environment

T H E J O U R N A L O F T H E S C H O O L O F F O R E S T R Y & E N V I R O N M E N TA L S T U D I E S SPRING 2007









Fire and the

environment

YALE

Nuclear Forest

By Richard Conniff

page 18



Insuring the

Survival of the

Snow Leopard

By Heather Millar

page 34









The Coming WATER Crisis

By John Mitchell

Dignitaries gathered for a groundbreaking at the

site of the future Kroon Hall in May to officially

mark the beginning of construction for what Yale

hopes will be the ”greenest” building in the world.

Dean Gus Speth, who presided over the ceremony, told an

audience of nearly 200 people including donors to the

building, that Kroon Hall will be an “architectural gem and

a true aesthetic landmark; a pacesetter in sustainable

design, certified at the highest level, LEED platinum, and









Photos by Harold Shapiro

climate neutral; and an environmental center for Yale, a

magnet for all those at Yale with environmental interest,

including both undergraduate and graduate students and

faculty from all departments.”

Left to right, Dean Speth, Rick and Mary Jane Kroon and Yale President Rick Rick Kroon said that he and his wife, Mary Jane,

Levin stand beside renderings of Kroon Hall, which will rise alongside Osborn developed an appreciation for the environment through the

Memorial Laboratories that appears in the background. influence of their children, four of whom graduated from

Yale. “They gave us an awareness of the pressing need to

change the pattern of human endeavor and human

priorities in order to save this wonderful world of ours

for future generations,” he said.

Yale President Richard Levin predicted that Yale’s

efforts to green the university will inspire other Ivy League

schools to do the same. Yale has pledged to reduce its

greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels

by 2020, “at a cost that is one-half of 1 percent of our

operating budget,” he said. “That’s a small tax. Who wouldn’t

pay that price for the safety of the planet?”

Ed Bass, a major donor to the construction of the building,

said that Kroon Hall would serve as a gateway to Science

Hill and that landscaping featuring footpaths through

Sachem’s Wood, two courtyards and the Prospect Street

plaza at the entrance of the new building will be more like

the pedestrian-friendly quadrangles that define the rest of

the campus.



Ed Bass said it was more like a

“bottom-up ceremony” than a

groundbreaking. “We can only go Corrections

up from here,” he said, as he stood The phrase “known as the Yellowstone-to-Yukon Initiative”

near the pit (above) that will hold was erroneously inserted into the Dean’s Message (Fall

2006). The correct presentation of the sentence should

the foundation for Kroon Hall. have been: “And in the United States today, an area the

size of California has been set aside as forever wild in a

magnificent system of national wilderness areas.”



Heidi McAllister did not write a Peace Corps environmental-

education manual; she was the editor. (“Renewable Natural

Resources Foundation Honors Educator,” Fall 2006)

4 18 23 34





CONTENTS



environment:YALE 2 18 28

The Journal of the School of Dean’s Message Fire and the Nuclear Forest Third World to Bear

Forestry & Environmental Studies

Spring 2007 • Vol. 6, No. 1

Dean Speth recently joined top The Chernobyl nuclear disaster has Brunt of Global Warming

U.S. scientists and leading evan- left Ukraine’s forests and surrounding It’s time, says Robert Mendelsohn,

Editor gelicals in trying to find common cities vulnerable to catastrophic fire. for countries that are causing global

David DeFusco ground on saving the planet. warming to start compensating

Director of Communications 23 those that will suffer the damage.

Copy Editor

4 Audit Reveals Logger’s

Anne Sommer

The Coming Water Crisis Malfeasance and 31

Alumni/ae Liaison to Editor

Kathleen Schomaker

Certification’s Weaknesses Students Leaving

Water could eclipse crude oil as

Director of Alumni/ae Affairs

the most precious natural resource Doctoral student Janette Bulkan Their Imprint

Design

of the 21st century. leads the fight to suspend certifica-

Nancy J. Dobos Since the 1960s, master’s students

tion for an Asian timber company

DobosDesign have produced over 110 manage-

operating in Guyana.

Editorial Advisory Board 13 ment plans for properties through-

Alan Brewster, Jane Coppock,

Research Reflects out New England.

Gordon Geballe, Eugenie

Complexity of 25

Gentry, Stephen Kellert,

Emly McDiarmid, Peter Otis Water Issues Tackling Forestry’s 34

Dean Biggest Challenges Insuring the Survival

F&ES faculty take an interdisciplinary

James Gustave Speth

approach to the development of

With Talk of the Snow Leopard

water management and restoration The Forests Dialogue is making

environment:YALE is published Doctoral student Shafqat Hussain’s

twice a year (Spring and Fall) by activities. friends of former adversaries to

inventive insurance program

the Yale School of Forestry & the benefit of forests worldwide.

Environmental Studies. Editorial

designed to protect the endan-

offices are located at 205 Prospect 15 gered snow leopard has earned

Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Dams Bad for Habitats 27 him a Rolex Award for Enterprise.

203-436-4842

but Here to Stay Donor’s Faith in F&ES

e-mail: david.defusco@yale.edu

http://environment.yale.edu In a three-day conference last fall,

and Its Students Results 38

dams large and small were examined in $4 Million Gift Class Notes

printed on recycled paper A study center and library in the

with soy-based inks

from every conceivable angle.

new Kroon Hall will bear the name 54

of Gil Ordway. Obituaries



Spring 2007 environment:YALE 1

dean’s message Dean James Gustave Speth







Protecting Creation a Moral Duty they were found to be broadly overlapping. We clearly

share a moral passion and sense of vocation to save the

In January of this year I participated in a fascinating imperiled living world, before our damages to it remake

meeting of top U.S. scientists and leading evangelicals, it as another kind of planet. We agree not only that

about 15 of each. Being neither, it was not clear what I reckless human activity has imperiled the Earth –

was doing there! But I’m glad I was, because it was an especially the unsustainable and short-sighted lifestyles

extraordinary and very hopeful experience. and public policies of our own nation – but also that we

The two-day session, held in Thomasville, Ga., was share a profound moral obligation to work together to

convened by the Center for Health and the Global call our nation, and other nations, to the kind of dramatic

Environment of the Harvard Medical School and the change urgently required in our day. We pledge our joint

National Association of Evangelicals. The meeting was commitment to this effort in the unique moment now

inspired, in part, by E.O. Wilson’s good new book, The upon us.

Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, which is his

epistle to an imaginary Southern Baptist pastor. Wilson Background

was raised a Baptist in Alabama; he was among the This meeting was convened by the Center for Health

scientists with us in Thomasville. and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School

A number of potentially divisive issues, such as and the National Association of Evangelicals. It was

evolution, were discussed mostly over meals and in the envisioned as a first exploratory conference, based on a

halls. The real focus was the environment, and the goal shared concern for the creation, to be held among people

was to see if the two groups, spanning devout Christians who were in some ways quite different in their worldviews.

to confirmed atheists, could unite to protect the Creation, It now seems to us to be the beginning point of a major

a word we all agreed to use. shared effort among scientists and evangelicals to protect

Two very interesting things happened at the lovely life on Earth and the fragile life support systems that

conference center outside Thomasville. First, this sustain it, drawing on the unique intellectual, spiritual,

diverse group truly came together, and we were able to and moral contributions that each community can bring.

capture that agreement in a powerful statement, which I

reproduce below. And, second, the two groups did not Our Shared Concern

merely agree, they found that they liked, enjoyed and

We agree that our home, the Earth, which comes to

respected each other. Some real bonds were formed

us as that inexpressibly beautiful and mysterious gift

during those two days, so much so that the post-meeting

that sustains our very lives, is seriously imperiled by

e-mail traffic and book sharing has been hard to keep up

human behavior. The harm is seen throughout the natural

with. Most important, we are all committed to working

world, including a cascading set of problems such as

together to carry our conclusions to political leaders

climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and

and the public.

species extinctions, as well as the spread of human

And now, enjoy the statement. It was released by

infectious diseases and other accelerating threats to the

the group – all of whom signed it – at the National

health of people and the well-being of societies. Each

Press Club in Washington, D.C., on January 17, and

particular problem could be enumerated, but here it is

received considerable attention.

enough to say that we are gradually destroying the

sustaining community of life on which all living things

An Urgent Call to Action:

on Earth depend. The costs of this destruction are

Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation

already manifesting themselves around the world in

Scientific and evangelical leaders recently met to search profound and painful ways. The cost to humanity is

for common ground in the protection of the creation. We already significant and may soon become incalculable.

happily discovered far more concordance than any of us Being irreversible, many of these changes would affect

had expected, quickly moving beyond dialogue to a shared all generations to come.

sense of moral purpose. Important initiatives were We believe that the protection of life on Earth is a

already underway on both sides, and when compared profound moral imperative. It addresses without discrimi-





2 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

nation the interests of all humanity as well as the value of survive the press of destitute people without other

the nonhuman world. It requires a new moral awakening to resources and with nowhere else to go.

a compelling demand, clearly articulated in Scripture and We declare that every sector of our nation’s leadership

supported by science, that we must steward the natural – religious, scientific, business, political and educational –

world in order to preserve for ourselves and future genera- must act now to work toward the fundamental change in

tions a beautiful, rich and healthful environment. For many values, lifestyles and public policies required to address

of us, this is a religious obligation, rooted in our sense of these worsening problems before it is too late. There is

gratitude for Creation and reverence for its Creator. no excuse for further delays. Business as usual cannot

One fundamental motivation that we share is concern continue yet one more day. We pledge to work together

for the poorest of the poor, well over a billion people, at every level to lead our nation toward a responsible

who have little chance to improve their lives in devastated care for Creation, and we call with one voice to our

and often war-ravaged environments. At the same time, scientific and evangelical colleagues, and to all others,

the natural environments in which they live, and where to join us in these efforts.

so much of Earth’s biodiversity barely hangs on, cannot



Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D. Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H. Peter Raven, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Director, National Center for Environmental President, Missouri Botanical Garden;

Evangelical Environmental Network Health, Agency for Toxic Substances and George Engelmann Professor of Botany,

Disease Registry, U.S. Centers for Disease Washington University

Steven Bouma-Prediger, Ph.D.

Control and Prevention

John H. and Jeanne M. Jacobson Professor Carl Safina, Ph.D.

of Religion, Hope College Rev. David Gushee, Ph.D. President, Blue Ocean Institute

University Fellow and Graves Professor of

Eric Chivian, M.D. Peter Seligmann, Ph.D.

Moral Philosophy, Union University

Director, Center for Health and the Global Chair and CEO,

Environment, Harvard Medical School; James Hansen, Ph.D. Conservation International

Shared 1985 Nobel Peace Prize Director, NASA Goddard Institute

Joseph Sheldon, Ph.D.

for Space Studies; Adjunct Professor,

Rev. Richard Cizik, D.Min., M.Div Distinguished Professor of Biology and

Columbia University Earth Institute

Vice President for Governmental Affairs, Environmental Science, Messiah College;

National Association of Evangelicals Bernd Heinrich, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Studies, The Au

Professor of Biology, University of Vermont Sable Institute of Environmental Studies

Rita Colwell, Ph.D.

Distinguished University Professor, Rev. Joel Hunter, D.Min. James Gustave Speth, J.D., M.Litt.

