not the river we had 70-80 years ago.” Nathan’s work day ranges from the annual introduction of the endangered silvery minnow into the Rio Grande to extensive invasive plant removal along the banks. His restoration work is ecologically focused, often opting for more expensive but environmentally friendly options in plant removal and regeneration. Preservation of remaining natural systems is at the core of his work, for “it's hard to work with systems once you destroy them.”

Gardner Dee

Meet Our Speakers: Courtney White

Courtney White, an author and founder of the Quivira Coalition, lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an area surrounded by jagged peaks and the open range of public lands. He is well aware of how livestock graze these lands; Quivira’s mission is collaborative conservation, specifically cooperation between ranchers and environmentalists. White himself is an exemplar of the confluence of environmentalism and agrarian land use. He started as a Sierra Club activist before, as he puts it, getting “frustrated listening to some of the environmental rhetoric…about how you deal with rural people.” Thus began the journey towards the creation of the Quivira Coalition in 1997. Quivira was inspired by ranchers, who, at the time of White’s frustration, were utilizing environmentally conscious grazing practices, including high-intensity low-duration grazing, which purportedly engenders the regeneration of native grasses. One such rancher is Bill McDonald of southern Arizona, who coined the term ‘radical center.’ The radical center is the space between preservationist environmentalism and disregard for the land’s health. As Courtney explains, “the idea is that we look at these landscapes collaboratively, ranchers and conservationists, and try to find different ways of co-managing [them].” White acknowledges that traditional grazing practices heavily degrade the land; however, when asked if cattle should be grazed on public land, he replies quickly: “of course.” The collaborative median that White and the Quivira Coalition foster offers a long-needed compromise in the context of controversial Western land management and conservation. 

By: Fields Ford

Better Know an Educator: Brooke Williams

Brooke Williams believes that each of us has one story that we tell over and over again in many different forms, and, during a writing workshop on Comb Ridge in Bluff, Utah, Williams told us his. Drawing on the work of Carl Jung and others, Williams helped us understand the concept of the “collective unconscious,” the idea that humans share an ancestral memory, accessible within each of us. There are many ways to tap into our collective unconscious, but for Williams this is best done through being outside in wild places. By wandering, following anything that catches the eye, and paying attention to moments of awe, we are able to find our true, wild, inner selves. Williams believes that what is most personal to each of us is also most universal, and an understanding of the collective unconscious can enable us to write a story that is “so personal it is universal”. Furthermore, within these stories are the tools we need solve the problems of today and save our species. We are wasting our time if we do not tell them.

By: Abby Popenoe

Meet Our Speakers: Adrian Herder

Adrian Herder of the Chíshsí clan of the Navajo Nation, explains his identity as a strand of DNA. The clans of his mother and father knit together to create a unique individual from familial characteristics. Family is obviously important to Adrian. He traveled home from Flagstaff where he is in school to host the Westies and share the history of the land that his family has inhabited and lived off of for generations. Time tried myths mingled with personal narratives from his childhood as he introduced us to his relatives, sharing poignant stories about their dedication to their individual life’s work.

Adrian is dedicated in his own right. Out of his high school graduating class of 55, only ten attended college or university, and only four or five are now on track to earn their degrees. Adrian is one of them, finishing his senior year at Northern Arizona University where he studies Wellness and Fitness. Though busy with schoolwork, he also guides tours at the picturesque Antelope Canyon, picks and sells local tea, and hosts college students over the weekend.

On our last morning with Adrian, we found a horny toad hiding under a desert shrub. According to legend, this creature fought off a thunderstorm threatening the earth, using its back as a shield to selflessly protect the place it loved. At our departure, Adrian emphasized the need to channel this warrior instinct toward modern environmental and social justice battles. Adrian himself embodies this spirit, generously educating us about his family and culture.

By: Sarah Dunn

Meet Our Speakers: Ed Grumbine

At the edge of a hundred miles of rifted steppe sits Kane Ranch, an unassuming brick building just south of the Arizona-Utah border. Within a chair circle out front, Ed Grumbine thrums with energy as the dynamic focal point for 48 eyes. A veteran university professor, he’s recently found tenure outside academia with the Grand Canyon Trust, a conservation non-profit which owns the historic ranch structure and, since 2008, the grazing permits to 830,000 surrounding acres of public land. Ed oversees the business aspects of those allotments, partnering with a veteran rancher to keep the organization’s 600 cattle in line.

            The former teacher spends equal time asking questions as answering them, and his main line of rhetorical inquiry, “why the hell is an environmental group running cattle?” sparks animated discussion. Our eventual consensus—building relationships with neighboring ranchers and influencing their practices for the land’s benefit—proves correct, and Ed confirms that the strategy has paid dividends. However, putting environmental sensitivity first has the ranch in the red financially, complicating the endeavor’s long-term prospects.

