A little perspective
Research vessel LM Gould and Antarctica iceberg – photo courtesy of Lindsey Peavey, Duke University Nicholas School
A little perspective is a good thing always. Once immersed we can lose sight of the big picture, the end goal and reason for all the work and struggle and excitement about the environment. Perspective can bring it all back in focus. Some of my Duke friends spent 7 weeks in Antarctica on a major research expedition on marine mammals. They called the place vast… The picture above conveys that message to me.
I have been to only a couple places on the planet that I would call vast – the western stretches of Alaska, the steppes of Patagonia and maybe the nevernending tidal flats in the Berry Islands, Bahamas. Places so big that no human impact is discernible. But for me and most of us our daily lives are in places where human impact is visible everywhere we turn. It is not a bad thing. We humans occupy a lot of territory to satisfy our needs for comfort, wealth and entertainment. And we each know the cost of such a lifestyle.
And working on the Henrys Fork project this summer has brought all this into focus. The Henrys Fork ecosystem is simply being overwhelmed by the demands of it’s inhabitants. It is not a bad thing just the reality of a set of well thought out choices by the people who live, work, play and die there. Vast places have resilient ecosystems. The human impact is diluted for now there. The Henrys Fork watershed has been at a crossroads for the past decade. Since being chosen the best trout stream in America by Trout Unlimted, it has taken an ecological hit by the demand for water by irrigators, by the trumpeter swans demanding a better place for wintering over and by the trout who are constantly resupplied to the Ranch section from overflow of the Island Park Dam. And all people have benefited from this: famers, birders and fisherman and those that make their living off the River.
The real question is whether this will last? Is there a creeping decline that is unnoticed by each of us? Are the swan and trout populations ecologically at odds with each other? Will the next drought push the watershed over the biological edge? I do not have the answer but only the simple question… Do you want to wait around and find out or do you want to do something now? Groups like the Henrys Fork Foundation are asking that question just as we are. It is not about the fish or the swans that worry me. Simply put… It is about this way of life that is question.
We can always dream of those vast spaces as our ecological wonderlands but it would be a crime to dream on while we have the ones in our back yard like the Henrys Fork that are at risk.