University of Maryland College Park and Senior Pastor, Northland, Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown

at the John Hopkins University School A Church Distributed Professor in the Practice of Environmental

of Public Health Policy, Yale School of Forestry &

Randall Isaac, Ph.D.

Environmental Studies

Judith Curry, Ph.D. Executive Director,

Professor and Chair of the School American Scientific Affiliation Rev. Eric Steinkamp, Ph.D.

of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chair of the Department of Natural

Cheryl Bridges Johns, Ph.D.

Georgia Institute of Technology Sciences and Math and Professor of

Professor of Christian Formation

Environmental Sciences, Northwest University,

Calvin DeWitt, Ph.D. and Discipleship, Church of God

Professor of Environmental Studies, The Au

Professor of Environmental Studies, Theological Seminary

Sable Institute of Environmental Studies

University of Wisconsin-Madison;

The Rt. Revd. James Jones

President, Academy of Evangelical Loren Wilkinson, Ph.D.

The Bishop of Liverpool

Scientists and Ethicists Professor of Philosophy and

Nancy Knowlton, Ph.D. Interdisciplinary Studies, Regent College

Rev. Daryl Eldridge, Ph.D.

Director, Center for Marine Biodiversity

President, Rockbridge Seminary Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.

and Conservation; John Dove Isaacs

University Research Professor Emeritus,

Paul Epstein, M.D., M.P.H. Professor of Natural Philosophy,

Harvard University

Associate Director, Center for Health Scripps Institute of Oceanography

and the Global Environment, Ken Wilson

James McCarty, Ph.D.

Harvard Medical School Senior Pastor, Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor

Agassiz Professor of Biological

Oceanograpy, Harvard University







Spring 2007 3

The Coming

WATER Crısıs

By John Mitchell









O nce upon a time in California, I

lived near a river that knew

exactly where it wanted to go,

but couldn’t get there. The river was the

Kings, and where it wanted to go was

of my backyard. But later I began to

wonder about the future of the valley,

as it became apparent that the diverted

Kings, among other rivers, could no

longer do all the agricultural work

of a worldwide frenzy to secure fresh

water. In fact, more than a few observers

already see water eclipsing oil as the

most precious and fought-over natural

resource of the 21st century.

Tulare Lake, 700 square miles at peak, assigned to it, that additional water That was the clear message delivered

the largest bowl of fresh water in the would have to be imported from distant in April in F&ES’ Sage Hall by Rohini

western United States. This was at a hydrologic regions and that wells would Nilekani, chair of the Arghyam Trust,

period in our history before irrigators soon be sinking ever deeper into shrink- which promotes sustainable access to

came to divert the river into ditches and ing aquifers to slake the thirst of the water in her native India. “The oil crisis

canals that would help turn the state’s region’s growing towns and cities. This we face around the world is looking very

great Central Valley and the lakebed was half a century ago. Over the years much like what the crisis in water will

itself into a sea of fibers and fruits the since, little has changed except for the look like,” she said, citing the inevitability

likes of which this world had rarely seen region’s burgeoning population and a of unequal distribution, rising costs and

before. In the short time I lived there, I proliferation of irrigated fields. And per- increasing conflicts. “We have seen that

felt no particular connection to the haps the most sobering thought is that the uncontrolled and rapacious exploita-

greening of the valley, even though one the fate of Tulare Lake is hardly the big tion of oil has led to unintended conse-

of those diversions, the People’s Ditch, deal I once thought it was, but rather quences,” she said. “If we continue on

flowed opaque and sluggish at the edge just a tiny parochial drop in the bucket a similar trajectory with water, then









Cover illustration by James Yang Spring 2007 5

I’m afraid the oil crisis is going to look water. The oceans embrace 97 percent of

just like the trailer of some horrible it, effectively withdrawing almost all of

disaster movie.” that saline wet stuff from human uses.

More than 5 million That leaves, according to some accounts,

IN TAKING THE MEASURE OF WATER, about 28 trillion acre-feet of fresh water,

people die each year many jugglers of statistics prefer to deal two-thirds of which is solid, locked into



from diseases caused with acre-feet rather than gallons, a glaciers and icecaps. The other third,

formula that is designed to simplify the about 9.7 trillion acre-feet, is liquid, and

by unsafe drinking water, numbers but instead winds up simply most of that is out of sight in under-

confusing the layperson. An acre-foot? ground aquifers. Of the remaining

lack of sanitation

What is it? I am informed that it is enough “smidgen of the world’s liquid fresh

and insufficient water water to cover an acre of land to a depth water,” the science writer Fred Pearce

of one foot (about 320,000 gallons). Or, to counts 71 billion acre-feet in lakes, 71

for hygiene.

parse it more graphically, an acre-foot is billion in soils and permafrost, a bit more

the amount of water you’d need to flush than 10 billion in atmospheric water

about 100,000 toilets simultaneously. vapor, 9 billion in wetlands, 1.6 billion in

As photos from outer space can attest, rivers and 800 million in living organisms

the Earth – our blue planet – is mostly “from rainforests to you and me.”

So what do “you and me” consume

to get through another day? For this we

revert to gallons. In round numbers, we

conservatively consume 100 gallons a

day per capita in the United States.

That’s our domestic household use only

and does not reflect the full agricultural

and industrial take of about 1,300 gallons

per capita needed to feed and clothe

each one of us. For example, we need at

least 250 gallons of water to produce a

pound of rice, 130 gallons for a pound of

wheat and 2,000 gallons for one gallon of

milk. And the number of mouths to feed

keeps growing.

Sandra Postel is director of the Global

David McNew/Getty Images









Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass.,

and Brian Richter is director of the

Sustainable Waters Program of The

Nature Conservancy. As collaborators on

Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People

The 100-foot-wide ring of bleached sandstone, the result of a six-year drought that

and Nature, published by Island Press in

has dramatically dropped the level of the reservoir, is evident under the red Navajo

sandstone cliffs of Llewellyn Gulch canyon near Page, Ariz. 2003, they wrote:









6 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

1960 Aralsk 1999 2002



KAZAKHSTAN



DAM DAM









Muynak









New Scientist Magazine

100 km

UZBEKISTAN





The changed shape of the Aral Sea since 1960.





Within a generation, some 3 billion drainage of wetlands and deforestation, around the world. And finally one must

people will be living in countries that which destroy natural water purification consider the rampant mischief caused by

hydrologists classify as water stressed based processes; and unbridled pollution, with insects that breed in contaminated water,

simply on the amount of water available its multitudinous impacts on human principally the vectors of malaria and

per person. Is there hope for rivers and health. The United Nations World dengue fever.

freshwater species in those places? Between Summit on Sustainable Development, That’s the bad news. The good news,

1950 and today, 3.5 billion people were held in Johannesburg in 2002, reported: as Fred Pearce notes in his classic When

added to the planet; 3 billion more will More than 5 million people die each the Rivers Run Dry: Water – The Defining

likely be added over the next half century. year from diseases caused by unsafe drinking Crisis of the Twenty-First Century,

… We are rapidly moving toward a fresh- water, lack of sanitation, and insufficient published by Beacon Press last year, “is

water world of greater ecological degrada- water for hygiene. In fact, over 2 million that we never destroy water. We may

tion, species extinction, and loss of natural deaths occur each year from water-related pollute it, irrigate crops with it, and flush

ecosystem services. This may not be the diarrhea alone. At any given time, almost it down our toilets … but somewhere,

world we want for ourselves or our descen- half of the people in developing countries sometime, it will return, purged and

dants, but it is the one that is coming if no suffer from water-related diseases. fresh. … Each day more than 800 million

course corrections are made. Diseases caused by the ingestion of acre-feet of water rains onto the earth.

Among the many threats to freshwater water polluted by human or animal wastes Water is the ultimate renewable resource.

resources and the services they provide, can include typhoid, cholera, dysentery And there is, even today, enough to go

Postel, Richter and other scientists cite and diarrhea. Parasites in unclean water around. The difficulty is in [ensuring]

the construction of dams and levees, can infect humans with such diseases as that water is always where we need it,

which impede the crucial connections schistosomiasis, said to plague more than when we need it. …”

between rivers and floodplain habitats; 200 million people in over 70 countries









Spring 2007 7

plummeted, species disappeared. By and

by, an industry that had employed 60,000

fishermen and fish processors was dead

in the brine and the dust. And dust

would indeed be one of the malevolent

side effects, for the dry lakebed was now

1973 1987 1997

exposed to the powerful winds of the

region. Particulate air pollution was

affecting the health of millions of people

downwind, while salt-laden fallout dusted

the arable lands roundabout. As if that

weren’t sufficient cause for grief, one had

only to look upstream, where global

warming and precipitation of Aral dust

were combining to shrink glaciers at the

headwaters of the Amu and Syr.

After the Aral Sea, Africa’s Lake Chad

emerges as the runner-up in the vanishing-

lakes sweepstakes. Located at the interface

of four of the continent’s fastest-growing

countries – Chad, Niger, Nigeria and

Cameroon – the ancient lake, once the

size of North America’s Erie, has shrunk

NASA









2001 some 95 percent over the past 40 years,



Satellite images show that Lake Chad, which once straddled the borders of Chad, depleted by massive irrigation projects

Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, has shrunk by an estimated 95 percent since the along the two main rivers feeding it, as

mid-1960s because of the growth of agriculture and declining rainfall. Red and green well as by huge withdrawals from the

areas indicate dry lakebed.

lake itself to offset the effects of a long

sub-Saharan drought.

NO DOUBT THE MOST VISIBLE SIGN has shrunk by more than 60 percent. The Dams and reservoirs, once viewed as

OF OUR FRESHWATER CRISIS is United Nations has called the demise of panaceas for the world’s freshwater crisis,

reflected in the loss or shrinkage of this resource the greatest environmental are finally showing some hurtful disabili-

major lakes – the Tulare syndrome that I disaster of the 20th century. ties, though many to this day continue

mentioned earlier. For tragic consequences, Starting in the 1960s, in what is now to be planned and built. Over the last 50

nothing on Earth quite matches the Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Soviet years the number of large dams (50 feet

drying out of Central Asia’s Aral Sea. Union proceeded to divert the lake’s two or more) has grown worldwide from

Once the fourth-largest lake in the world, principal feeders, the rivers Amu Darya 5,000 to 45,000. Yet the reservoirs behind

holding 800 million acre-feet of fresh and Syr Darya, to grow vast quantities of these dams are losing water through

water spread across a bed almost the size cotton and rice. Within 30 years, the lake evaporation at an alarming rate. In arid

of southern New England, the Aral now was receiving but a trickle of water and and semiarid regions, the annual loss is

takes top billing as the largest saltwater then, from the Amu, none at all. Salt often equal to 10 percent of the reservoir’s

lake in the world. In the last 30 years, it concentrations began to rise. Fish harvests storage capacity. Evaporative losses from









8 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

large reservoirs in the United States are lower states might continue sprinkling

said to represent a volume of water almost their golf courses and filling their desert

sufficient to meet the municipal needs swimming pools. This interstate tug-of-

of all the major U.S. cities combined. war is moving inexorably toward the

Evaporation from Lake Powell alone courts, even as the water hustlers both

sops up a tenth of the annual flow of the upstream and downstream look for relief

Colorado River, which only on rare occa- among the unseen and hard-to-reach

sions in rare years ever reaches the sea. waters that lie beneath their feet.