            Asked if he personally would banish cattle from public land, Ed responds affirmatively, but appends two caveats. First, that people still depend on grazing permits to make their living, and second, that the economic and political leverage necessary for a systemic shift towards more sustainable meats simply doesn’t exist. A pragmatist, Ed works to change the system from within, and he leaves us with the mantra “embrace the complexity”, a prominent feature of public lands grazing.

            By: Hunter Dun

Better Know an Educator: Roger Clark

“Hello Mr. Raven,” Roger Clark, of the Grand Canyon Trust, interrupts himself to greet a raven whirling above him on the west rim of Marble Canyon in Arizona. Roger has poised himself here because of his belief that a person should intimately know the places they work for. As the Grand Canyon Program Director this is the landscape he has dedicated his work, and impressive education, towards. Roger received his Master’s degree and PhD from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and quickly took up a position at Berkley as an assistant professor of Forest Sociology. His love of academia and his students kept him in the job until he was convinced, at the suggestion of one of his students, to become a river guide at 30 years old. For the next ten years Roger’s love of the natural world and education blended together on western rivers. His work for the Grand Canyon Trust, which began in 1989, consists of the promotion of renewable energy, the fight against uranium mining around the Grand Canyon, and work to stop a proposed tramway that would run into the bottom of the canyon. Meeting Roger, it is clear why his classes at Berkley were stock full of 300 students. Everything he says is wrapped in a laugh and it is as easy to ask questions of him as it is to joke with him. Roger Clark’s devotion, humor and knowledge stand as a powerful force in his Northern Arizonan community.

By: Grace Butler

Better Know an Educator: Mary O'Brien

We met Mary O’Brien at a small park on a bright Sunday afternoon in Richfield, Utah. A renowned ecologist working for the Grand Canyon Trust, Mary has degrees in sociology, elementary education, and a Ph.D. in botany. Mary and her husband have lived and worked in a number of places from Southern California to Eugene, Oregon, finally settling in Castle Valley, Utah. Mary has a storied career in toxics policy, social work, and was even considered for the directorship of Greenpeace. Small rocks, fossils, and bones cover the space not taken by stacks of papers, maps, and botany books in her charming mud-covered hay-bale construction home fronted by large windows facing south. Whether on the aspen-covered slopes of Monroe Mountain or the Gambel Oak foothills of the La Sal range, Mary’s enduring passion for science-based conservation and advocacy comes to the forefront in conversations about public lands grazing and the importance of protecting springs on national forests. Mary’s unstoppable drive comes from her perspective that it is “harder to watch things fall apart than trying to do something about it.” For over thirteen years with the Trust, Mary has been effecting conservation through tireless field work and persistence with federal land management agencies. Through two weeks of performing aspen transects and forest service spring assessments, Mary’s ecological knowledge impressed and inspired. As for being a career scientist, for Mary, “it doesn’t get better than being paid to tell the truth.”

By: Gardner Dee

Meet Our Speakers: Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly strives to do his work where the spheres of ecology, society, and the economy meet. He believes that there is a way to go about conservation work that will benefit all three, and speaks about this intersection passionately. In his words, “People who disagree need to respect each other.” Brian is the Restoration Director for the Hells Canyon Preservation Council, a collective founded in 1967 with the mission to “protect, restore, and connect.” The HCPC formed in reaction to proposals to build dams in Hells Canyon, where the Imnaha and Salmon rivers join the Snake. Since then, it has prompted the creation of Hells Canyon National Recreation Area (HCNRA), a 652,000 acre parcel of land that includes 200,000 acres of wilderness. This area connects the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest, allowing species like wolves and moose unfettered access across the western portion of the US. In terms of conservation, Brian thinks that “change is growth, and growth is part of life.” Bearing this principle in mind, human connections must be forged that can allow for restoration practices that are flexible and tailored to the specific place being restored.

By: Kenzie Spooner

Meet Our Speakers: Nils Christofferson

Nils Christoffersen is the executive director of Wallowa Resources, an organization that seeks to wed local economic stability and the sustainable management of natural resources.  Nils spent his early career farming on an Israeli kibbutz, working aboard a fishing boat, ranching in Australia, and exploring community land management in Southern Africa.  Seventeen years ago Nils moved to Oregon and began his work with Wallowa Resources.  Today, his feet planted broadly beneath a stand of mixed conifers, Nils gestures animatedly and asks us what kind of ecosystem we see.

The Westies spent the morning touring a series of forest sites in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest with Nils, stopping to analyze and discuss the management history at each stand.  During our last hour together Nils led us through the Integrated Biomass Energy Campus, an entrepreneurial sawmill that processes unmarketable timber.  This facility has created a market for understory timber and secondary growth, thereby reducing the amount of forest ground fuel and adding value to an underutilized resource.  The business serves as a model of innovative stewardship.  Is Nils stated: “Instead of being overwhelmed by change from the outside as things collapse and have others decide that we should be a destination resort or a prison …we could all work together on a new and different model that would advance this vision of socioeconomic revitalization and align it with land stewardship.”  

By Maya Aurichio