Ep. 39: Gila Wilderness Centennial

On June 3rd, 1924 the Gila Wilderness became the world's first ever administratively designated wilderness. Forty years later when the Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson the National Wilderness Preservation System was established and the Gila became a congressionally designated wilderness. Remarkably, even four decades before the United States Congress had the ability to designate wilderness, a U.S. Forest Service employee by the name of Aldo Leopold had a vision for the idea of wilderness protection. Leopold's unwavering commitment to protecting the Gila in its natural state led to the original designation. That initial, administrative designation began what would later become one of the most celebrated forms of permanent land protection in the United States. There are still some people who oppose the idea of designated wilderness areas, or other land protections. That was also the case when Leopold dreamed up his idea of wilderness and when the Wilderness Act was eventually passed. According to the historian James Trefethen, author of An American Crusade for Wildlife, consistent opposition was found in the House by the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. “The wilderness proposal was bitterly opposed by a coalition of western commercial interests, including the mining companies, timber corporations, and livestock associations.” These same industry groups continue to oppose ongoing land protection campaigns today. With history as our teacher though, we can clearly see that permanently protecting wild places for future generations pays off and in the long run these victories are overwhelmingly appreciated. Listen in as Dr. Karl Malcolm from the United States Forest Service moderates a panel consisting of Jeremy Romero of the National Wildlife Federation, Tisha Broska of NM WIld and Jesse Deubel of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. This group of modern-day conservationists share personal stories as they reflect on the world's first ever designated wilderness. Happy 100th birthday to the Gila Wilderness. Enjoy the listen!   

For more info:
National Wildlife Federation
United States Forest Service
NM Wild
New Mexico Wildlife Federation

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Jesse Dubell here of the New MexicoWildlife Federation. Welcome to another episode of
the AVAP podcast. On this episode, we're celebrating wilderness. More specifically,
we're celebrating the one hundredth anniversary ofthe Helo Wilderness. The Helo Wilderness was
designated on June third, nineteen twentyfour, So this past June June third

(00:25):
of twenty twenty four, we celebratedone hundred years since the very first wilderness
in the world was ever designated.Forty years after the HeLa was designated as
wilderness, at the urging of conservationistAldo Leopold, same conservationist who founded the
New Mexico Wildlife Federation, the Wildernessand Act of nineteen sixty four was passed,

(00:52):
which essentially secured the benefits of anenduring resource of wilderness for present and
future generations. As an official policyof the US United States government, wilderness
areas are defined by five common characteristics. One, they have to be untrammeled,
unhindered, and free from modern humancontrol and or manipulation. Secondly,

(01:14):
they have to be undeveloped, essentiallyfree from permanent improvements other than historic resources,
and void of modern human occupation andmotorized or mechanical transport. Third,
natural and substantially free from the effectsof modern civilization. A fourth characteristic is
they have to provide outstanding opportunities forsolitude, providing for separation from modern civilization,

(01:41):
travel by traditional means, challenge,discovery, self reliance and freedom.
And lastly, the values are preservedsuch as unique ecological or geological features of
scientific, educational, scenic, orhistoric value. Clearly, the HeLa accomplishes
all of those and meets all ofthat criteria. As we celebrated the one

(02:05):
hundredth anniversary of this amazing wilderness onJune TEWONID, a panel of advocates met
in Albuquerque at the in Los Ranchos, more specifically at the Agra Nature Center
to discuss wilderness the past, thepresent, and the future. This was
an exceptional discussion that was moderated bydoctor Carl Malcolm of the United States Forest

(02:29):
Service, and the panelists included myself, Jeremy Romero from the National Wildlife Federation,
and also Tisha Brasca of the NewMexico Wilderness Alliance or NIMOIH in m
wild So on this episode of theIVAP podcast, we invite you to listen
into that panel discussion and hear variousperspectives of why the one hundredth anniversary of

(02:53):
the HeLa Wilderness designation is so importantto New Mexicans and so important to all
all Americans. Thank you so muchfor tuning in. Enjoy the listen.
The New Mexico Wildlife Federation presents theAhiva Podcast. Hey vide eoting posts.
Thank you for being here. IfI could ask everybody to grab a share,

(03:16):
Welcome. I'm very happy you allare here. My name is Carl
Malcolm. I'm very stoked to bein a room of fellow wilderness lovers and
wildlife lovers and dedicated conservation professionals.There's Olivia in the back. Awesome to
see you. This is an excitingtime. We are on the eve of

(03:40):
the one hundredth anniversary of the HeLaWilderness Area administratively designated, thanks in large
part to the work of one ofmy conservation heroes. Although Leopold June third,
nineteen twenty four marked the first administrativelydesignated wildland anywhere in the world,

(04:01):
not just in the United States,and it was a full forty more years
before. In September September third ofnineteen sixty four, President Lyndon B.
Johnson put pen to paper to enactthe Wilderness Act. We're going to get
a chance to talk about that tonight, but before I dive too much into
those details, I want to startoff with some words of appreciation. First

(04:26):
of all, to each of youfor being here to be part of this
one hundredth anniversary celebration. I alsowant to give a very heartfelt thanks to
the Village of Los Rancho's ag NatureCenter. This is my first time at
this facility and it's an amazing placeto be, so thank you very much
to the center for hosting us.And then to everyone who had a hand
in organizing tonight's event, including NewMexico wild the New Mexico Youth Conservation Fund,

(04:51):
the New Mexico Wildlife Foundation, Federation, the Aldo Leopold Foundation, and
in particular I want to give ahuge thank you to friend and colleague Yancy
Randspot, who's in the back ofthe room there, who is one of,

(05:12):
if not the most committed individual I'vemet when it comes to translating the
conservation work that we do to thepublic, and in particular to young people.
You're going to hear a lot tonightabout the New Mexico Youth Conservation Fund,
but I can assure you none ofthis would be happening without Yancy.
And sitting next to Yancey is hisamazing wife, Melissa, And nothing Yancey

(05:36):
does would happen without a great partnerby his side. And I've had a
chance over the years to get toknow Yancey's full family, and he has
four amazing kids as well, whohave done a lot for conservation. To
the rand Spot family, thank youso much for everything that you've done.
Yancey is one of my conservation heroes. I also want to explain this strange

(05:59):
mic setup. I mentioned the NewMexico Wildlife Federation moments ago. We're going
to be recording an episode of theAhiva podcast. So this headset hanging here
next to me is recording the conversationand my lapel, Mike, is broadcasting
it in the room. And ifyou get a chance, if you want
to revisit tonight's conversation, or ifyou want to check out the archives of