The Yellow River in China is now a some-

“The difficulty is in

time stranger to the Yellow Sea. The Nile GIVEN THAT AQUIFERS ARE AN

barely makes its way to the Mediterranean. INVISIBLE RESOURCE, it is almost [ensuring] that water is

And then there is global climate impossible to measure with any accuracy

always where we need it,

change, which perversely promises in the impacts of groundwater pumping on

decades ahead to put a further spin on total available water supplies. Unlike when we need it.”

things – withholding rainfall in drier surface flows, the scientist Marcus

regions while increasing it in wetter Moench has observed, wells tend to Fred Pearce

precincts. Three of the planet’s most be dispersed, small-scale, variable and

capacious riverine arteries – the Amazon, privately owned and operated, thereby

Orinoco and Congo – will therefore masking the rate at which their levels are

pump even more water through sparsely declining. Moreover, there are some

populated lands, where there is already aquifers slowly replenishable by rainfall

an unusable surfeit of water. Meanwhile (within the span of a human lifetime)

such thirsty, drought-prone places as and some that are not – unless, of course,

northeastern China and the North society has the patience to leave the

American Southwest will have to cope aquifer alone and then wait a couple of

with increasing evaporative losses and thousand years for it to fill up again.

the specter of rivers running dry. Every year, in China, India and Pakistan,

North America’s most endangered several hundred million people are sub-

river system is, of course, the Colorado’s. sisting on foods grown with underground

Its 1,450-mile main stem drains into water that rain cannot immediately

seven states, generating hydroelectricity replace. The writer Fred Pearce estimates

along the way, supplying hundreds of that overdraft at about 120 to 160 million

irrigation projects and delivering water acre-feet a year. And this, he warns, “is a

by tunnel and aqueduct to such profli- crisis that has not yet registered on the

gate municipal sprawls as Phoenix and radar screens of government or aid

Tucson. But now the entire region rests agencies.” Only the farmers seem to

on the cusp of what the U.S. Geological understand that if they are to go on

Survey believes may be the worst drought farming, they will have to drill deeper

in 500 years, and upstream users increas- and deeper into the Earth – until they hit

ingly wonder why they should have to the dry bottom.

share their modest allotments with The crisis in China is especially severe.

California and Arizona in order that those Lester Brown, a MacArthur Fellow who









Spring 2007 9

heads up the Earth Policy Institute, Mexico, in stratified thicknesses ranging

said that the level of a deep aquifer from an arm’s length to 1,300 feet.

under the North China Plain is now Pumping this resource went big-time after

falling at the rate of 10 feet a year, and World War II. As a result, water levels

then goes on to quote a World Bank have been falling in some areas at the

assessment that some deep wells near rate of more than six feet a year. With

Beijing are now plunging more than half drawdowns like that, and scant recharge

“Whiskey’s for drinking”

a mile to tap fresh water. The Bank to offset the loss, the fabled resource that

and “water’s for forecasts “catastrophic consequences once helped the United States produce

for future generations” unless use and three-quarters of the wheat on the world

fighting over.” supply can be brought into some kind of market could run dry within a baby



Menachem Elimelech, balance. Wheat farmers in the semiarid boomer’s lifetime.

quoting Mark Twain regions of northern China are now obliged

to pump from depths of a thousand feet, IN THE YEARS AHEAD, it will take

the cost of which is forcing some of them something like a miracle to fix the global

to abandon irrigation altogether and return water crisis. The old solutions – large

to less-productive dryland farming tech- dams, huge reservoirs, humming pumps –

niques. Not surprisingly, between 2000 just won’t work anymore and shouldn’t,

and 2005, China’s wheat harvest declined since they have become to a large degree

by more than 20 percent. a part of the problem. Peter Gleick, Yale

India likewise suffers from ground- College Class of 1978, a MacArthur Fellow

water deficits. Aquifers virtually feed and co-founder and president of the Pacific

India, supplying farmers with two-thirds Institute in Oakland, Calif., believes that

of the water needed for irrigation. By the “hard path to water” pursued in the

some accounts, the recent availability in 20th century must be supplemented in

India of inexpensive pumps has brought the 21st by decentralized institutions and

on a groundwater boom, with as many as practices that “pay attention to what

a million new pumps added to the communities need.” For example, Gleick

national inventory every year. At the sees shifting from flood irrigation to drip

same time, less-prosperous farmers are irrigation to produce the same or higher

staring at the dry bottoms of hand-dug crop yields with less water. And in an

bore holes. Whole districts in arid states interview last year, he suggested that the

like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are said to western United States would do better

be losing significant numbers of their growing less water-intensive cotton,

rural inhabitants. alfalfa and rice, and more crops, such as

Aquifers face hard times in the United vegetables and fruits, that require less

States as well, especially under the High water. More-crops-per-drops is becoming

Plains, where the great Ogallala, named a popular movement, especially in regard

for the Sioux who once hunted there, to rice, the world’s most widely sought

reaches under parts of seven states, from grain. Pearce reports that a volume

South Dakota into Texas and New representing one-third of all water drawn









10 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

from rivers and aquifers worldwide is supply more than a third of Windhoek’s scarcity looms as a powerful deterrent to

used solely to flood the rice paddies of potable water. regional stability. “Whiskey’s for drinking,”

Asia. Drip irrigation could help reduce Israel is heavily dependent on waste- Elimelech likes to quote Mark Twain as

that staggering drain on the resource. water reuse, but predominantly for irri- having said, and “water’s for fighting

No review of possible solutions gation. For potable water supplies, the over.” Since ancient times, the rights to

would be complete without taking a country is looking at construction of a and allocation of water have triggered

look at seawater desalination and the number of seawater desalination plants numerous conflicts in the arid Middle

reclamation and reuse of wastewater. In along its Mediterranean coast. One of East. Israel’s Six-Day War with Syria and

many developing nations, of course, there the largest is approaching completion in Jordan in 1967 was not about land; it

is no attempt at reclamation; raw sewage the southern city of Ashkelon, and is was about access to the Jordan River and

simply pours from an urban pipe to irrigate expected to produce 100 million cubic its headwaters in the Golan Heights. In

(and not so incidentally fertilize) croplands meters of potable fresh water a year. the Sudan and Somalia, according to

on the urban fringe. But here and there a Increasingly throughout the world, Mohamed El-Ashry of the United Nations

few communities are recovering contami- but especially in the Middle East, water Foundation, much of the violence can be

nated wastewater and actually turning

it into a potable substance. At Yale,

Menachem Elimelech, Roberto C.

Goizueta Professor of Environmental

and Chemical Engineering and founder

of Yale’s Environmental Engineering

Program, is a long-time advocate of

extracting potable water from non-

traditional sources. To illustrate the

possibilities, Elimelech likes to point to

the city of Windhoek, the capital of

Namibia, reportedly the most arid of all

the sub-Saharan countries. The only

perennial rivers are more than 400 miles

from the capital city; average annual

rainfall is 14 inches and evaporative losses

from the nearby Goreangab Reservoir

run as high as 140 inches a year. The

solution? The Goreangab Reclamation

Plant, the world’s first facility to blend

reservoir water with secondary effluent

subjected to coagulation, dissolved air

filtration, sand filtration, carbon absorp-

tion and chlorination. Financed by loans

from European banks, the facility is now

James Yang









in its fifth year of operation and is said to









Spring 2007 11

HALF A CENTURY AGO, give or take a

few years, more than a few prognosticators

predicted that widespread famine would

soon be knocking at the doors of the

developing world, such was the disparity

between increasing human numbers and

the ability of existing agricultural practices

to feed them. Then foundation-funded

science and technology intervened in what

came to be known as the Green Revolution.

Soon high-yield grains were sprouting in

the fields, doubling the production of

cereals in some poor countries and

pumping up the daily per capita ingestion

of calories by as much as 25 percent. As a

result, in many regions of the world,

famine was deferred. But there was a catch,

for in delivering more calories, the Green

Revolution was obliged to keep the calories

afloat on more and more water. Not sur-

Diego Azubel/epa/Corbis

prisingly, water is now scarcer than ever

in many of the world’s poorest countries.

“We have taken water far too much

for granted,” Nilekani said in April at

People walk on a nearly dried-up area of the Jialing River in central China. Wheat

Sage Hall. “If poverty is bad, my friends,

farmers in the semiarid regions of northern China have been forced to pump from

depths of a thousand feet, the cost of which is forcing some of them to abandon poverty without water and sanitation is

irrigation and return to less-productive dryland farming techniques. Not surprisingly, hell on earth.”

between 2000 and 2005, China’s wheat harvest declined by more than 20 percent. So what’s next? A Blue Revolution to

purge the excesses of the Green one?

traced to the migration of refugees fleeing Perhaps, though no one appears prepared

drought-wracked lands in search of water to explain exactly how that might play

“If poverty is bad, my and tillable soils. Water hasn’t brought out. Harvesting rainwater to use where it

on blood and thunder in the United falls could provide a good start in regions

friends, poverty without blessed with precipitation. In arid regions,

States – not yet, anyway. But Montana is

water and sanitation in court claiming that Wyoming is swiping no doubt, governments will have to invest

too much from the Tongue and Powder heavily in desalination and the reuse of

is hell on earth.” rivers; South Dakota is battling the Army wastewater. For this revolution, there can

Corps of Engineers over Missouri River be no single – or simple – solution. There

Rohini Nilekani

reservoir drawdowns; and Kansas and will be many. Seeking them out and putting

Nebraska are scrapping over irrigation them all to work may prove to be the

uses along the Republican River. biggest challenge of the 21st century.









12 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Faculty Research Reflects Complexity of Global Water Issues



By Rhea Hirshman to limit water use, but in most parts of the Brad Gentry, another faculty member who

country, the price of water won’t rise.” focuses primarily on the economics of water,

or most of us, paying water bills is









F

While she notes that “no one recommends asserts that private investment is a necessity

just one more household task. But that we manage water strictly via the market,” to encourage both the improved quality and

for Sheila Olmstead, those bills say Olmstead believes that “efficient water man- equitable distribution of water.

something about how we think about agement would require clear price signals for “Many who believe most strongly in the

water. “Historically, we consider consumers.” However, in most of the United public’s right to water believe that there is

water as something we have a right to,” she States, water pricing is largely a political issue. no role for business,” he says. “But in virtually

says, “especially here in the United States, She points out that the common notion of every water system I’ve encountered, private

and that perspective dictates how we allo- water access as a “right” influences a host investment helps the government meet its

cate and manage it.” of policy concerns; one of the examples is responsibility for making water safe and

An assistant professor of environmental the placement and subsidizing of water- available. Even in the United States, where

economics, Olmstead researches and teaches intensive industries in areas with limited water supply systems are mostly public, pri-

environmental and natural resource economics water supplies – for instance, the growing of vate investors buy the municipal bonds issued

and policy, with a particular focus on market rice in Texas or cotton in California or the to support water system improvements.”

mechanisms controlling the distribution of creation of golf courses in Arizona. Gentry, who is a senior lecturer in sus-

drinking water. One of the central questions tainable investments and a research scholar,

she explores is, “What should be the role of is co-director of the Center For Business and

water pricing as part of water management?” “I am interested in the the Environment at Yale and director of the

Hers is one of many inquiries into the Research Program on Private Investment and

biology, chemistry, physics, economics and issue of how market-based the Environment. “My work,” he says, “is

politics of water currently being pursued by finding the links between financial and envi-

the school’s “water faculty,” who specialize approaches to water

ronmental performance, and investigating

in areas related to water science, policy and

management can increase the tools that can be used to attract more

management. investment in better performance.”

