Hiking Through a Place That "Challenged My Senses"

Ben and Duane Greuel near the March River three miles from the Arctic coast. 

Duane Greuel might live in Wisconsin, but you can call him a Sierra Club Arctic Hero. So how does someone who grows pickles and fruit on a hobby farm become a defender of the Arctic?

For Duane, it was his two-week backpacking journey last September through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where he trekked alongside caribou, gazed at the northern lights, and made friends with native people. He immediately realized how special this place was.

"The wildlife, the mountains, the plains, the coast. All these systems come together and work in harmony with each other," he says. "This place challenged my senses. I never knew what quiet was until I went there. I could hear my son clearly talking to another person a quarter-mile away. Here at home, you can't hear someone 20 feet from you."

Duane is one of several activists fighting to keep the Refuge intact. Right now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comments on whether to permanently protect a huge chunk of the coastal plain from Big Oil by designating it a Wilderness Area.

Keeping oil and gas companies out of there is paramount to preserving a way of life for the people Duane met during his trip. Opening up the area to oil would parallel the days of a young America, when white populations slaughtered buffalo that the Sioux depended on.

A nearby caribou.

"The Gwich'in and Inuit people who live there are caribou people. Their culture is based on the caribou, which breeds along the coastal plains. The caribou are more than just wildlife. They are part of a culture, and the destruction of the caribou's habitat would destroy the culture of these indigenous people," he says.

Wisconsinite Works for Washington Wilderness

Photo by Sarah Babbington, courtesy of The Wilderness Society

Wisconsin native Ben Greuel, an organizer with the Sierra Club's Resilient Habitats Campaign, was recently featured in Wilderness, the magazine of The Wilderness Society. A photo of Greuel introduced the article, "Building an Army of Young Conservation Leaders."

Greuel is a "graduate" of the mentoring program run by the Wilderness Society's Wilderness Support Center (WSC) in Durango, Colorado. The Center was created in 1999 to train new leaders to protect our public lands and help build a stronger, more interconnected wilderness movement.

Greuel recently undertook a backpacking trip across the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with his dad to advocate for protection of the Arctic coastal plain from oil & gas drilling. That's Ben & his dad, Duane, below.

Ben devotes his prodigious energies and organizing skills to protecting wildlands and watersheds in the Greater Puget Sound Ecoregion, especially on the Olympic Peninsula.

"I do everything from educating our members to reaching out to everyone from economic development councils to local fishing guides to recreation groups to local elected officials to local tribes to timber companies," he told Hannah Nordhaus, who interviewed Greuel for Wilderness.

Protecting the Grand Canyon — An Organizer's Story

By Alicyn Gitlin, Sierra Club Resilient Habitats organizer.

I'm probably like you: I'm the one who will show up at public meetings and speak loudly, and I prod my friends to do the same. I will stand up and ask questions of water managers and foresters and politicians, and if their answer doesn't make sense, I will ask again.

I live in Flagstaff, Arizona—a place that's small enough to make easy connections. I see the same people at every meeting, and I rapidly realized that by being one out of the 10 or 20 people who show up to a hearing, I alone might offer 5-10% of the opinions that my decision-makers hear.

One year ago, I began organizing for Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Protection Campaign. One of my most important goals: empower more of the public to show up, speak out, and just plain participate in public processes. Easy, right? After all, everyone I know lives in northern Arizona because of our vast and stunning landscapes. Why wouldn't they want to protect them?

Persuading people that they must speak up to protect what they love is just like medicine: part science, part art, and some inherent skill; and what worked last time might utterly fail this time.

Club Partners with Veterans in Ascent of Grand Teton to Commemorate 9/11

On September 11, 2011—the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks—the Sierra Club's Military Outdoors program partnered with Veterans Expeditions of Boulder, Colorado, in recruiting and training eight veterans to summit the Grand Teton in Wyoming.

Stacy Bare, Military Families and Veterans Affairs Representative for the Sierra Club, helped train the climbers and accompanied them on the ascent of the Grand Teton. A former U.S. Army Captain and Bronze Star recipient, Bare served in Bosnia and Iraq, and spent time as a civilian explosive ordnance disposal technician in Angola and the Republic of Georgia.

Bare was serving in the Individual Ready Reserve when he was called back to active duty in late 2005. He was the Director of National Programs for Veterans Green Jobs before starting Veterans Expeditions. That's Bare pictured above, and below at center with other members of the Grand Teton expedition. The Grand Teton is the second peak from the right in the background.

Here is Bare's account of the expedition:

The program started four months before the actual climbing event through outreach to the military and veteran community to get them hiking and working towards the summit attempt of the Grand Teton. The team trained all summer in the Colorado high country with Colorado Wilderness Rides and Guides of Boulder, and in Wyoming with Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. The training paid off with an efficient team effort on summit day.