(06:20):
the Ahiva podcast from the New MexicoWildlife Federation, you can find that podcast
wherever it is that you like todownload podcasts, So thanks to Jesse Dubell
for setting that up so we couldcapture tonight's conversation. I'm joined on the
stage by three amazing colleagues. I'mgoing to just briefly introduce them here at

(06:42):
the outset, and then we're goingto get a chance to hear more from
them. I've already mentioned Jesse Dubell, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife
Federation, not unlike Yancy, andthis is a theme for these three individuals
as well. These are people Iview as some of the most impactful and
committed conservation champions who are in thisfield at this point in history. And
I've worked with a lot of folks, but these are some of the most

(07:03):
committed individuals I've met. So Jessede Bell, New Mexico Wildlife Federation,
my dear friend Jeremy Romero, who'swith the National Wildlife Federation. He can
talk more about the work that hedoes, but he's spearheading a campaign nationally
focused on wildlife habitat connectivity. Soif you've heard about the work to try

(07:25):
to restore connectivity of species that occupylarge ranges, for example, a highway
overpass projects. There's been a lotof investment in infrastructure to try to address
the fragmentation of wildlife habitat. Thisis one of the key people nationally who's
helping craft and implement a vision forthat work. And then, last,

(07:46):
but certainly not least, a womanI have not seen for probably seven or
eight years, Tishabraska with nmwild andwhat I will offer in terms of experience
working with First of all, sheis one of the original employees of NM
Wilde. Her tenure with the organizationgoes back to the very beginning some twenty

(08:09):
five years or so ago. AndI got to know Tisha as we collaborated
on the fiftieth anniversary of the WildernessAct, which was there was a huge
celebration hosted here in twenty fourteen inAlbuquerque, and Tisha's work to help plan
a program that did justice to thefiftieth anniversary of the Wilderness Act is something

(08:31):
I will not soon forget. Soit's really fun getting a chance to reconnect
with Tisha. And in terms ofmy background again, my name is Carl
Malcolm. I work for the UnitedStates Forest Service. I am here today
from southeast Wisconsin, so why theheck is a Midwesterner here in Albuquerque talking
about the Wilderness Act. Well,that's true, that's true. Although I

(08:52):
had a strong Midwestern connection for sure, and I had the privilege of starting
my Forest Service career here in theSouthwestern Region or Region three of the Forest
Service. And as a brief aside, a couple of my former Region three
colleagues are in the room here,and it's a highlight to see those icons
in this space too. So thankyou to all my Forest Service folks who

(09:13):
are here and some of my formerpartners with work that I did working as
a regional Wildlife ecologist, and Ialso did some work in the Regional Wilderness,
wild and Scenic Rivers and Caves programgraciously invited me to come back and
be part of the celebrations commemorating theone hundredth anniversary. So I just this
morning. I was in Silver Citywhen I woke up this morning, got

(09:33):
on the road at four forty fiveto have breakfast with some friends up in
Santa Fe. But the last fewdays down in Silver City have been amazing.
There's been all sorts of events happeningto celebrate the Healis centennial, and
I am very grateful to have hada chance to come back. And when
Yancey heard I was going to cometo town, he said, well,

(09:54):
you might not know this, butyou're going to stay through Sunday because we're
going to have you come to thisother event and you're going to be part
of it. So I'm very honoredto be here. Where I want to
start off is a philosophy lesson.Are there any philosophers in the room,
like formally trained philosophers. Oh no, that's terrible news. I was hoping

(10:18):
I would have this space to justbe like, let me so, you're
welcome to tell me if I missthe mark. The word of tonight is
going to be ontology. The secondword of tonight is going to be bear.
So I'm going to intersect philosophy andbears to kick off this conversation.
And the one thing I'll offer aboutmy background, in addition to work I've

(10:39):
done with the Forest Service, isthat as a graduate student, I had
a chance to study both American andAsiatic black bears in the Upper Great Lake
States, and I spent about twoyears working on black bear research in Southwest
China and Sishuan Yunan and Shanshi Provinces. So I've done a lot of work
with bears, and I've thought alot about bears. But this last week

(11:01):
I have been thinking even more aboutbears, and I'm going to tell you
why that's the case tonight. Sothat's the bear piece, the ontology piece,
and this is where you can correctme if I get off the mark
here. But ontology is essentially abranch of philosophy that deals with being.
So one of the questions that youcan pursue as a philosopher is you can

(11:26):
take an object or you can takean idea and see that object or that
idea from different angles and different perspectivesdo not negate the reality of other perspectives.
So the example I'm going to usehere is land. What is land?

(11:46):
And I am a product of growingup in the Midwest doing a lot
of chores for farmers to get permissionto access private property to hunt and fish
and camp and wander around. Ialso grew up on eighty acres that my
family owned, and now I've gota little piece of property about four acres

(12:09):
that I'm doing some restoration work onwhere the emerald ash borer has killed all
the ash trees, and I'm tryingto get rid of buckthorn and honeysuckle and
take care of this little parcel ofland that I own. If you refer
to the tax documents, and alot of the way that I think about
land, and in part this isbecause of working for the Forest Service,
is a series of boundaries. Ihave a program on my phone that has

(12:33):
a built in GPS, and Ican look at maps and I can see
is that state land? Is thatNational Forest System land? Is that Bureau
of Land Management land? Is thata place I can go? Is that
a designated wilderness area? What arethe things I can do in that place
or can't do in that place?Is that reservation land? So thinking about

(12:58):
lines on the landscape, That's theway I was trained. And maybe after
this conversation, when you're driving homethis evening or in the days ahead,
look out the window and ask yourself, what exactly am I looking at?
What is land? And we havea culture, we have a dominant culture
in America today that has some conceptsthat permeate the way that we think about

(13:22):
land, and these distinct boundaries arepart of that. And certainly in the
case of wilderness areas, every singlewilderness in the National Wilderness Preservation System,
including the Hila and including the Aldo, has a boundary around it. The
things that happen on one side ofthat boundary are different from the things that
happen on the other side of thatboundary. So last week I was in
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, anotherlandscape near and dear to my heart,