“The range of research on water issues social welfare.” In his “Emerging Markets for Ecosystem

that our faculty is engaged in reflects the Services” course, co-taught with Mark

complex nature of global water problems,” Sheila Olmstead Ashton ’85, Ph.D. ’90, Gentry asks: “How can

said Gaboury Benoit, professor of environ- we encourage consumers of ecosystem services

mental chemistry and environmental engi- to pay the producers of those services, thus

neering and co-director of the Hixon Center Olmstead’s research also examines water creating market incentives to sustain intact

for Urban Ecology. “As the global population markets in developing countries. “One com- biologically diverse areas?” He has students

increases and becomes more urbanized and monly asserted reason for public regulation examine questions such as: “If you are a

the demand for water resources becomes of water rates around the world,” she says, forest manager, how would you manage the

more acute, there will be an increasing need “is to ensure the affordability of drinking- land to supply clean water and how can you

for the type of interdisciplinary approach water services. However, poor communities, get people to pay you for doing that, rather

that we offer at Yale to the development of particularly in developing countries, are than cutting the timber for profit? Who is

water management and restoration activities.” frequently left out of central water service affected by a lack of quality and quantity of

Olmstead illustrates her question by networks and wind up relying, in some cases, water, and do they have incentives to pay

comparing how we deal with water in the on neighbors selling water from trucks. I am you to improve both? What are the economic

marketplace to how we deal with oil. “Oil interested in the issue of how market-based incentives not to waste water? And what are

consumption is managed primarily through approaches to water management can increase the best ways of getting governments to

market forces. We may turn off lights when social welfare, since public regulation of water create and enforce appropriate regulations?”

our energy bills increase, but the government has not necessarily ensured affordable drinking- Gentry has been studying these and

doesn’t require us to do so. On the other hand, water services to the most impoverished.” other issues in relation to locales ranging

during a drought, a city might issue regulations







Spring 2007 13

from New Haven, to megacities in developing reflects the relationship between the input

countries, to wilderness forest systems. He and output of a substance or element through “All of my work is based

notes that the most effective balance between a region. He explains: “There is increasing

public- and private-sector responses to envi- pressure on urban ecosystems, and we can on a desire to understand

ronmental challenges depends on social and learn about the health of an urban environ-

political realities, as well as the availability ment by studying the flow of water and

the human impacts on

of resources. “Water is a concern around the nitrogen into and out of a city. Most nitrogen

rivers and wetlands.”

world,” he says, “but the issues are intensely comes into a city as food and leaves as

localized.” waste. Seeing where water and nitrogen are

Shimon Anisfeld

Local issues of a different sort find their coming from and where they’re going can

way into the work of Shimon Anisfeld, a help us more effectively manage both water

senior lecturer and research scientist in resources and waste disposal.” Raymond says. His research investigates

water resources and environmental chemistry But the question that Anisfeld is most major sources, sinks and ages of various

and an expert on coastal and marsh areas. actively investigating is why so many area carbon and nitrogen pools in the natural

Anisfeld’s research focuses primarily on tidal marshes are drowning. “Normally,” he says, environment. “Our burning of fossil fuels is

marsh dynamics and riverine water quality “tidal marshes can accumulate sediment and consuming an increasing amount of organic

and the human impact on streams and wet- organic material and rise as sea levels rise. But matter from a world that used to produce

lands, with the goal of improving watershed marshes in our area – on Long Island Sound, more carbon than it was consuming. My

management. His laboratories are Long in the lower Quinnipiac River and at Sherwood current research includes determining how

Island in Westport – are not carbon pools are transformed in estuaries;

keeping up. They get too the physics of air-sea CO2 exchange; nitrogen

wet, and they turn into mud cycling in temperate watersheds; and the

flats that can’t support flux, age and composition of carbon being

their native vegetation.” transported from land to the ocean.”

Anisfeld is testing the Anisfeld is also studying factors influenc-

theory that an excess of ing river water quality throughout Connecticut,

All photos by Harold Shapiro, except Brad Gentry’s by Michael Doolittle









nutrients, particularly nitro- and testing methods used for evaluating that

gen (from sewage, fertilizer quality. “We know, for instance, that there is

runoff and fuel combustion) nitrogen overload in many areas because of

Shimon Anisfeld Gabe Benoit Brad Gentry

and phosphorus (from development and sewage treatment plants,” he

sewage), affects the natural says. “Excess nitrogen from human activities

processes that keep marshes results in problems ranging from fish die-offs,

healthy. He has taught a to diminished soil fertility, to toxic algal

course called “Managing the blooms. Even the most pristine waters are

Coastal Nutrient Problem: affected because of the deposits from our

The Case of Long Island burning of fossil fuels.”

Sound” with colleague Peter Anisfeld is examining the relative

Raymond, assistant professor importance of different sources of nitrogen

Sheila Olmstead Peter Raymond Jim Saiers of ecosystem ecology, who pollution, and in a related project, he is

focuses on the biogeochem- collecting data in order to evaluate the

istry of natural systems – the accuracy of the state’s current water quality

Island Sound and Connecticut's rivers, par- study of the cycle in which chemical elements sampling program. “All of my work,” he says,

ticularly the Quinnipiac. and simple substances are transferred between “is based on a desire to understand the

In addition, Anisfeld is working with living systems and the environment. human impacts on rivers and wetlands and

Olmstead on a project examining the water “My lab looks particularly at the carbon to carry out research with direct relevance

and nitrogen budgets for New Haven; a budget and nitrogen cycles within aquatic systems,” to watershed management.”





14 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Questions of watershed quality and

management also figure prominently in the

work of Gaboury Benoit. He describes his

Dams Bad for Habitats

research as falling into “two broad areas: the

environmental chemistry of trace metals, but Here to Stay

and watershed-based studies of water quality

and its relation to land use and other By Alan Bisbort









P

human-environment interactions.” roponents of dams have cited directors of the World Wildlife Fund.

Understanding how metals behave in their many benefits over the past “I’m astonished at how far we’ve come

aquatic environments is important, Benoit two centuries, including flood since 1994 at Yosemite, when I told an

explains, “both because of their biological control, irrigation, transportation audience that I intended to tear down a

significance as possible toxicants or micro- and hydropower, but one they may be couple of dams,” he said. “That almost

nutrients, and because some can act as tracers

reluctant to claim is that dams helped ended my career. President Clinton later

of environmentally important processes.”

foster the conservation movement in took me aside and said, ‘What’s all this

Benoit said that certain metals, such as

America. Indeed, heated opposition to stuff about tearing down dams?’ I kept

copper and cobalt, tend to interact with

dams has inspired grass-roots movements my mouth shut until he was re-elected

humic substances, which are the natural

worldwide, many of whose adherents – as in 1996.”

waste products created when plants die on

land. Bacteria break down these substances,

well as some dam proponents – partici- At that point, Babbitt helped negotiate

which then leach into the water naturally. pated in a three-day conference last the removal of a small (6-foot-high) dam

“But,” he says, “people discard a lot of sub- November at F&ES, “Global Perspectives in North Carolina (Quaker Neck) that

stances that resemble humic substances – for on Large Dams,” organized largely by

instance, additives in food and personal-care F&ES students.

products – and the substances end up in Dams large and small were examined “From a cultural

from every conceivable angle – technical,

sewage treatment plants and lakes. These are

perspective, dams are

much more powerful binding agents than political, ecological, economic, even

natural humic substances, and their presence spiritual. seen as eternal.”

could wind up reducing the availability of Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior

certain micronutrients in ecosystems. In Bruce Babbitt set the conference tone Bruce Babbitt

turn, this micronutrient limitation may be with his provocative keynote address,

affecting bacterial action that is essential to “Do We Need More Dams? Or Fewer?”

the health of those ecosystems.” After being introduced by Dean Gus blocked shad runs on the Neuse River.

In his watershed-based studies, Benoit is

Speth as “one of my heroes,” Babbitt Removing that dam opened upstream

looking at nonpoint source pollution and

called F&ES a “sweet spot” for environ- spawning waters, and shad returned in

techniques for pinpointing pollution sources.

mental studies. Then he turned to the large numbers. This successful effort

“We’ve done a good job in the United States of

subject at hand, noting that two things spawned something else – an inventory

restricting pollution that comes from discrete

are now happening in the world simulta- of U.S. dams that revealed 75,000 still

points, like sewage treatment plants and

industry,” he says. “But we have done very neously – one hopeful, one not so: “We standing. “Nobody will miss one or two

badly at minimizing water pollution from are learning to take dams down in the or even half a dozen,” said Babbitt,

uses, like agriculture and urban development, United States even as elsewhere in the laughing. “[Dam busting] is a wonderfully

that spread across landscapes.” world we are going in the wrong direc- blossoming field.” He suggested that the

At the same time, novel ideas are being tion, building more and bigger dams.” biggest obstacles to dam removal – and

developed in the pinpointing of pollution The subject of “dam busting” – the habitat restoration – may be psychological.

sources. “Every kind of land use leaves a removal of outmoded dams – seemed to “From a cultural perspective, dams

fingerprint related to the chemicals it’s energize Babbitt, chair of the board of are seen as eternal,” he said. “But along

continued on page 41



Spring 2007 15

the East Coast, most dams are obsolete, “The conservancy movement began Offering a cautionary note was John

having been built for grist mills and now with rivers and dams,” said Palmer. “Muir Williams, a scientist who directs the

decommissioned. Local people fight taking lost that great battle, but a movement Riverine Ecology Group for the National

them down out of nostalgia, and see dam began.” While Muir’s motivation was to Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

removal as government encroachment.” protect a national park, Palmer said, “Restoring fisheries is different from saving

Babbitt said he was disturbed that no anglers, wilderness supporters and a species from extinction,” he said. “That

consensus has been reached on criteria by landowners slowly merged into a great is the question here: Can we have both?

which we can plan and “understand” large people’s movement that crested in the Salmon and dams?”

dams. He cited the “melancholy” examples 1970s, when several large-dam proposals While much of the discussion focused

of the Columbia, Colorado and Missouri were defeated. “That movement brought on the negative impacts of the dams, nearly

rivers. “The upper Missouri River is a tem- down the big-dam era,” said Palmer. all participants accepted that dams, in some

plate of failure from which other countries Prior to this movement, the people capacity, are here to stay. David Skelly,

must learn. The destruction wreaked by most negatively affected by big dams in F&ES professor of ecology, moderated a

Hurricane Katrina began in the 1930s, the United States were Native Americans. panel discussion of the ways in which

when the first dam was built at Fort Peck.” Offering this perspective were Raymond environmentalists strike a balance between

After the dam at Fort Peck was built, Cross, a Yale Law School graduate and law the economics of building dams and pro-

the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built 20 professor at the University of Montana, tection of the natural world.

more dams. In the process, native peoples and Rebecca Miles, chair of the Nez Perce George LaPointe, commissioner of the

were dispossessed, cultures destroyed, Tribal Executive Committee. Cross repre- Maine Department of Marine Resources,

farmland lost and habitats ruined. “This sented his tribal people, the Mandan, described successful dam removals on the

was done in the name of flood control. … Hidatsa and Arikara Nation of the Fort Kennebec and Penobscot rivers. He called

Sixty million acre-feet of water were created, Berthold Indian Reservation (N.D.), in the projects on the Penobscot River –

80 percent of the sediment collected behind their battle for compensation against the whose basin makes up one-third of

dams; the river no longer exists and the United States for its 1949 taking of over Maine’s landmass – examples of “smart

delta is disappearing. Let’s not create another 156,000 acres of reservation land to build hydro” that balance renewable energy with

Missouri River elsewhere,” Babbitt warned. Garrison Dam, the world’s fourth-largest fish restoration. The Penobscot has nine

rolled-earth dam. Garrison created the dams, two of which (Veazie Dam and

Hetch Hetchy Valley and longest reservoir in the United States, Lake Great Works Dam) are likely to be

the End of the Big-Dam Era Sacagawea, named for the Indian woman removed. The obstacles are the price ($25

Babbitt was not the only conference who aided Lewis and Clark. million to buy the dams and $15 million

participant voicing concern about the “Who built it?” said Cross. “Indians for follow-up) and peoples’ fondness for

expansion of dam-building worldwide. were used as the labor force. It was built the artificial lakes created by the dams.

