Dave Foreman in Durango tomorrow night

Thursday night you have a chance to see one of the great forces in the evolution of the environmental movement when Dave Foreman speaks at Fort Lewis College.

Foreman will talk on "The Rewilding of America" on at 7 p.m. on Oct. 1st in 130 Noble Hall. There will also be an informal discussion and Q&A with Foreman will also happen at 4:30pm, at the Center of Southwest Studies.

Read a quick bio of Foreman here.

The many flags Foreman has marched under in his eco-career -- from Wilderness Society to Earth First! to Sierra Club to Wild Earth to, today, the Rewilding Institute -- show his willingness to have a broad embrace of ways to embody what is his ultimate vision: putting the earth first in our society and culture and technology and lives. That's the true Earth First! -- a path and a compass bearing, rather than a mere group. No membership, just action. Whether that's politics, protest, science, or even personal silent solitude in the wilds.

In that sense, then, and equally importantly, in my mind, has been Foreman's role as not just enviro-meddler (as Ed Abbey called good environmentalists), or not even agitator, but as motivator. He's been a life-long cheerleader -- one who backs his cheerleading by reason and evidence and humor and the occasional howling -- who has hounded and cajoled and bugled others to take up the battle to put the earth first in whatever way each of us we can.

See and hear the show yourself on Thursday.

And check out this clip below of Foreman speaking at a Bioneers Conference in 2005:

Four guiding precepts for environmentalists

Dave Foreman's recent "Around the Campfire" post starts a bit melancholy: He laments the passing of several noted environmental activists, including Congressman John Seiberling, deep ecologist Arne Naess, biologists Dave Maehr, river conservationist Pete Lavigne, and others.

Foreman saves his greatest eulogy, though, for Clif Merritt. "Clif is likely not well known to conservationists these days," Foreman says, "but I wouldn’t shy from putting him on the list of the top half-dozen wilderness heroes of the twentieth century."

Merritt, who passed at 89, was director of The Wilderness Society’s western regional office in Denver in the 1960s and through the 1970s, and was a formidable Wilderness advocate.

And Merritt was the one who taught Foreman four rules for environmentalists that Foreman says changed his life and his activism for ever. And stand as excellent guidelines for all of us who care about wildness and wilderness to be reminded of today.

Those four precepts, according to Foreman, are:

First is that the real work of conservation is to shield wild places with clear boundaries, solid rules, and enforcement. In the United States at least, Wilderness Area designation is the best way to do that.

Second is that the heart of conservation is made up of citizen conservationists. Conservation is a family of Nature lovers, not an assortment of institutions. Clif always told us Wilderness Society reps to strengthen independent local and state wilderness groups, to give credit to citizen volunteers and local groups, and to not elbow them out of the way to claim accomplishments for The Wilderness Society or any other big national group. We could lead but were not to hog the limelight.

Third is to ask for and work for what we want, what is needed, what is right, and not to accept what is offered us or what we are told is “reasonable” or “practical.” We are advocates for wild things; we are not politicians juggling interest groups with an eye to the next election. In the 1970s, Clif led against watered-down alternatives to Wilderness Areas such as “backcountry” and a lesser kind of wilderness for Eastern national forests.

Fourth is to have a vision. Since the days when he worked for passage of the Wilderness Act, Clif was carried along by vision. By looking ahead for the big picture, he was ready to head off on new paths that beckoned—for example, he jumped onto the idea of wildlife linkages between Wilderness Areas in 1993, just after The Wildlands Project began to push them. From a practical standpoint, we gain far more when we strive for a vision.

It's pretty easy to see, I think, how these compass bearings guided Foreman in his long career from Earth First!, to the Wildlands Project, and now with the Rewilding Project.

How might they live past Clif Merritt -- and even the Dave Foreman's of the world -- to guide the next guardians of the wild?

"The best way for us to honor this wise, dedicated, and charmingly odd man," concludes Foreman, "is to think about his four lessons, guide our work by them, and insist that conservation groups big and small get back to following them."

And to give those vision life in our own individual actions. And lives.

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Read about Clif Merritt here.

Visit the Rewilding Project here.

Read and subscribe to Dave Foreman's "Around the Campfire" here.