(13:46):
and I had plans to host myyounger brother for a turkey hunt in the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And hewas supposed to fly from Philadelphia to Iron
Mountain, Michigan, where I wasgoing to pick him up, and he
was supposed to arrive on Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning, we were going to
be turkey hunting together. And Ilooked at the forecast and Wednesday morning was

(14:09):
a morning that was sent from theturkey hunting gods to be a perfect morning
for turkey hunting. So I wasreally excited. And my brother, for
backstory here, he's done a littlebit of hunting, but he is he's
learning. He's in his late thirties, he's kind of he's a late starter
hunter, so he's never he's neverhunted for Eastern wild turkey, so this

(14:33):
is like new territory for him.I'm all excited and I'm looking at my
phone getting ready to head to theairport, and I get this message that
his flight got canceled, which isa huge bummer. Right. So the
next morning, with this beautiful forecast, I'm like, I'm still going to
go out. I'm still just goingto go out and wander around in the
woods. And I went to theplace that we were going to hunt for
any turkey hunters in the room.A little detail, I didn't touch a

(14:56):
turkey call, right, I didn'twant to disrupt things, but I was
hoping to listen at dawn and figureout where some turkeys were. And the
answer was the turkeys were everywhere.And despite not calling for the turkeys,
and despite trying to keep a lowprofile and not disturb the area, I
ended up having a gobbling tom walkwithin fifteen yards of me as I was
trying to hunker down and not disturbthe area. And I'm sending my brother

(15:18):
all these little video snippets of mehunkered down with this gobbler just to kind
of, you know, give thema hard time, like you should be
here. And so that all happensat dawn, and then I'm looking at
my map and I'm at that point. I'm on state land adjacent to private
land, and in the upper Peninsulof Michigan, a lot of the private

(15:39):
land is enrolled in a program that'sopen to public access, so the landowner
gets a tax break and the publiccan hunt and fish on the private land.
It's like most of the landscape aroundthere. So i go walking onto
private property where I have legal access, and I'm not too far into this
stroll into the private land when Iemerge from a thicket into an open grassy

(16:03):
meadow, and thirty yards in frontof me is the biggest black bear I
have ever seen in my life.And I've had my hands on over one
hundred bears, cubs, adult females, bares. I've touched a lot of
bears, but this was like theking bear. And if you go back

(16:23):
into the archives, the number offatal bear attacks that have happened in the
state of Michigan can be counted onless than a hand. But when you
see a bear of that size atthat range, there's part of your reptile
hind brain that asks, I wonderwhat this bear is gonna do? And
the answer was look at me,and I looked at the bear, and

(16:45):
we were looking at each other forwhat seemed like a real long time,
and I started thinking, all right, I was expecting the bear to turn
and boogie out of there. ButI thought to myself, if this bear
starts taking steps towards me, I'mgoing to unleash the most guttural, insane
man's scream, like you don't wantyou. I'm not worth the trouble.

(17:07):
I know you could kick my butt, but it's not going to be fun
for either of us. Right,So I'm kind of in that mode,
and the bear just keeps looking atme and this bear's head, I mean,
this is a big bear. Andfinally the bear slowly turns away.
And the bear, when I firstsaw it, was sort of broadside to

(17:27):
me with its head turned, andas it turned away, to give you
an idea of the immensity of thisamazing animal, its width from the back
was probably two thirds of its lengthfrom nose to tail. And as it
slowly wandered up this grassy knoll,its huge butt was swinging side to side.

(17:49):
And this is a bear that hasnot been out of the den for
long, right, like the upperPeninsula of Michigan is not a place known
for week winters, and that bearspent a lot of time digest its fat
reserves over the course of the winter, and at this point in time is
foraging on this fresh green vegetation andtrying to regain those calories. But it's
still just in this incredible condition.What does the bear do next? After

(18:14):
taking five or ten steps, hestops and goes back to grazing, with
his butt to me. And soI'm watching this bear. I have my
binoculars as if I need them,but I'm looking at this bear like watching
it blink. And it's an amazingencounter. So I watched the bear for
a little while. The bear goesdown this valley, grazing along the way

(18:36):
and out of sight. So nextI'm thinking, all right, we've got
the turkeys figured out. Amazing bearencounter. Maybe I can find some morel
mushrooms. I'm a poker, obviously, if I can find somewhere else.
So I start wandering down an oldclosed logging road, and about forty minutes
later, up ahead of me,here's another bear, a different bear,

(18:59):
smaller than the first one, obliviousto my presence, there's a light breeze
in my face, and I wanderbehind this bear. I'm dressed in like
turkey hunting clothes, right, I'mcamouflage. The wind is in my favor.
I'm walking on damp, dew coveredgrass. This bear is clueless to
my presence. So I walk behindthis bear and watch the bear move off

(19:22):
the trail and back on the trail, stand up at one point and nibble
on some buds that are coming offa small tree, drop back down,
back off the trail, back ontothe trail. I follow this bear for
fifteen minutes, and then it finallydisappears off into the thick forest. And
I made just a big kind ofbeeline around that bear. And then I

(19:42):
was thinking about what these bears areup to early spring green vegetation. They're
doing their bear thing. They're packingon calories, and I'm looking for Morel's
and I start thinking about the factthat bears, if they come upon morel's,
what do you think they do?They eat them? And then I
jump a very pregnant white tailed deer, like about to pop kind of pregnant

(20:04):
white tail deer, and I startthinking to myself that bear in a week
or two is going to be shiftingits foraging behavior to start targeting fonts as
the fawns are being born. Andthis is where I started thinking about the
similarities between bears and people. Whatdo I mean by that? Bears are

(20:26):
very intelligent animals? And there isa theory out there that intelligence relates to
complexity of diet. So for somespecies, if you think about like a
mule deer, I'm not saying muledeer are dumb, but mule deer they
don't have to work too hard tofigure out what they're going to eat.
They need to figure out where there'sadequate forage and try not to get eaten.
But if you think about a bear, particularly even more so than other

(20:49):
carnivores, because a bear's diet isvery broad an omnivore like ourselves, and
over the course of the seasons,the bear is constantly adjusting its behavior to
target different food sources. Fawns inthe spring grass in the very early spring,
acorns if there's an acorn mass,soft mass like black raspberries, if
that happens to be popping, ifthey get into a morel patch, fish,

(21:11):
et cetera, et cetera. Sopart of the intelligence of the species,
and part of the similarity is theadaptability of the diet. And I
would argue the intelligence that it takesto navigate a landscape. So I'm thinking
about that, and I walk downby this bend in a river nearby,
and I flush a bunch of woodducks in this little back cove, and

(21:33):
I think to myself, Man,this might be where I'm sitting on opening
day of duck Siaes in this fall. This would be a sweet place.
I can hike into it. Icould sit here alongside the river, and
maybe these wood ducks will still bearound. And I cross a very robust
deer trail. I'm thinking myself,this might be a place where in the
fall I could find a deer.And I started thinking about the behavior of

(21:59):
the bear and the behavior of myselfand that landscape, and thinking about where
these food items come from. AndI also started thinking even anatomically. Anyone
who's ever seen a bear without itshide will know what I mean when I
say bears are a lot like people. It's crazy how much a bear without
its hide looks like a human being. I mean, they're physical structure.

