Environmental Autobiography

ESPM 3011W assignment.

Where the woods meet the water is where I feel at home. Across Minnesota and across the globe I have journeyed to the waters of the forests, where I have found peace and joy, and also profound challenges to my understanding of the world and my place in it. I've seen in these woods and wildernesses a vision of what life was like in a time before photographs and power lines, cell phones and outboard motors. I've gained insights into my role in the destruction of nature, and eventually into my obligation to try to prevent its destruction. The ideas I have encountered during my time in forests and their waters have profoundly shaped my relationship with the earth.

As a child spending time at my grandparents' cabin in the woods of central Minnesota, I learned to know trees as individuals, not merely as a forest or a species. Although I still considered the trees objects, they were now individual objects, and due to their size and age they were essentially irreplaceable. I can still view a perfect mental image of the tree with the basketball hoop, or the magnificent tree by the bonfire pit. In the water of Round Lake, I saw a glimpse into the past and into the mind of a fish. An outhouse had only recently been supplemented by an indoor toilet, and bathing was usually done in the lake. My cousins and I loved to fish and caught plenty, but were also forced to face that some fish had simply outsmarted us. From the monster bass that ignored everything we threw its way, to the school of sunfish that unfailingly sent the smallest amongst them to our baited hooks, we were often forced to concede the day to the fish.

While I enjoyed the escape to a simpler lifestyle and more pristine environment, the signs of civilization's increasing encroachment, and resulting damage, were everywhere. Eurasion water milfoil was the news-maker. Jet skis from sunrise to sunset and greatly increased traffic when the resorts started expanding heavily into golf were the big complaints around my cabin. But didn't we play our part, too? That foam on the shore couldn't be completely unrelated to using soap in the water, and that film of gasoline sure seemed to be coming from the fishing boat. I doubt I had the courage to consider the dead fish washing up on shore. I couldn't help considering, what part did I play in destroying this place I love? I switched to biodegradable soap, and lost some enthusiasm for fishing and boating, but I wondered if I should do more. Although I didn't dwell on these doubts, once they found their way into my mind they never went away completely.

During high school, I went on my first canoeing trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. In the woods and waters of the BWCA, the individual trees became a forest that was no less alive than a colony of ants or a flock of geese. The lakes were clearly visible as the lifeline of the ecosystem, with nearly every inhabitant of the forest, from moose to mouse, visible at the water's edge at one time or another. Although fiberglass canoes, nylon tents and waterproof bags made for lighter packs and a cozier camp, we traveled the lakes by canoe as humans have for all of history. Like those before me, I lived my daily life in clear, direct dependence on the lakes around me for drinking, cooking, cleaning and transport. I could no longer look at a lake and see just a place for recreation and enjoyment.

The airplanes occasionally overhead reminded me that civilization was giving a wider berth to the BWCA than could be reasonably expected. As long as wood was plentiful elsewhere and no “essential” hydrocarbons or minerals are discovered beneath it, this treasure might remain. My cynicism about the world around me already failed to let me believe that it would survive any longer than that. And, would it survive even until then with the problem of intermittent enormous fires, and global warming promising a new climate which will be both riper for the development of such infernos and a overall less conducive to a forest ecosystem? Again, I was forced to confront my own roll in the system that threatened this wondrous place, I was beginning to wonder whether I could even avoid playing that role. When I returned to college after my second trip to the Boundary Waters, I began to question everything from my mechanical engineering major to my aspirations for a high-paying job and the lifestyle that enables.

As I became more ambivalent about my future path, I decided to take a year to study in Ecuador. I expected fun, a chance to improve my Spanish, and some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. The program I went with is focused on alternative and sustainable development models, so I even thought I might do some good, especially with my engineering background. Here again I found woods and water that overwhelmed my senses. Towering rainforest trees many hundreds of years old finally became subjects, beings to appreciate as equals, rather than objects. The waters of Ecuador were even more amazing: soaring waterfalls, the ocean and amazonian tributaries. That these are the veins and arteries of “mother earth” could no longer be considered simply a beautiful metaphor. Villages with no electricity, where the cow herd was started by carrying young cows over a wide river valley on a cable car, gave me my clearest view yet of the beauty of the world before civilization's destructive power became so immense and its reach so wide.

I passed through and stayed in filthy cities like Tena, a tiny third-world Houston, and was jarred by the stark contrast with the beauty of the jungle. Throughout the year as part of our program, we reflected on our roles in Ecuadorian society and our influences there. Clearly, I was appalled by the destruction of the rainforest and the damage caused by the oil industry. I was even tear-gassed at a protest against ALCA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) when meetings were held in Quito. But it was becoming clear to me that the real battle for the environment had to take place in the hearts and minds of people. In that battle I was a walking billboard for the idea that the solutions to problems are available from the first world. Maybe from universities and non-governmental organizations, especially at first, but eventually, inevitably from the governments and corporations as well. And, those solutions inescapably carry with them western values and assumptions that undermine existing values such as a reverence for nature. I couldn't be a part of that process of spreading a problematic but dominant ideology into the farthest reaches of humanity, once I understood it in that way. I returned to the U.S. early in my second semester in Ecuador, and midway through my first semester back at the University of Minnesota, I dropped out completely. I lost hope of making a positive impact on the world and set my sights only on minimizing the damage I caused.

While this harm-reduction approach was enough for several years, eventually the stirring to do more grew until inaction could not continue. I've returned now to the woods and water of the Twin Cities, feeling more at home than I have in a long time. As the damage to the earth grows all around, I realize that there is no excuse not to act. Whether I think we will be victorious or not, I must act because we just might. Whether I have hope or not, I must act because if I do not I will have doubt. I don't know where my education and my future will work take my. But, whatever I do and wherever I go, I will honor my relationship with the woods and waters of the world by continuing to search for meaningful ways to protect them.