This was, in fact, a predominating view. for power, flood control and navigation, LaPointe cited the successful removal

The roots of such opposition reach but the real cost was the breach of a treaty of Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River.

back to 1913, when an Act of Congress and the destruction of Indian culture.” In “This project benefited all 11 species of

led to a dam being built on the Tuolumne 1992, Congress awarded the tribes $149.2 anadromous fish in the river,” he said.

River, flooding the Hetch Hetchy Valley in million in compensation. Stephen Gephard, a biologist with the

Yosemite National Park. Though the Miles reflected on the impacts that Connecticut Department of Environmental

approval of this 364-feet-high dam, large dams have had on her people in Protection’s Marine Fisheries Division,

according to environmental engineer Laura Washington state. She is now trying to detailed fish-passage technology and the

Wildman ’04, director of river science at retain Nez Perce treaty rights to the fish pros and cons of models currently used

American Rivers, “was said to have killed and water of the Snake River, a fight around the world (pool and weir, rough-

[Sierra Club founder] John Muir,” it also shared by another panelist, Gilly Lyons of ened chute, fish lifts, seminatural bypass

led to what photographer and writer Tim Save Our Wild Salmon. Their goal is the channels). He and LaPointe both stressed

Palmer called “the first great environmen- removal of four dams on the Lower Snake that fish ladders, or passages around dams,

tal debate.” River and restoration of the salmon and are not totally efficient.

steelhead to “harvestable” levels.





16 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

The only obstacles to the likely removal

of the Veazie Dam on the Penobscot River

are the price and peoples’ fondness for

the artificial lakes it has helped create.





College, litigated the Tellico Dam case in

Tennessee, cited many times during the

conference. The Tellico Dam, he said,

should never have been built.

“It could never pay for itself,” said

Plater. “This dam offered 23 cents worth

of benefits for every dollar spent on it, and

it was placed in the heart of the Cherokee

reservation, the oldest site of known

human habitation in North America.”









Adria Elskus

Plater represented the native peoples

against the government. Because of the

Tellico case, the Endangered Species Act

“Fish-passage technology is not the world’s second-highest extinction rates was augmented with a “God Squad,” a

panacea for restoring species,” said (only the Amazon rainforest’s rates are committee that signs off on whether a

Gephard. “Dam removal would be the higher). The main culprits are the species can be allowed to go extinct. The

preferable way. Fishways are a compromise; Tennessee Valley Authority dams built in God Squad has been invoked in only three

politically we can’t just remove dams.” the 1930s – 3,000 small dams and 50 large cases: the Tellico Dam (in regard to the

Therefore, he recommends, where possible, hydropower dams are found in the basin. snail darter), the Gray Rocks Dam in

removing old dams, limiting the height of “These dams have done profound Wyoming (which affected the habitat of

new dams, building dams upstream and damage,” said Johnson, who collaborated the whooping crane along the Platte River

not downstream, advocating for the best with Powell’s office on a long-term project in Nebraska) and Pacific Northwest log-

fishways and demanding that maintenance to restore mussel species on a stretch of ging (spotted owls).

be part of any dam project. the Duck River Basin in Tennessee. On the last day of the conference, the

Jeff Powell, a biologist with the U.S. Fishways and mitigation efforts were initi- participants focused on international dam

Fish & Wildlife Service, and Paul Johnson, ated by the power company and state construction, with representatives dis-

a zoologist with the Alabama Department agencies. Ten years after the changes, the cussing controversial projects in India

of Conservation and Natural Resources, impact on the mussel population has been (Ramachandra Guha, Ramaswamy Iyer),

jointly offered an overview of efforts to significant. “There have been major Thailand (David Woodruff), Costa Rica

mitigate dam impacts and recover im- increases in numbers and species. Even (Rodrigo Rojas), Belize (Ari Hershowitz)

periled species in the Tennessee and Mobile endangered species like the snail darter and Lesotho (Yvonne Braun). Also dis-

river basins. The Tennessee is the third- have returned,” said Johnson. “It’s a dra- cussed were the roles of the World Bank

largest river in North America, with 11,000 matic recovery.” and corporations and the social and politi-

miles of shoreline, and the Mobile River is When dam proponents and opponents cal impacts of large dams.

the sixth-largest basin in the country. Both do battle, a courtroom is the usual setting. After three days, the conference

are global hotspots for biodiversity. Within Brad Gentry, F&ES senior lecturer and seemed to circle back to something that

the Tennessee basin, for example, the tiny research scholar in sustainable investments, former Secretary Babbitt said in his opening

Conasauga River is home to 76 native fish moderated a panel of environmental remarks: “If we must have hydropower,

species, and the basin itself contains more lawyers who discussed cases they’ve liti- let’s put it in logical places and let’s have

species of freshwater mussels (297) than gated. Zygmunt Plater, a Yale Law School real mitigation and land use planning.”

anywhere else in the world. It also has the graduate and a law professor at Boston









Spring 2007 17

Chad Oliver









Fire and the Nuclear Forest

By Richard Conniff









I

n the fall of 2004 in the rotunda of Marsh Hall on the Yale campus, A 50-year-old Scotch pine plantation five

miles from the Chernobyl nuclear power

a forester from Alaska gave a talk about the worst fire season in

plant. The stand has been devastated by

his state’s history. Driven by record-breaking temperatures and insects and is now at an extremely high

drought, intense fires had raged across 6.5 million acres of forest, easily risk for fire.



triple what Alaska expected even in a bad year. Despite the latest fire-

Zibtsev, a tall, almost ectoplasmically

fighting technology, the fires burned too big and too hot to control. At thin 46-year-old, with a slight stoop and

one point, a change of wind direction blanketed the city of Fairbanks thick hair just starting to go gray, knew

the forests around the Chernobyl Nuclear

in smoke, reducing visibility at times to a quarter-mile. Air quality was

Power Plant as well as anyone. Kiev, where

rated very unhealthy or hazardous for 10 days straight, forcing people he teaches at the Institute of Forestry and

to stay indoors or even evacuate the city. NASA later reported that the Landscape Architecture, is a two-hour

drive to the south. Starting in 1993, he’d

smoke plume had worsened air quality as far away as Houston.

spent five summers working four hours a

In the audience that day at Yale was an associate professor from the day in the so-called exclusion zone, a

National Agricultural University of Ukraine named Sergiy Zibtsev, who fenced-off area of almost 650,000 acres

around the power plant. The human

was visiting from Kiev as a Fulbright scholar. As the speaker’s photos

population there had been hastily evacu-

played across the screen, he contemplated the catastrophic scale of the ated after the April 26, 1986, explosion at

fires and wondered, “What if it happened at Chernobyl?” nuclear reactor number four. What





18 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

remained behind, apart from the empty The plume from another fire, in 2003, “They don’t have time for this,” Zibtsev

cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat, were reached Kiev, which has a population of conceded. “After a fire, they’ll give us

grassland and forest, largely Scotch pine, 2.7 million people. The exclusion zone money. But then it may be too late. The

with some birch, aspen and oak mixed has a firefighting force equipped to deal important thing is to get the attention. We

in, now abandoned and unmanaged. Or, with the problem, at least in theory. But already have lots of meetings,” he said.

as Zibtsev put it, “completely nature as Zibtsev listened to what had happened Then, with a hometown-Cassandra

without people, just wind and forest.” in Alaska in 2004 and thought about the shrug, he added, “They don’t believe

It was, and remains, in some ways an increasing tendency of extreme weather me.” What he needed was an expert,

inviting forest. “Usually in Ukraine you conditions to occur in unexpected places, traditionally defined as “an s.o.b. with a

never meet wildlife, because of the pres- he realized that people in the Ukraine briefcase from out of town.”

sure from hunting,” said Zibtsev, on a had no idea how to prevent or control a

••••••

return visit to Yale this past February. He catastrophic forest fire. Moreover, the

Zibtsev had come to Yale at the invita-

cradled an imaginary rifle in two hands, radioactive potential of such a fire could

tion of Chad Oliver ’70, Ph.D. ’75, a mild,

by way of explanation. But wolves have be equal, as an article in the January/

thoughtful figure with a soft Tennessee

come in from Russia, he said, and there February issue of the Journal of Forestry

accent, watery blue eyes and a trim

are now moose, red deer, wild boar, lynx put it, “to a series of new explosions.”

salt-and-pepper beard who carries the

and beavers. Endangered Przewalski Zibtsev went home to spread the

formidable title of Pinchot Professor of

horses and European buffalo have been word. But in his absence, the Ukraine

Forestry and Environmental Studies at

released there. had gone through the most tumultuous

F&ES. He also carries a briefcase or, at

People leave the animals alone period in its post-Soviet history. The

least, a laptop bag. Oliver is an expert on

because Chernobyl is, of course, also a attempted assassination of presidential

forest dynamics, particularly as influenced

deeply scary forest. The accident at the candidate Viktor Yushchenko, by dioxin

by human actions. His father owned a

nuclear power plant released roughly 100 poisoning, had made headlines world-

times the amount of radioactive material wide. Then a series of

produced by the atomic bomb at mass protests and acts of

Hiroshima. Much of that radioactive civil disobedience, dubbed

material got trapped by the surrounding the Orange Revolution, had

forest, helping to limit the geographic forced a closely monitored

spread of the disaster. But it remains election runoff. (During

there still, in the leaves, needles and bark one meeting in New Haven

of the trees and in the upper layer of soil, to discuss the dramatic

largely in the form of cesium-137 and, to events, someone draped

Public Information Officer, Division of Forestry and Alaska Fire Service









a lesser extent, strontium-90. Plutonium- an orange scarf around

239 also contaminates the area nearest Zibtsev’s neck. He treas-

the plant, including a 3,700-acre stand ured it, until it eventually

now known as the Red Forest, because vanished. “You know, for

the needles on the Scotch pine died, revolutions somebody

turned a rusty brown and dropped off always have to pay,” he

soon after the accident. (Much of the remarked, in a characteris-

original Red Forest was buried on the tically droll e-mail, “and

site. More radiation-resistant aspen and scarf in general is not bad

birch grow there now.) solution, in compare with

Like any other forest, the exclusion October 1917.”) Finally,

zone is vulnerable to fires set off by light- Yushchenko took office In August 2004, smoke from fires originating in Alaska,

ning strikes or by the handful of farmers as president, promising a the Yukon Territory and the Pacific Northwest made its

who have crept back to their old homes. program of economic and way to the East Coast. There is concern that radioactive

The worst such fire, in 1992, burned anti-corruption reforms. smoke from forest fires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone

through 12,500 acres of forest crown, but Chernobyl was largely could have catastrophic consequences for the 2.7 million

in an area with relatively low radiation. out of sight, out of mind. inhabitants of Kiev.