(22:23):
There's a lot of similarities there andso that got me thinking about the way
I view that landscape and this seriesof lines, and I was thinking to
myself in terms of the ontology ofland, what does a bear sea?
When a bear sees the land,does a bear think about public versus private?

(22:45):
Does a bear think about owning theland? The bear doesn't have a
concept of anything other than this iswhere I live, this is my habitat,
this is home. That had methinking about all of the boundaries and

(23:07):
the Wilderness Act and all of thesedistinctions of public and private, and the
different ontologies of land, including inthat landscape in particular the anish Nabe worldview
of what land is and land isnot something you own, if anything,
the land owns you. But amore accurate way of describing it would be

(23:30):
that you are borrowing that place fromfuture generations, and that place is part
of your identity. And as wethink about the Hila on a similar vein
we're here talking about one hundredth anniversary, but I want to point out that

(23:52):
long before one hundred years ago,that landscape had multiple cultural identity that were
associated with that land. That includesPaleo Indians that existed in the Greater HeLa
landscape from ninety five hundred to sixthousand years BC. That included the Cochies
culture from six thousand to three hundredyears AD. More recently, the Mogion

(24:15):
civilization constructing the cliff dwellings that perhapssome of you in the room have seen,
and most recently, the mobile Apachetribes that called the HeLa home,
hunting, fishing, and moving withthe seasons as different food resources became available
in that place. So in thisconversation tonight, it's critical that we acknowledged

(24:36):
the rich history of the Hila andthink about these different ontologies of land and
what land is. And for theagency that I work for, the Forest
Service, I want to point tosome interesting language. So the Forest Service
was founded in nineteen oh five.Initially we had two primary purposes, providing

(24:56):
timber and protecting watershed. So thatwas what ruled the day between nineteen oh
five and nineteen sixty, when anact called the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act
expanded the responsibilities of the agency toinclude not only timber and water, but
also range management, outdoor recreation,and habitat for fish and wildlife. But

(25:19):
I want to point to the languagehere. Multiple use sustained yield. And
when you drive by some of ourForest Service portal signs, you might see
the language land of many uses.So I would suggest there were an agency
that has a rich history of thinkingabout the benefits that flow from land to

(25:40):
people. Right, what can weget from the land, What can we
sustainably harvest from the land. Whatare the multiple uses and sustained yields that
can be provided in these lands ofmany uses? And all of that points
to a particular ontology of what landis. And I will bring a little

(26:03):
Leopold in here, because Leopold wasa philosopher and he had a lot to
say about different ontologies of land.And perhaps one of the most often quoted
quotes from Leopold, we abuse landbecause we regard it as a commodity belonging
to us. When we see landas a community to which we belong,
we may begin to use it withlove and respect. So we've talked about

(26:26):
Leopold being a child of the Midwest. He was born and raised in Burlington,
Iowa. One of his formative experienceswas seeing a favorite wetland near where
he grew up drain tiled to providemore agricultural land for planning crops. And

(26:48):
here's an excerpt that Leopold wrote basedon that experience of watching a wetland drain
for agriculture. Perhaps no one buta hunter can understand how intense an affection
a boy can feel for a pieceof marsh. I came home on Christmas
to find that land promoters, withthe help of the corp of Engineers,
had diked and drained my boyhood huntinggrounds on the Mississippi River bottoms. My

(27:12):
hometown thought the community enriched by thischange. I thought it impoverished. So
these experiences prior to Leopold coming outto the Southwest in nineteen oh nine after
graduating from the Yale School of Forestry, first job with the agency on the
Pache National Forest, cruising for timber, classically trained in Gifford Pinchot, the

(27:33):
father of the Forest Service. Thisidea of conservation, where we're maximizing sustained
use of the landscape, wise andsustainable use of these forest resources. So
he's out on horseback before Arizona iseven a state, before New Mexico's estate.
These are the Arizona Territory in NewMexico Territory nineteen oh nine cruising around

(27:55):
and he is very much steeped inthis idea of what is land a producer
of benefits that flow to society.And as you think about the evolution of
thought that led to his recommendation thata chunk not just a small chunk,

(28:15):
but seven hundred thousand acres Initially,it's been whittled down since then over the
years of National Forest System land beput aside that the idea of highest and
best use may not actually be tosimply think about how much timber can come
from that landscape or the opportunities toextract whatever mineral deposits, etc. That

(28:40):
was a very radical idea at thetime, and it was certainly steeped in
these experiences that Leopold had watching specialplaces of his be to use his word,
impoverished, the community being impoverished.And this was at a time as
well where the push to expand thenetwork of roads throughout the United States was
at full steam, good roads acrossAmerica, and they were pushing roads into

(29:04):
every nook and cranny of the UnitedStates. And Leopold was watching this happen
and raising these questions. And oneof the reasons I'm excited we're having this
conversation here tonight, is that thework that Leopold was doing was not limited
to the Southwest communities mentioned Silver Citybeing there the last few days, but
some of Leopold's most formative philosophy andexperience are rooted right here in Albuquerque and

(29:33):
in parts north And that includes timeworking as the deputy for a supervisor on
the Carson National Forest, where hestarted a publication called The Carson Pine Cone,
where he was writing about these ideas. It includes a tenure that he
had as the first secretary of theAlbuquerque Chamber of Commerce, where he had

(29:53):
an incredible role in helping ensure thatthe Bosque in downtown Albuquerque did not get
developed, and they were actually buyingup parcels to try to maintain some wildness
in the place that now includes theBiopark, the botanical gardens, the trails
that are along the Bosque. Sothe fact that Albuquerque is sort of a
donut of development with an island ofwildness in the middle of it, that