This team of veterans had endured the hardships of military service, fought through the struggles of a difficult transition back to civilian life, and climbed with the thoughts of all those who could not join us. The fallen, the broken, the suffering, were all there with us in our hearts.

We climbed for all those who have suffered as a result of 9/11/01. We climbed with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, prosthetic legs, missing fingers, and broken bodies disabled by roadside bombs. We climbed so that other veterans would be motivated to get off the couch and regain that fire again. We climbed to reverse the negative statistics that plague the veteran community. We climbed to raise our arms on the summit and bring a positive experience to this difficult day in our nation's history.

Redding Moving Planet Focuses on Resilient Habitats

Redding's "Human Movement" away from fossil fuels at the Sundial Bridge

Approaching Redding, California, a sign reads, "Welcome to Redding, population 98,000."  The town sits at the north end of the great Central Valley with the Cascade and Sierra mountains rising up on three sides. Redding also straddles a beautiful stretch of the Sacramento River flowing through the heart of its 300-acre urban park.

Redding is a very pretty place but also a community, like many others in California, suffering from budget woes and an extremely high unemployment rate.  In fact, times are so tough that the city's impressive convention center is now being leased to a church group because the city can no longer afford the operating expenses. 

Sierra Club Forest Campaign Takes Center Stage at Vermont Climate Rally

More than 1,500 Vermonters rallied in the state capital of Montpelier (population 7,800) to demand action on climate change and support community forests, green (union) jobs, energy-efficient homes and buildings, renewable energy, local/healthy food, and green transportation.

"This was quite possibly the largest environmental demonstration in the history of the Green Mountain State," said Sierra Club organizer David Vandeusen. The event, held in conjunction with the Moving Planet day of action, was organized by 350.org Vermont and co-sponsored by the Vermont Sierra Club. More than 2,000 Moving Planet rallies were held in more than 175 countries around the globe in support of a transition beyond fossil fuels. That's U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, below, at the Montpelier rally.

A delegation of Sierra Club leaders presented Governor Peter Shumlin with a petition containing more than 1,000 signatures supporting the Club's Our Forests Our Future campaign, along with letters of support from community organizations representing 8 percent of the state's total workforce. That's Vermont Chapter Chair Zak Griefen and Vice Chair David Ellenbogen flanking Shumlin, at left, below; at right, the governor talks with a constituent while Ellenbogen looks on.

For Kathleen Wilson, it's a Resilient Habitat in Her Backyard

Kathleen Wilson has every incentive to keep the Puget Sounds Ecoregion intact. For starters, she lives adjacent to Lake Wenatchee, Wash., a serenely quiet area in Wenatchee National Forest. But she was recently reminded of what's at stake when a logging company did its thing along an area against the backend of Kathleen's property line.

"They forewarned me a long time ago that the land was for sale and they would log it. But now that they've done it, it's just destruction everywhere. They left a huge mess," says the Resilient Habitats activist.

The Greater Puget Sound Ecoregion embodies three National Parks -- Olympic, Mt. Rainier, and North Cascades -- and connects eastward to Wenatchee, Mt. Baker, and Okanogan National Forest. Orcas and salmon are high priorities for the campaign, along with the overall health of the forests that embody this wild ecological corridor.

"For someone who's never been here, I'd describe it as mountainous with plenty of rivers and access to all these trails with by pine trees, fir, maple," she says. "I have wild blueberries growing in my yard. I've actually picked them and made blueberry jam. The views are amazing. I think we're lucky to live here and I know that other people in this area are very protective as well."

Kathleen sees wildlife everyday.

"The day I moved in I had to wait for a bear to get off the road on the property before I could move in," she says. She frequently spots bears, eagles, ospreys, and deer going about their business. It's a harmonious living situation for Kathleen and the wildlife. "I'll look out my kitchen window and there are two deer looking back at me wondering what I'm up to."

Moving Planet Day in Montana

Big thanks to the nearly 150 volunteers who made Missoula's Moving Planet Day a Big Success this past weekend! Sierra Club, Montana Audubon, University of Montana Climate Action Now, Missoula Free Cycles and a host of other partners organized this worldwide event last Saturday, September 24th, to encourage our community to move beyond fossil fuels, advocate for solutions to our climate crisis and support clean air policies.  

Citizens put their demand for climate action into motion by promoting sustainable transportation, producing local food, and restoring our public lands as part of five service projects around the community.

Thirty bicycles were assembled from scrap parts for use by the general public. Some of these bicycles will make their way to Ghana in a partially full freight box.