Spring 2007 19

forest management company in the wood, berries, mushrooms and game. the possibility for radioactive smoke to

Southeast, and from high-school age on, Then the forest had been abandoned for 20 float over a city and for the people to

“when there was a fire, we all went out years, with no plans for increased manage- breathe it, then the viability of foreign

and fought it.” As a college student, he ment any time in the future. “So the trees investment in Kiev immediately goes

also worked a summer as a firefighter in were extremely crowded, which leads to down. And if it really does happen,

the forests of the Northwest. He went on trees dying and the buildup of fuel for fire,” you’re in for a health disaster.” (Dmytro

to earn his Ph.D. from F&ES in 1975. Oliver recalled recently. On a laptop, he Melnychuk, rector of the National

Later, he joined the faculty at the showed a photograph of a stick forest of Agricultural University, put the problem

University of Washington and served as skinny, unstable conifers, some of them far more starkly in a letter last year to

an advisor to the U.S. Forest Service and already broken and tilted. The soil was also F&ES Dean Gus Speth: “In the event of a

other land management agencies around sandy, prone to drying out quickly in a catastrophic fire of over 50,000 hectares

the world. Then, in 2002, he returned to drought. “And when it dries out, you in the Chernobyl zone, radioactive

F&ES as part of a concerted effort by the have a real mess on your hands.” smoke will cause millions of dollars in

school to broaden its international reach. In the early 1980s, Oliver had seen a health and economic loss to Kiev and

He now heads Yale’s Global Institute of similar buildup of fuel wood in the other parts of the Ukraine. Such a fire is

Sustainable Forestry. American West and helped predict the currently likely. …”)

At Zibtsev’s invitation, Oliver made his catastrophic forest fires that later ravaged On the other hand, the tools for man-

first trip to the Ukraine in the summer of the forests there. The causes of that aging forests to prevent catastrophic fires

2005, and what he saw in the exclusion buildup were, of course, completely are already available. In addition to his

zone was disconcertingly familiar. Until different: A misguided federal policy of expertise, what Oliver brought to the task

1986, the state forestry agency had suppressing all fires through much of the was a remarkable computer program, the

managed the forest intensively for timber, 20th century had turned the forests into Landscape Management System (LMS),

typically leaving no more than 12 cubic a fuel dump. Even when the danger which he began to develop in the late

meters of dead wood, a couple of stems, became alarmingly evident, actually 1980s as a way to think through the

per acre. Locals also picked over the fuel doing something to fix it proved difficult, competing values in managing a piece of

in part, says Oliver, because environmen- land. At the time, the major conflict in

talists objected to almost any logging. the Pacific Northwest was about logging

When the inevitable conflagration versus protection of endangered spotted

finally came, said Oliver, “the main thing owls. But LMS allows policy makers to

it showed us was that our concern about look at any stand in any forest and ask

and our ability to predict catastrophic fires “What if …?”

are not like Chicken Little saying the sky

••••••

is falling. These catastrophic fires really do

One day last February, in a fluorescent-

occur, and once they occur it’s too late to

lit corner of Greeley Memorial Lab,

try to put them out. You have to be proac-

Zibtsev and a team of LMS mavens put a

tive. It just confirmed our worst fears.”

7,900-stand sample of Chernobyl forest

But how to convince Ukrainian offi-

through its paces. It was the sort of room

cials of that? And how to do it with the

where lots of people work briefly, then go

requisite urgency – and yet not raise the

away, leaving the blackboards and glass

sort of alarm that might jeopardize Kiev’s

partitions covered with diagrams and

political and economic revival? It is, said

scratchings that look like a cross between

Oliver, a delicate challenge: “If there is

a Cy Twombly painting and a football

playbook. They might have represented

Much of the radioactive material produced

the dynamics of a forest anywhere from

by the Chernobyl accident contaminates a

Igor Kostin/Sygma/Corbis









Florida to Alaska. Here and there, a legible

3,700-acre stand now known as the Red

Forest, because the needles on the Scotch term leapt out – “remote sensing” or

pine died, turned a rusty brown and “Holdridge Life Zones” or, somewhat

dropped off soon after the accident. cryptically, “Michelle 17.”







20 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Service, they don’t have that attitude any- scientist in stand dynamics and forest

“In the event of a catastrophic more,” said Oliver, and McCarter added, health at F&ES who has worked on forest

“They sort of had that drummed out of fires in the dry landscapes of the

fire of over 50,000 hectares them.” At Chernobyl, much of the fire- American West. “It will still be burning,

in the Chernobyl zone, fighting equipment Oliver saw in 2005 but you have a chance to fight it. When

and on a return visit in 2006 was outdat- it’s in the crown, you can’t do much of

radioactive smoke will cause ed or poorly maintained. The tires on the anything, unless you have airplanes.”

fire trucks were bald and the 808 miles of “You need to have a constant dynamic,

millions of dollars in health

forest roads were untended, often with a mosaic of structures,” said Oliver. “As

and economic loss to Kiev and trees growing up in the middle. A USFS one stand changes and grows to a new

team of fire management experts who structure, you create another stand that

other parts of the Ukraine.”

visited in 2006 found that the use of has the old structure. The secret is to put

lookout towers and reconnaissance heli- the forests in a condition so that fires

Dmytro Melnychuk

copters was “very effective” in detecting don’t get started or don't have enough

fires. But the city of Kiev would be far fuel to develop in a catastrophic manner.”

Jim McCarter, a software develop- better off if firefighters had access to real- At Chernobyl, the variables include

ment coordinator for the University of time satellite data for spotting fires and all of the ordinary considerations in man-

Washington, worked at his keyboard, monitoring smoke plumes. aging a conventional forest. Experience

and every now and then, after a whirring Fires in the exclusion zone tend now in the Ukraine suggests, for instance, that

of hard drives, he announced the results to stay close to the ground, where the fire risk decreases dramatically when

of an alternative management scheme. hazard is relatively contained. There’s hardwoods like birch and aspen make up

Sometimes the analysis came up as a usually not enough underbrush or other more than 30 percent of the trees in a

series of graphs representing relative fire ladder fuels to carry the flames to the stand. As in any forest, thinning out

risk. In a high-risk scenario, 60 percent treetops. But that’s changing as the forest weaker trees would also make for healthier

of the trees in a stand would be destroyed. matures and as insects and disease flourish stands, enabling the remaining trees to

The goal was to get to the low-risk in crowded stands of Scotch pine. On his become thicker and more stable.

scenario, where less than 25 percent of laptop, Zibtsev produced an aerial photo But as Oliver, Zibtsev and the others

trees would die in a fire. At times, LMS of a forest stand pockmarked with purple chatted around the computer, the conver-

served up a visualization of a tree stand, blemishes. “These are forest patches with sation veered into unorthodox territory,

then showed how a particular manage- root rot from fungus,” he said. As dead like the tendency of plutonium to vaporize

ment strategy would make it look in five, trees begin to fall there and saplings grow at a temperature of 400 degrees Celsius

or 25, years. The visualizations, said up in the new openings, it creates a fuel and cesium at 700 degrees Celsius.

McCarter, were a useful tool for helping ladder. “When ground fire hits, it could “That’s not an extreme data point,” said

laypeople and policy makers see forests leap up into the crowns.” Camp. “In a landscape-scale fire, 400

grow before their eyes – at a rate of 50 With LMS, it becomes practical to degrees is a normal temperature.” The

years in 20 seconds. keep track of these pockets, along with a radioactive decay rate of these substances

LMS could help to show Chernobyl daunting assortment of other variables, also figured largely in the conversation.

firefighters the scale of the problem they and to manage them to minimize the Cesium-137 has a half-life of just 30

face as the forest changes. Asked about risk. It might make sense, for instance, to years, meaning that fire management

fire risk now, said Zibtsev, they tend to say, cut down a stand and create a firebreak. needs to focus mainly on what happens

“‘No problem. We can control any fire. Likewise, the software can point out in this century. But with plutonium,

We have helicopters and trucks. …’” when all stands in a cluster will reach which takes 24,000 years to lose half its

“It’s the confident attitude of the action their fire peak at the same time, enabling radioactivity, the challenge will be to

agency,” said Oliver. “To do this kind of foresters to create a break ahead of time minimize fire risk effectively forever.

thing, you need a can-do attitude.” But and make a crown fire drop down to the Why not just cut down the forest,

catastrophic fires have an alarming power ground. “You want to break it up, you prevent all fires and be done with it?

to remind people of human limitations, want to change fire behavior,” said Ann During the five summers Zibtsev worked

often when it’s too late. “The U.S. Forest Camp ’90, a senior lecturer and research in the Chernobyl forest, his job was to







Spring 2007 21

collect soil samples and tree parts to firebreaks or for thinning. Some of the impression, but scientific calculation. My

track the circulation of cesium, as the less-contaminated tree trunks can serve task is to use the simulation to attract the

radioactivity cycled back and forth as props in underground mines. But most attention of donors, the international

between the trees and the soil. “The idea may have to be stacked at the site and community and people responsible for

of management there is to not allow the left to rot. In dry weather, it might be fire issues and radioactive safety.” The

forest to die,” he said, “because when it necessary to hose down the stacks peri- next step will be a conference in Kiev

dies, the cesium migrates into the ground odically as a fire precaution. this summer among stakeholders and

water,” contaminating the drinking supply. “It would be nice to have a shredder,” experts to persuade people, said Zibtsev,

Like other workers in the exclusion Ann Camp suggested. “that a continuous investment in reducing

zone, Zibtsev wore special clothing, “But you don’t want to breathe the the hazard would be much better than

including radioactivity tags. Afterward, dust,” said Chad Oliver. Material that’s the alternative.” George Chopivsky, Yale

doctors pronounced him clean and in harmless on the skin can be deadly in College Class of 1969, has agreed to fund

good health. But he added, “Who knows? the lungs. the conference.