(30:18):
was Leopold too, And so herewe are one hundred years on from that
incredible accomplishment in the Southwest, butalso acknowledging contributions he's had closer to home
for those of you in this area. And another important point is that Leopold's
philosophy was shaped by a New Mexicanwoman, his partner, a Stella Luna

(30:45):
Bergier, ultimately a Stella Bregier.Leopold was the child of a Hispanic ranching
family. She grew up in SantaFe. She grew up in the house
where now the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum exists, and her influence on Leopold's thinking is
unquestionable. So not unlike Yancy Randspot, behind every great man, there's also

(31:07):
an amazing woman. So this questionof what is land is something that Leopold
wrestled with throughout his life, andhe never fully answered it. And this
is where I want to leave myremarks here tonight. Is this idea of

(31:29):
the land ethic. Leopold penned thisnotion of humans as members of an ecological
community that includes the soil, thatincludes the plants, that includes the fish
and the wildlife, all members ofthe biotic community, all elements of the
earth, as members of a communitythat's the land ethic. But he also

(31:53):
said, and this is coming fromthe final pages of a Sand County Almanac.
Quoting Leopold, I have purposely presentedthe land ethic as a product of
social evolution, because nothing so importantas an ethic is ever written. What
does that mean? That means thatthese conversations evolve, this question of what

(32:15):
is land? The answer to thatevolves. What is the definition of highest
and best use? The answer tothat evolves. And in nineteen twenty four,
Leopold took a shot at doing somethingto conserve the opportunity for us to
still have a massive, intact blockof undeveloped habitat. And there's all kinds

(32:37):
of complexity we can get into aboutthe Wilderness Act. There's all kinds of
complexity about the history of these landscapesand the peoples who existed in these landscapes
prior to European settlement, and thehistory of colonization and land dispossession. That
is a critical aspect of our Americanhistory. And Leopold acknowledged that he didn't

(33:00):
have all this figured out, buthe asked a really important question, what
is this relationship that we have withland? And what does a really healthy,
sustainable vision of that relationship look like? And I would suggest to all
of us that as we ask thatquestion, the example of those couple of

(33:24):
bears and the way that they thinkabout that landscape, and I don't think
this is too much of a stretch. Because a bear exists in a place
because that place can sustain a bear. The bear is smart enough to eke
out a living in that landscape,and the same is true for us.

(33:46):
And if we create a situation ora system, if we erode the integrity
of the ecosystems that sustain our existence, we are no more able to persist
and thrive than a bear who losesits habitat. And at the heart of
all of that is this question ofwhat sort of relationship do we want to
have to the places that sustain us. So, reflecting on one hundred years

(34:09):
of the heal of wilderness, there'sa rich history there. We don't have
it all figured out. The challengesof our time, I would suggest,
or even more complex than the challengesof Leopold's time. But we have some
brilliant people working really hard on thoseissues, three of whom are up here
on the stage with me. Andevery person in this room who cares about

(34:30):
wildness and wild places is part ofthat thinking community that gets to continue defining
over time the evolution of what arespectful, responsible, sustainable relationship to the
land looks like. So thank youfor your part in that equation, and
thank you for the chance to kickoff tonight's session. All right, So

(34:58):
what I want to do next talkabout the brilliance of these folks. I've
given a very skim over kind ofan intro for each of you. What
I would like for each of youto do now, and Tisha, I'll
start with you if you could providea little more information about your organization and
maybe a thought or two about yourown philosophy of why it is that you're

(35:19):
excited to be a conservation contributor.Well, thank you. That's quite a
bit to follow. But I'm honoredto be here tonight with these fine men,
and really I'm welcome everyone. I'mTishabroska from New Mexico Wilderness Alliance New
Mexico wild for short. I'm thedeputy director, and I'm really honored to

(35:43):
have worked for the organization for abouttwenty five years now. And our organization
started twenty seven years ago with someof the ideas that Al de Leopold had
in protecting public lands, and westarted inventoring lands to note their wilderness character
so we could protect more and thatis still what we carry on with today.

(36:07):
And so whether there are we knowthere is millions of acres in New
Mexico that we still have the opportunityto preserve, so that's a big part
of our work. In addition tothat, we do a lot of stewardship
work, and so we do workwith the Forest Service as a partner,
a community partner, where we hirerangers to go out into the wilderness and

(36:30):
do some monitoring and trail work andmaintenance to help make sure that these precious
lands are stewarded. And a lotof the New Mexico wilderness areas are often
not staffed at all, They havevery few agency folks on the ground.
So we're really honored for that partnershipthat's going on about its seventh year with

(36:53):
the Forest Service, and this year, if you see some folks out while
you're hiking and say hello for usand have a conversation about why the wilderness
is important to you. In additionto that, we've got some stuff going
on with the centennial. There isa one hundred mile trail being built around

(37:15):
the HeLa, and some of ourfolks are down there working on some of
the kiosks that will have maps forthat, and of this June actually when
an aeroplane Mesa, which is onthe northern side of the Hila, so
we're really excited about that opportunity aswell. And really I think in terms
of the future, I really dolook forward to the next one hundred years

(37:38):
and what we may see. Ifeel like our work will continue to carry
on the vision of Ald Leopold,and we have legislation that has been introduced
this last year. It's been repeatedlyintroduced to protect about four hundred and fifty
thousand river sorry four and fifty milesof river segments within the HeLa and its

(38:04):
tributaries. So we're hoping to seethose protected as wild and scenic, which
is another aspect of protecting the waterin the region of the Hila, and
our staff and volunteers over the lastfive years have also inventoried over six hundred
thousand acres of land in the Hilaarea that we feel qualifies for wilderness.

(38:25):
So we're hoping that Aldo's vision willcontinue and that in one hundred years that
HeLa wilderness will not be smaller,but much larger. Awesome, Thanks Tisha,
Thanks so Jesse. One thing I'vefailed to mention in that bio about

(38:47):
Leopold's background that you've got to addinto your intro is the Leopoldian connection to
your organization. Yeah. Thank you, doctor Malcolm, and thank you all
for being here. It's such anhonor to be sharing this panel with these
amazing colleagues and friends of mine whoI've been so fortunate to work with.