It was also National Public Lands Day, the largest, single-day volunteer event for public lands in the U.S.  Healthy, resilient public lands are critical in buffering the impacts of climate change. At a time when our leaders are delaying Environmental Protection Agency safeguards on carbon, ozone, and smog pollution, it is more important than ever to advocate for local solutions.

Join us on Facebook!

-- Bob Clark, Montana Sierra Club

Richard Garcia: Bear Canister Inventor and Resilient Habitats Champion

If you ask Richard Garcia how he got so involved with the Sierra Club, he'll mention the bears.

"Bears are extremely smart, they're very adaptive, and that's what gets them in trouble," he says. "I've been trying to outsmart bears for nearly 30 years."

Richard is the inventor of the Garcia Bear Canister, which he designed in 1982 after rangers from Sequoia National Park -- where encounters with aggressive bears were on the rise -- tasked him with figuring a way visitors with food on them could safely roam the parks.

These days Richard is part of the Sierra Nevada Resilient Habitats campaign, where the focus is on saving delicate ecosystems and species that feel the heat of climate change –- such as the Pacific fisher, American marten, the Sierra Nevada red fox, and the pika, the local campaign's adopted mascot.

"A lot of animals as it warms up are just going to move higher up the mountain," he says. "But for pikas, these guys are already up there."

Richard -- a grandfather of three is a former paratrooper, motorcycle racer, and deer hunter. He and his wife operate a precision machine shop outside Visalia, Calif. He's invented -- and manufactures -- several products, including machine tool accessories and laboratory equipment used in plant pathology.

Richard recalls his first few attempts at designing a bear-proof container. Rangers had taken his prototypes to the Fresno Zoo.

"They'd stuff them with sardines and give them to the grizzlies," Richard says. "The rangers would come back with broken pieces. I worked on three or four prototypes and they all failed. I kept working at it and finally designed one that worked."

When Richard found a successful design, he manufactured and shipped 100 to Alaska. Rangers in Delani National Park handed them to entering visitors. After only one season, the results were startling. Reports of nuisance bears dropped after they quickly learned that people weren't so easy anymore.

"It was a rewarding endeavor and we have saved a few bears," he says. "Rangers have told me that the backcountry is safer for both campers and bears."

He eventually placed an ad in SIERRA magazine for the container and then became a member. But Richard's involvement with the Club didn't really take off until 1999 when an irrigation company threatened to pull 300 old oak trees that lined up a nearby canal. During the fight to save the trees, he joined the Kern-Kaweah Chapter executive committee. At one point during the controversy, as described in this SIERRA magazine story, Garcia formed a "moving barricade that refused to allow district trucks and equipment to cross private property," according to the article. The protest ultimately led to a victory.

Activists Mobilize as Big Coal Targets Bryce Canyon National Park

Sierra Club activists hold up their water quality detectors.

Numbers don't lie. That's why activists armed with digital water quality detectors are gathering along the streams of Utah, where Big Coal's top priority is right next door to majestic Bryce Canyon National Park.

With an assist from the Sierra Club's Resilient Habitats program and the Water Sentinels, dozens of new volunteers have been trained to monitor nearby waterways, collect samples, and use the data to expose the coal industry. Data that come in from a Salt Lake City lab will comprise a clickable online map using GIS software.

"The lab tests for a variety of heavy metals -– arsenic, mercury contamination, and other serious toxins," says Tim Wagner, who works for the Resilient Habitats program in Utah. One result has already detected a conductivity reading of 1600+. "Normal range is somewhere around 50 to 100. Obviously something's going on here."

There's been a recent upswing of Big Coal activity in the state, with the current battle taking place on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management near Bryce Canyon and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Collected data will give activists a leg up on coal companies.

"This will give local volunteers the necessary tools they'd need to counter some of the public relations spin that comes from mining proponents," Tim Wagner says.

Water Sentinels Deputy Director Tim Guilfoile was on hand to train and equip Utah volunteers in water quality testing. "It was an amazing weekend," says Utah Chapter Chair Marion Klaus. "The group was dynamic, motivated and interested, and we had excellent participation from folks in the small town of Kanab, Moab, and Salt Lake City. It was an amazing shot in the arm to the local folks to have Tim and the Sierra Club come help them battle Alton Coal."

"The Utah volunteers were among the most motivated and committed I've seen and they came from throughout the state," Guilfoile says. "The intrusion of the coal industry into valleys below Bryce Canyon National Park and the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument represents a deep disregard for the American people and our national treasures. This fight is a Beyond Coal issue, a Resilient Habitats issue, a Water Sentinels issue and a threat to the health and economic well being of the communities in the region. The collaboration of these three Climate Recovery Campaigns with the people of Utah is a model for future activism."