That’s the problem with radiation. No At that point, after a flurry of activity Forest management in the exclusion

threshold. Radiation can impact at low from the LMS software, McCarter turned zone currently costs about $2.2 million

doses or high doses. Nobody can predict.” around and offered yet another risk- annually. No one knows yet how much

The one thing everyone accepts is that reduction strategy on his computer more it will take to update the basic fire

they don’t want people drinking water screen: “Every stand is thinned to 250 management plan and to undertake the

contaminated with radiation. trees per acre, and for stands where that sort of detailed projection of forest struc-

Another complication is that the still doesn’t decrease the fire risk, you ture and health that’s really needed, incor-

wood is basically worthless, meaning convert to hardwood. Just flip it off, and porating questions like biodiversity and

that there is no self-sustaining source let birch regrow.” On the screen, the radionuclide emissions. Tony Brunello, a

of income for cutting trees to create graphs showed three-quarters of the forest member of of the U.S. Forest Service team

at high risk at the start, with as many as that visited the site last year, estimated

800 trees per acre in neglected stands, that establishing a satellite receiving

and three-quarters at low risk at the end. station, which would also provide flood

Would it work on the ground? To get warning and other services for the entire

to that point, LMS will eventually need country, might cost up to $1 million. In

data on all 40,000 tree stands around any case, Brunello suggested, the cost is

Chernobyl. Because there is currently no small relative to what’s at stake.

information on dead and down trees, “Everybody is looking at the sarcopha-

foresters will also need to visit sample areas gus of the power plant at Chernobyl.

throughout the forest and run transects, And hardly anybody is thinking about

recording every twig on a series of 50- or the forests,” said Brunello. Construction

100-meter lines. After that, according to has begun on a “New Safe Confinement”

Oliver, it will become relatively easy to to replace the deteriorating 300,000-ton

investigate different management strat- concrete-and-steel tomb placed over

egies, with LMS showing how much a reactor number four in the immediate

given strategy will reduce fire risk and at aftermath of the accident. That project,

what cost and then directing people exactly including surrounding infrastructure,

where to go to take action on the ground. will cost upwards of $900 million. But

The real objective for now, said Zibtsev, forest management, now largely forgotten,

is simply to “open up the situation” so is the “low-hanging fruit” in the effort to

people have a way to think about – and prevent further disasters. A little money

visualize – the possibilities. “We have a lot there, said Brunello, “would go much

of information, a lot of scientific monitor- further than all the millions we are now

ing. But we have no tools to do analytic pouring into Chernobyl. Nobody’s paying

work [using] this information. That is attention, and somebody needs to pay

why LMS is useful. It’s not just an attention to this.”

Audit Reveals Logger’s Malfeasance

and Certification’s Weaknesses

By Cathy Shufro









F

&ES doctoral student Janette Shield forest is one of only four that

Bulkan had just returned home to remain relatively undisturbed by human

Guyana in February 2006 when the activities. (The others are in the Amazon,

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) made the Congo and Papua New Guinea.) The

a groundbreaking announcement: the United Nations Development Programme

group had helped the largest of the Asian- had backed efforts to preserve the forests









Harold Shapiro

controlled timber companies logging in in this emerging democracy, which is east

Guyana to gain certification from the of Venezuela and north of Brazil. Most of

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The Guyana’s 750,000 inhabitants live on the

Barama Company Limited had promised coast, and forest covers about 80 percent Janette Bulkan called it “a shocking

to hew to rigorous international standards of the country. travesty” when the Forest Stewardship

Council awarded certification to Barama,

for responsible forest management and fair Certification sets standards for a wide

an Asian logging company, in March 2006.

labor practices as it harvested trees in the range of environmental and social factors,

vast Guyanese rainforest. as well as for technical forestry, including

The 1.4 million acres covered by the This was the sort of agreement that

agreement is only a third of the government- Janette Bulkan had been working toward

owned land on which the Barama Company “I thought, ‘I have a choice. for years. Before coming to New Haven to

has a renewable 25-year logging concession. study in 2004, she had served as first chair

I can simply plod on with of the Guyana National Initiative for Forest

Still, certification by the FSC was an

important step forward: this 2,200-square- my fieldwork and thesis – Certification. And yet the certification of

mile tract would have been the world’s Barama angered Bulkan. Her fieldwork in

largest certified stretch of natural tropical

the easier road – or I can the Guyanese forests and her family’s

involvement in timber processing had

forest. publicize my findings.’

To announce the agreement, the acquainted her with the Barama Company.

Barama Company joined the WWF in a I decided that I didn’t just She said that Barama gave the best-paying

ceremony at a hotel in the Guyanese capital jobs to imported Asian workers, not locals;

want to be a Yale student.” it owed back taxes to the government; it

of Georgetown. “With this milestone,” said

WWF Guianas official Patrick Williams, encroached on Amerindian lands; and it

Janette Bulkan

“Barama not only serves as a catalyst for cut too many of the most valuable trees,

improved forest management systems,” but threatening their commercial survival. As

also ensures that “the national patrimony minimizing erosion and keeping water Bulkan put it, she knew “something of

is protected for the benefit of present and sources clean; hiring local workers and what was hidden behind the showcase.”

future generations.” Barama General treating them fairly; and respecting the Environmental groups, including the

Manager Girwar Lalaram said that FSC rights of indigenous forest-dwellers to ,

WWF had long criticized the logging

certification “opens the door to new buyers control harvesting in their traditional terri- practices of Barama’s Malaysian parent

in Europe and North America that demand tories. The FSC imprimatur should please company, Samling Global. Samling operates

forest products from well-managed forests.” manufacturers courting conscientious the second-largest timber company in

The word milestone seemed legitimate: consumers, who would prefer Barama’s Malaysia, and it logs in the Sarawak, one

on a planet that has lost more than half its certified timber to logs (or furniture and of two Malaysian states on the island of

natural tropical moist forests, the Guiana flooring) of unknown provenance. Borneo. The Penan aboriginal people in



Spring 2007 environment:YALE 23

Sarawak live mostly off the land in an area last.) The FSC could provide some leverage attracted to Guyana for the medium-density

that a WWF forester described as “off the against such corruption, said Bulkan. “We baromalli timber to make utility plywood.

biodiversity scale” in its richness. For two depend on the FSC to represent and protect The wood used for flooring is very dense,

years, some of the Penan blockaded the social justice, equity, a place at the table because trees grow slowly in the infertile

forest that they claimed as theirs. The for workers and respect for national laws soil that is the product of weathering of

Penan asserted that loggers had polluted and worker rights. When they would then Proterozoic rocks. Unless these trees are

their rivers, causing fish to die, and that close their eyes to the egregious behavior harvested sustainably, said Bulkan, “this is

sacred sites had been damaged. Police of this company, clear violations of FSC a world treasure that will be destroyed.”

removed the blockade in February 2007, principles and criteria, we felt that all Bulkan soon realized that even though

and Samling has brought its bulldozers to hope was lost.” Barama was certified, she could still play a

the forest. Bulkan had known the forest since role in protecting the forest. Because the

Given what Bulkan knew about childhood. Although her great-grandparents certification system requires routine audits,

Barama and about Samling’s record, she had come to Guyana from India as inden- an audit could provide a forum for local

saw certification as “a shocking travesty.” tured sugar cane cutters, their children – voices. In early November, the Guyana

her grandparents – had Citizens’ Initiative invited Bulkan to

established a succession

Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

speak on the issue at the same hotel in

of sawmills in rural areas. Georgetown where the certification had

Bulkan was born in a been announced months earlier. About 80

sawmill compound, and people attended, and the two independent

she tells people: “I have local newspapers reported on the talk.

Guiana Shield

(after Gibbs & Barron, 1993) sawdust in my veins.” Bulkan joined with eight other Guyanese

Outliers of Shield

sometimes included That sawdust comes activists (including three representatives of

from a forest that is home the Amerindian Peoples Association, which

to nearly 800 species is the leading indigenous NGO) to press

of mammals, reptiles, for a meeting with the auditor, a South

amphibians and fish, Africa-based company called SGS Qualifor.

including sharp-toothed When SGS visited Guyana in late

black caimans, critically November, Bulkan’s group asked the com-

endangered trunkback pany to respond to a list of 36 questions

turtles, giant anteaters, and concerns about Barama and the

anaconda snakes as long certification process itself. Bulkan’s group

as 30 feet, the carnivo- also gave the list to the FSC accreditation

rous wimple piranha and authority, the Germany-based Accreditation

On a planet that has lost more than half its natural tropical

moist forests, the Guiana Shield forest is one of only four the 10-foot-long arapaima, Services International (ASI), which was, in

that remain relatively undisturbed by human activities. and 500 bird species, from turn, assessing how well SGS was evaluating

the agile crimson topaz Barama. That audit found significant prob-

hummingbird to the lems, and SGS suspended Barama’s certifi-

She explained that, “in a small place like ungainly and primitive-looking hoatzin – cation on January 9. The public summary

Guyana, we can only save tropical forests a chicken-sized bird with a blue face and a of the report, issued that same month by

with collaboration from the global North.” spiky crest of feathers whose young have ASI, cited nine “major nonconformities”

Guyana needs such collaborations, she said, claws on their wings. with evaluation procedures.

in part because corruption is widespread. The Guyanese forest comprises 1,100 Bulkan called the suspension of

In its annual surveys of perceptions of species of trees. Commercially desirable Barama’s certificate “a huge victory.” The

corruption by the Germany-based non- species include the greenheart, purple process, she said, validated the FSC proce-

profit Transparency International, Guyana heart, locust and mora, which have excep- dures and pointed out the weaknesses in

does poorly. In its 2006 list that rated tionally durable and attractively colored the application of law and regulation in

countries from least to most corrupt, the wood that is prized worldwide for decking, Guyana. “It will send a signal to local

group ranked Guyana as 121st among 163 flooring and furniture, hence the attraction companies in places like Guyana, where

countries. (Finland had the top ranking, for Barama and the other international civil society is weak and regulatory agen-

the United States was 20th and Haiti was timber companies. Barama was originally cies are corrupt, that you have to do it





24 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

right. You have to obey the law, regulations

and FSC requirements if you want to sell

your timber under the label of responsible

Tackling Forestry’s Biggest

forest stewardship.”

The ASI report asserts that Barama

harvested trees on Amerindian reservations

Challenges With Talk

outside its concession without informed

consent from the indigenous communities, By Jackie Fitzpatrick

and that a Barama subcontractor had not









I

paid the Amerindians for wood cut there; t starts with a packet of seedlings, a munity with the money that came from

that Barama failed to provide workers with patch of land and unyielding terrain, his timber sales.

basic health care and adequate safety equip- where it is difficult to farm tradi- Last year, 27 representatives of major

ment; that it neglected to prepare a public tional crops. With the seedlings paper corporations, government, family

summary of its management plan for more and an interest-free loan, subsistence tree farms, organized labor, forestry

than half the land it controls and lacked farmers from the KwaZulu-Natal concerns, investment firms and NGOs,

required plans to control erosion; and that Province of South Africa begin to grow including conservation groups like The

it improperly disposed of oil and other trees. The process takes time; the first Nature Conservancy, gathered in Richards

hazardous waste. The audit gives SGS until crop will not be ready for about five to Bay, South Africa, for a “scoping” dialogue

June 2007 to correct all the problems. The

seven years, but the tree growers can rely convened by The Forests Dialogue (TFD)

public summary of the SGS evaluation report

on experts from Sappi, a global pulp and to discuss poverty and how it could be

has not yet been published, perhaps because

paper company based in Johannesburg, ameliorated by the sustainable use of

SGS has indicated that it will appeal the ASI

to help them nurture the trees. Sappi forests. TFD is an ad hoc group of indi-

findings. SGS has not yet responded to the

also guarantees a market for the timber.