(39:07):
I am the executive director of theNew Mexico Wildlife Federation, which is an
organization that was founded by Aldo Leopoldhimself back in nineteen fourteen. Although Leopold
founded the organization as the New MexicoGame Protective Association and then later it was
decided that it's important for organizations likethe one I'm fortunate to work with to

(39:30):
protect all wildlife, not just thespecies that are hunted or fished for,
but all wildlife, and so thedecision was made to change the name of
the organization to the New Mexico WildlifeFederation. I've been the executive director since
twenty eighteen, and prior to that, I was actually a custom home builder.
I still am kind of and I'vebeen a licensed real estate agent for

(39:53):
a number of years. And sowhat's really interesting is I made much of
my living in career working in thespace of private property rights. And as
I was listening to doctor Malcolm providehis initial remarks when he talked about the
property that he owned, it wasbeautiful because he said he owned it according

(40:14):
to the tax records. And heeven used air quotes. Those of those
listeners on this podcast that later timeand won't be able to see those air
quotes, So I wanted to mentionthat. But when we talk about this
concept of owning land, it's kindof interesting because a lot of indigenous cultures
believed that we belonged to the land. It's not something that we own,
but it's something that we belong to. And there's a man that I'm familiar

(40:36):
with and have had a few conversationswith. I don't know him well.
Karl And knows him very well,I know, and Jeremy Romero to my
right might also know him. Butthere's a gentleman who lives in Wisconsin by
the name of Doug Duran, andDoug has a philosophy that says, it's
not ours, it's just our turn. And I think that's a really remarkable
concept. And all of the philosophythat doctor Malcolm talked about as it relates

(40:59):
to how we think about land issomething that's really important to me, and
it really resonates with me. Andagain, recognizing that I made much of
my career dealing with land development,it's kind of ironic to see me in
a conservation role that I'm in todayworking hard to protect wild lands and wild
places from development. This is comingfrom a person who's developed land. But

(41:20):
Leopold has written a lot about that, and I've read a lot of his
teachings. And because I'm now sofortunate to carry the torch that Leopold lit,
I study his work and I studyhis philosophy, I study his ideas.
In times have changed, I mean, the way things are today are
not exactly the way they were inLeopold's time. But when we make a

(41:43):
decision at the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, we ask ourselves what would Leopold do?
And that's how we try to structureour policies and our positions on policy
issues at the state level and atthe federal level other thing I'll just I'd
like to leave you with before Ihand this over to my very close friend

(42:04):
Jeremy Romero, is a recognition thatwhen Leopold worked on this wilderness designation,
it was not popular. There wasa tremendous amount of opposition. There was
a tremendous amount of resistance. Peoplethought he was crazy. I mean it
was. It was an intense time. And he's not unique in that way.

(42:24):
If you look at some of thework of Theodore Roosevelt. At the
time, people thought that a lotof the work he was doing was crazy.
At the time that Yellowstone was designateda national park, the amount of
opposition and controversy surrounding that was immense. But today here we are all celebrating
one hundred year anniversary of the HeloWilderness. And could you imagine what would

(42:50):
happen in this country if we decided, well, let's get let's not have
Yellowstone a national park. Can't weturn it into some kind of wealthy condo
resort for people? I mean,there would be an up And so I
say that because the New Mexico WildlifeFederation is currently working on multiple land protection
campaigns all across the State. Downin Luna County, we're working on creating

(43:10):
a new national monument called the MembersPeaks National Monument. Up near Santa Fe.
We're trying to protect one of therichest cultural historic sites the state has
in the Caja del Rio, andwe're facing immense opposition, and I just
want to remind folks that some ofthe best ideas this country has ever had,

(43:30):
some of the greatest things we've everdone, have been strongly opposed,
but when we reflect on those things, they were absolutely worth it. So
much of the work the New MexicoWildlife Federation does we have to do facing
strong opposition, but we do itanyway, and we do it because we
strongly believe that it's what all doLeopold would have done. The decisions we

(43:53):
make we make because we believe it'swhat all do Leopold would do. So
with that, thank you all somuch, and thanks to my colleagues here
on the stage, and I'll endthe microphone over. Thanks Jesse. As

(44:14):
Carl mentioned, my name is Jeremyro Merriw. It's not the first time
I've had the privilege of sitting withfellow colleagues up here. I'm starting to
learn. I'm trying to figure outwhere I like to talk. Whether it's
it's difficult to talk right after Carlbecause he does such a great job of
explaining this interconnectedness of wild places andthe human connection. It's hard to talk

(44:37):
after Tisha and Jesse. Regardless,I'm appreciative of the fact that I get
to be up here and share myexperiences with these people I like to call
mentors, mentors, colleagues, andfriends. I work for the National Wildlife
Federation. The core mission of theNational Wildlife Federation is uniting all Americans to
ensure wildlife thrive in a rapidly changingworld. What does that mean, you

(45:00):
know, at a time when climatechange, the impacts from climate change are
accelerating and have negative consequences, ata time when we have incredible habitat loss
and we're on the cusp of abiodiversity crisis. The National Wildlife Federation works
to help ensure that we create abalance of equitable access and practices to ensure,

(45:28):
you know, wildlife, people,water, and land thrive in these
in these changing times. As Carlmentioned, what I do is in my
role at the National Wildlife Federation isI am the Wildlife Connectivity Manager. So
I work across multiple jurisdictions with alot of different partners to ensure wildlife have
able a permeable landscape, the abilityto roam across the landscape free of barriers.

(45:53):
Carl mentioned things like roads. Youknow, roads are a type of
fragmentation or a barrier that we seewildlife having to experience that most you know,
nine times out of ten creates anegative consequence for wildlife. There's a
there's a human safety factor to thatas well. When wildlife for crossing roads
and there's wildlife vehicle collisions, youknow, usually it comes out of cost.

(46:15):
It comes to the cost of injuryor mortality to wildlife, and it
also comes at a cost to injuryto to that motor is traveling on that
roadway. So I work with adiverse array of partners to to try to
address those impacts. And I'm fortunateenough to be able to call conservation a
career. You know, I'm prettyyoung in my career. By having the

(46:37):
opportunity to learn from individuals like thisis great and it teaches me additionally with
all the Leopold's teachings, you know, contrary to what I have on my
hat here. I still work withthe National Wildlife Federation, but a lot
of what All the Leopold talked about, his observations, his teachings are instilled
in all of our conservation organizations andpractices that we strive to replicate, that

(47:04):
we strive to build on and expandon ways that really helped drive the work
we do today. I was talkingto a colleague of mine yesterday and he
asked me, what would All theLeopold think if he was here today?
And I'm like, that's a reallygood question. You know, being what

(47:25):
we call the father of conservation,you know, being instrumental in developing the
wilderness preservation system, you know,having I would say, a lot of
time reviewing the literature of All theLeopold, I still find found myself somewhat
perplexed on what his response would beif he were here today. But this

(47:46):
is what I settled on. Isettled on that although would be proud that
he was able to create a wildernesspreservation system, or at least be a
pioneer in developing it, he would, I think, be proud of the
places that he helped to protect.But at the same time, he would
also feel a sense of urgency,right, a sense of urgency to address

(48:08):
the needs that we experience today whenit comes to habitat loss, climate change,
the biodiversity crisis. I think hewould have that urgency, and I
think he would also be able toprovide us with a lot of innovative ideas
that we can then continue to buildoff as we go on our conservation journeys.

(48:30):
You know, if nobody, ifanybody here has not had the chance
to learn about All the Leopold,I really encourage you to do so.
San County Sand County Almanac is agreat, great place to start, as
Carl did a great job of describingall the Leopold's footprint here in New Mexico.
There's also places you can go whereyou can still kind of put yourself

(48:52):
in the shoes of all the Leopold. For example, his casita and trespierreis
when he was with the Carson NationalForest is still is still here today and
the FORID Service does a great jobpreserving that that casita right now. It's
utilized for educational purposes and it's alsoutilized for writers in residency. You know,

(49:15):
great minds like all the Leopold thatare trying to move the needle of
conservation forward. It's a place wherethey can have those innovative thoughts and that
seclusion to be able to develop thosethoughts. So I encourage you all to
take that time and to you know, engulf yourself, immerse yourself with the

(49:35):
teachings and the observations and the philosophiesthat all the Leopold envisioned. And then
like Karl was talking, he mentionedsome all the Leopold quotes as he was
paraphrasing San County Almanac and many otherall the Leopold teachings. But the one
thing I wanted to build off ofand just leave you with was one of
my favorite quotes from all the Leopoldand it says, and it goes,

(50:00):
ethics is doing the right thing whennobody's watching, even when doing the wrong
thing is legal. So I justwant to leave you with that and pass
the torch back to Carl. Thankeach of you, Thank all of you

(50:23):
for those very thoughtful comments. Twoother plugs that I'll offer here. One
is Jeremy mentioned the partnership with Mikasitaup in Trace Piedros in the Leopold Writing
Program. A dear friend of mine, Anthony and Ella. Tony and Ella,

(50:45):
longtime Albuquerque native son has spearheaded thatbody of work. And if you
want to be part of an organizationthat is promoting the storytelling around conservation and
also promoting young people being involved withstorytelling around conservation, check out the Leopold
Writing Program and you see these allthe Leopold Foundation hats up here too.

(51:07):
If you want to know more aboutall the Leopold's life and contributions the all
the Leopold Foundation is a phenomenal partnerof the Forest Service has been a phenomenal
partner in these centennial celebrations. Thisyear marks not only one hundredth anniversary of
the Heal Wilderness, this is alsothe seventy fifth anniversary of the publication of

(51:27):
a Sand County Almanac, and soit's a great year to get your hands
on a copy. And if yougo to Leopold Foundation website, you can
see some great deals associated with theseventy fifth anniversary of a Sand County Almanac.
But you should also get one ofthose here tonight. And admitute,
I'm going to tell you why that'sthe case, But before I do that,

(51:49):
I want to just take a momentor two to invite members of the
audience to bounce a question off ofone or more of our panel members before
we conclude the panel. You're quickon the draw with that hand. I
was going to say it for youto people aren't where of that book?
I got it actually in it sure, so I don't know if it Yeah,

(52:12):
yeah, thank you. So.This book, First and Wildest,
available from Tory House Press. Youcan get it on Amazon, you can
get it from local retailers. Agreat collection of stories honoring paying tribute to
the HeLa a lot of phenomenal contributors, including all the Leopold including Senator Heinrich.
The list goes on from there,and I had a chance to contribute

(52:36):
an essay here as well. Pardon. The book is called First and Wildest,
the Heel of Wilderness at one hundred. Hey, Carl, Yeah,
I'm gonna interrupt our moderator for asecond. Yeah, just to say that.
We did an episode of the IVApodcast talking about the release of that
book, and on that episode,I wish I knew the number off the

(52:58):
top of my head. Unfortunately Idon't. But I think it's called First
and Wildest. If you look atAVA. That's ahi new word VA.
You can find anywhere you find podcasts. But doctor Malcolm was on that episode,
I believe, along with Leah Barnettand Madeline Carey, who both have
contributions in the book. So ifyou want to learn more about the book
before reading it, feel free tofind that episode of the AVA podcast.

(53:21):
Cool. Thanks Jesse, so thankyou for that. Who would like to
ask a question of the panel beforewe move on? Yes, ma'am please,
and I will. I will listenintently and then I'll repeat it as
well so we can capture it inthe It's about for audentation and how agencies
think you have for audentation, buthow you worked how do you work together

(53:45):
for cores? Excellent? So justrepeating the question in terms of fragmentation,
what do we do in terms ofthe conservation community partnering with agencies to conserve
or promote habitat connectivity and corridors.And I think Jeremy Romero is the right
person to spearhead an answer to that. It's a great question, you know,

(54:07):
one of the challenges, but isalso a I think a great opportunity
when it comes to conserving wildlife corridors. Is you know, as I mentioned
earlier, multiple jurisdictions. You know, wildlife no no boundaries. Right when
wildlife moved from winter range to summerrange, they usually cross multiple jurisdictions.

(54:29):
Whether that's the LM land, forestland, tribal land, private land,
they're all just as important as theland that's adjacent to it. And so
you know what we try to dobecause when I say we were all working
to promote connectivity, enhance and maintainit and corridors is a function of that.

(54:50):
What we try to do is tryto bring a diverse coalition of partners
to the table to be able toidentify those challenges, share those management approaches,
use things like the best available scienceto create sound applications or policies or
management approaches that can then be sharedacross or hopefully adopted across these jurisdictions to

(55:15):
ensure when wildlife move or hop afence and move from one jurisdiction to the
other, that level of management doesn'tchange and those priorities that that land manager
is implementing onto the landscape is onlygoing to continue to benefit wildlife as they
need wildlife as they need that habitatfor various different reasons. You know that

(55:39):
habitat provides wildlife forage food, italso provides you know, having more permeable
landscapes where wildlife populations are connected alsocreate creates more genetic diversity amongst wildlife populations,
increases you know, disease outbreaks andwildlife populations as a result of things
like diversity. And so it's reallyabout bringing those partners together and even you

(56:05):
know, traditional partners that may havebeen excluded from these types of conversations,
bringing everybody to the table to haveconversations and what we can do to ensure
this connectedness in our landscapes and wildlifecorridors are maintained, enhanced and protected.
Thanks Jeremy. Can I add tothat, Carl? Yeah? Please.
I just want to also say,largely because of Jeremy Romero's leadership. In

(56:30):
twenty nineteen, New Mexico was thevery first state to pass state legislation called
the New Mexico Wildlife Corridors Act.That legislation provided funding to the New Mexico
Department of Transportation to work cooperatively withthe New Mexico Department of Game and Fish
to do coloring data find out whereour eleven greatest hotspots are where wildlife are

(56:52):
being hit by vehicles, and socurrently Jeremy and a whole coalition of people
part of the New Mexico Safe PassageCollision as it's often called, is working
to obtain the funding necessary to buildthe actual physical structures that allow the wildlife
to cross these eleven prioritize hotspots,so the crossings include underpasses, overpasses,

(57:15):
wildlife fencing, et cetera. Ahuge thanks to Jeremy Romeroll for his leadership
in that work. Thank you both, sister. Would you like to chime
in on this one or to seewhat other questions folks? Now? So
I'm keep in my eye on theclock, antsy, and we're gonna be
we're gonna be transitioning here shortly,but maybe time for one more and as
we feel one more question, ourpanel members are going to be throughout the

(57:35):
evening, so if you'd like toget a one on one chat in,
please do that. So also wonderswhat are the explanation for news and Tisha
Before you answer that, if youcould repeat the question for the podcast listeners,

(58:00):
thank you. He's asking what opportunitiesthere are to expand and protect more
wilderness, and I think thinking aboutthe topography, is that part of your
question too, Well, it's agreat question. As we know, the
political landscape makes protecting wilderness very difficultand our campaigns, as Jesse mentioned,

(58:22):
we work together on a lot ofconservation, all of our conservation campaigns,
and Jeremy is also on the boardof New Mexico wild so they're very familiar
with the work that we do.It takes sometimes decades to get land protected
as wilderness, and now we lookat different tools in the toolbox to advance

(58:44):
protection that might not be wilderness,which is our gold standard, but we
also look at national monuments, asJesse suggested with Cohelda Rio and the Member's
Peaks down in southern New Mexico,both of all of us together to protect
Oregon Mountains, Desert Peaks and Rioganadel Norte in the last ten years.

(59:05):
We're just celebrating those anniversaries this year. So it takes a long time to
get those protections in place. AndI think a lot of the original wilderness
that was protected was a lot ofthe higher elevations and in the mountainous regions,
in a lot of forest service.So New Mexico Wilderness Lanes was founded

(59:25):
on the idea that we need tolook at some of those ecologically diverse areas
and the desert landscapes do not letthem go as well, and so really
to inventory blm lands and look atthe possibilities of the wilderness character there too.
So that's why we know we haveover a million acres that we can
still protect here in New Mexico,and I think it does really create there's

(59:50):
a range of topography that's covered inthose regions you had anything, I can't
turn down the opportunity to have themicrophones. I want to thank Tisha in
New Mexico wild because just this weekthey were instrumental in adding an incredible addition
to the Rio Grande del North Statedel norda national monument that's in the Klower

(01:00:13):
property. So wilderness is what we'recelebrating here tonight, and I absolutely love
the wilderness. I'm so connected toit. But there's a lot of different
ways to protect land. One ofthem is national monument designation. And what
inm wild did with this Clower acquisitionup near Taos is phenomenal. It's a
wonderful thing, and all of theorganizations New Mexico Wildlife Federation, the National

(01:00:34):
Wildlife Federation, and in m wildengage very intimately our with our land management
agency, So the Forest Service andthe Bureau of Land Management. This is
an interesting thing. And I'll bequick, Carl, sorry, and I
know Yancey's looking at the clock,but a lot of people sometimes refer to
some of our public lands as federalland. They say, oh, that's

(01:00:54):
federal land, and I would arguethat it's not. It's our land land
Management Agency. We hired them tomanage our land. But if you hire
someone to manage an asset for you, you have to tell them how you
want to manage. You have toengage, you have to show up,
and you have to participate in themanagement plan. So the Forest Service has

(01:01:15):
land management plans, the Bureau ofLand Management goes through their resource management plans,
and all three of these organizations engageheavily on that. And part of
that planning process is the designation ofwilderness study areas and potential for future wilderness
designations, and NIM wild is incrediblyengaged in that process. And I just
want to thank you very much,Tisha for your hard work in that space.

(01:01:37):
Thank you. So Jesse just setup a perfect close out for this
session. And I want to circleback to where we started this idea of
our relationship to land and for theForest Service. As we think about delivering

(01:02:00):
our mission, we're asking this questionof highest and best use, and we
are in the mode now of I'lltell you two things that are common themes
for the agency from coast to coastwith the work that we do. One
is we are not doing anything byourselves. Every bit of success that we
have is because we have relationships andpartnerships with organizations like those represented up here

(01:02:23):
today. And these three entities areone critical but small fraction of the universe
of partners who are helping us deliverour mission from coast to coast. So
we would not be successful without ourpartners. And I couldn't agree more with
that comment. I work for everybodyin this room as a public servant.
I work for all of you,and every person in the Forest Service and

(01:02:45):
the BLM and the Fish and WildlifeService. We work for you to steward
your lands. But the other thingI'll mention, and this is back to
that idea of land of many uses, multiple use, sustained Yield Act.
We are in the mode now ofnot only thinking about what can we get
from the land, We're in themode of asking ourselves what does the land

(01:03:07):
need from us? How can wetake care of these systems in a way
that sustains benefits flowing in both directions, a reciprocal dynamic as a conservation agency.
And that's not where we've been forone hundred years. We've been in
the mode of thinking about how dowe make benefits flow, and we're always
going to be thinking about how tomake benefits flow to society, but starting

(01:03:28):
to ask ourselves what do these placesneed from us? That's the mode that
we are in and we're doing thatwith our partners. So thank you for
the chance to share that. Let'sgive a round of applause to our panel
members. Please thanks for listening tothe Yahiva podcast produced by Drift What Outdoors