36 points raised by Bulkan and her colleagues.

The workers are part of Project Grow, a

Shortly after the suspension was

program that unites private business, non- “You get good people in a

announced, Barama officials wrote to the

WWF saying it was committed to correcting

governmental organizations (NGOs) and room and they start to see

people from local communities who are

problems and restoring certification. Still,

in need of work. Project Grow had three each other’s points of view,

the suspension was a setback for the conser-

participants at its inception in 1983.

vation group. “Was the suspension of the and they start to see solutions.”

Today, more than 9,800 small farmers

Barama certificate disappointing? Yes, to all

provide the company with 124,000 tons

involved parties, including the CEO of the Cassie Phillips

of timber each year.

parent company, Samling, by his own

Challenges in the region are many. A

admission,” said Bruce Cabarle ’83, the

second phase of the program, creating viduals from diverse interests and regions

managing director for the WWF Global

entrepreneurial opportunities for local that is committed to the conservation

Forest Program. “There’s no question that

people to harvest and transport the timber, and sustainable use of forests. The Global

they had done some serious things wrong.

has been problematic because of the high Institute of Sustainable Forestry at the

Does this mean that all hope is lost? Not

cost of equipment and the lack of local Yale School of Forestry & Environmental

yet. The acceptance of the problems and

access roads. The region is also riddled Studies hosts the Secretariat of TFD,

the willingness to address them, by all

with high rates of HIV/AIDS and other according to Executive Director Gary

involved parties, is a source of hope. The

health problems. Dunning ’96. The participants in the

FSC system, after all, was designed to find

Still, life has improved for the impov- scoping dialogue heard from a represen-

and fix problems.”

erished growers, 80 percent of whom are tative from Project Grow, and they visited

Cabarle said that the WWF would push

women. Families have seen their incomes the small tree farms to see firsthand how

hard to make sure that Barama also agreed

increase, and many have been able to put the project has helped people in the region.

to stricter guidelines for logs taken from

their children through college. More than Reducing poverty through commercial

outside the areas of forest that were certified.

80 families have used the tree income to forestry is the most ambitious goal of

He added that the WWF chose to

start other small businesses in the area, TFD to date. TFD’s steering committee

engage with Barama despite Samling’s

and one man built a church for his com- had addressed other issues in the past,

continued on page 44



Spring 2007 25

including forest certification, illegal log- environmental group that works under- forestry are the keys to relieving poverty

ging and the biodiversity of forests, but it cover and the Chinese government would there.

kept returning again and again to the never have attended that kind of forum The summary report said the group

questions: “Could poverty be reduced together. The dialogue gave them the found that “demand for a wide range of

through commercial forestry? If so, how?” chance to communicate with each other sustainable forest products and ecosystem

“It’s certainly an ambitious goal and an in private, without the press recording services, including fiber and wood, con-

important one,” said Cassie Phillips, who their every move. ventional nontimber forest products, bio-

along with Justin Ward, vice president “Yale is an academic institution with mass and green energy, and recreation and

of business practices at Conservation an international presence and a strong biodiversity, presents opportunities for

International, is the co-leader of TFD. program on forests and the environment,” many levels of society, especially the rural

Phillips, vice president of sustainable forests said Dunning. “So it was uniquely equipped poor, to earn sustainable incomes.” At a full

and products for Weyerhaeuser, added, “It to host the neutral Secretariat.” dialogue scheduled for June, the invited

is the biggest topic we have tried to tackle, Dean Gus Speth said that TFD is also a parties will work to take advantage of

and it has gotten a lot of support from unique teaching tool for graduate students, these opportunities.

many different stakeholders.” who research the dialogue topics, write William Ginn, managing director of

Phillips said having so many divergent background papers that lead to summary the Global Forest Partnership of The

points of view in the room “catalyzes people reports and work with the many different Nature Conservancy, said, “For us to see

to do things. You get good people in a room constituencies represented at the dialogues. the change we want to see in the world,

and they start to see each other’s points of “Yale has a lot of expertise and knowledge we have to engage with others, especially

view, and they start to see solutions.” to bring to the table in these discussions, in the economic sector,” adding that his

For example, during a dialogue in but perhaps one of the most compelling organization has many important partner-

Hong Kong on illegal logging in 2005, the reasons that we are involved is for the ships with industry, including one with

Environmental Investigation Agency perfect training ground it provides for our Weyerhaeuser that grew out of the dia-

screened a video that it had created about students.” logues. In 2006, Weyerhaeuser and the

how illegal logs from Papua, Indonesia, The TFD went to South Africa, as Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation

were ending up in Chinese mills that Phillips and other steering committee pledged a million dollars to The Nature

shipped flooring to the United States and members pointed out, to highlight how, in Conservancy, teaming up to develop forest

Europe. Dunning said representatives of many impoverished communities, forests conservation and biodiversity projects in

the Chinese government attending the dia- are “the one resource that they’ve got.” the Northwest and Southeast United States,

logue saw the film, and a month later the They visited Project Grow and the forestry where the company owns and leases 6.4

Chinese government shut down every mill company Mondi’s programs. They listened to million acres of managed forest.

in the towns where those logs were being speakers, including Inviolata Chinyangarara, Gerhard Dieterle, the forests advisor of

used. “They felt compelled to clean up the who represents the Building and Wood agriculture and rural development for the

supply chain, to keep illegal logs out of Workers’ International union, and Rosane World Bank, who attended the scoping

the mills,” Dunning said. Monteiro Borges of Aracruz Brazil, who dialogue, said the World Bank will work

Until the TFD was formed, a radical addressed the company’s efforts to use to put programs into place after seeing the

local farmers to grow Eucalyptus trees. “visionary approach” of disparate groups

They heard from Chris Mkhize of the working to solve the problems of poverty.

Uthungulu Community Foundation in The World Bank plans to support more

South Africa, who said in a report to dialogue on poverty and to firm up the role

the committee that when poverty the private sector can play in alleviating it.

is extreme, such as in some Current plans include holding a forum in

rural South African com- 2008, where heads of corporations and

munities, “the poor do representatives from NGOs will work

not have the ability – together to launch a charter and bring

by themselves – to get their ideas for change to the public.

out of the mess.” Bringing a diverse group of stakeholders

Education and train- together has been the hallmark of TFD

ing in commercial since its inception in 1999. TFD was created

continued on page 47

Donor’s Faith in F&ES and Its Students

Results in $4 Million Gift

By Stacey Stowe









W

hen he was a young man, Institute for Biospheric Studies, whose focus

Gilman Ordway chose the is research and teaching in the environ-

land over law, buying a mental sciences, and he is a member of

spread in Wyoming and F&ES’ Leadership Council. In addition to

opening a ranch, rather than pursuing the the Jackson Hole Land Trust, he has served

Colorado bar exam after graduating from on almost a dozen boards, including those

law school. of The Nature Conservancy, the American









Pablo Mason

Yet while he maintains a lawyer’s Farmland Trust, the World Wildlife Fund

penchant for thoughtfulness and order, and the Wilderness Society.

Ordway’s passion is conservation. A stead- Ordway is so steeped in environmental Gil Ordway

fast and generous supporter of the Yale causes that it is something of a surprise to

School of Forestry & Environmental learn that he grew up in Manhattan and now a chic ski destination that he

Studies (F&ES), he has pledged a total of attended the Buckley School there and the described as “a cow town in the ’50s.”

$4 million for the study center and library Avon Old Farms Prep School in Avon, Ordway was so enamored of the

that will bear his name on the first floor of unspoiled landscape that he abandoned

the Kroon Hall, the new F&ES home his original intent to take the bar exam. His

scheduled to be completed in early 2009. “I am especially visits to the Western forests and mountains

The gift is a manifestation of his love of

the land and his belief in the importance impressed with the quality with law school classmates ignited an

interest in environmental issues, and he

of sound environmental stewardship. of the graduates that soon found himself immersed in books,

The gift also represents his faith in the such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and

mission of the school. “I am especially the school produces.” articles about global warming, the vanishing

impressed with the quality of the graduates rainforests and other conservation-related

that the school produces,” said Ordway, matters.

Yale College Class of 1947. “And what Conn., before coming to Yale. “We weren’t He bought property in Wyoming, eight

Gus Speth has done as dean for the envi- particularly outdoorsy,” he said, although miles outside of Jackson, and created a

ronment is just very admirable.” the family did travel out West. His father vacation site that was “part cattle and part

Ordway owns Fish Creek Ranch in was a lawyer for the International Telephone dude ranch” in close proximity to Grand

Wilson, Wyo., a 382-acre property that and Telegraph Company. Ordway was born Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

includes almost one mile of Fish Creek, in St. Paul, Minn., where his grandfather “It was just so beautiful and relatively

with spawning areas for native cutthroat was a founder of 3M, and he still has many underdeveloped,” he said. “At that time,

trout. Rustic cabins for vacationers are relatives there whom he visits frequently. there were no condos. Skiing was much

riverside. The pine-dotted, mountain- After graduating from Yale, Ordway smaller.”

framed landscape is home to the bald taught history and French at a private Today, Fish Creek Ranch is no longer a

eagle and great blue heron. Winter brings school in Montclair, N.J. In 1952, he dude ranch. The trails, where horses carried

out the ungulates: moose and deer. A enrolled at the University of Colorado Law would-be cowboys, now lead to private

conservation easement held by the School in Boulder. During the summers, homes. The ranch’s cabins with kitchenettes

Jackson Hole Land Trust, on whose board he would travel with friends, prompting are still rented by vacationers or leased by

Ordway sat, protects the ranch in perpetuity. what would become a lifelong affection for people working in the area.

Ordway has also supported the Yale the Rocky Mountains and Jackson Hole,

continued on inside back cover



Spring 2007 environment:YALE 27

Third World to Bear Brunt

of Global Warming

By Richard Conniff









T

here was a time when global warming looked like a deeply “climate refugees” in developing nations

by mid-century.

egalitarian sort of nightmare, promising bad news for everybody

For Mendelsohn, the disparity of

on the planet. If you could say nothing else good about it, at global warming impacts on rich and poor

least we were in this mess together. But almost any problem can be countries became apparent because of a

broken down into costs and benefits, and it now looks as if global line of research he has been pursuing for

more than a decade. It’s research that has

warming will be handing them out in a distinctly unfair, if familiar,

sometimes gotten him a reputation in the

pattern: The poorest nations on Earth will bear the brunt of the costs.

media as an apologist for global warming,

And the wealthiest nations, which are the main source of the problem, beginning with a 1994 article in which he

will in some cases actually benefit. projected that a warmer future might lead

to an overall increase in productivity for

That’s the discomfiting conclusion of happen right away, by 2020. What’s worse U.S. agriculture.

a recent paper in the journal Environment is that these are the poorest countries in Past studies had generally assumed

and Development Economics. And the the world. So there’s this gigantic equity that countries would incur global-warming

decisive factor turns out to be latitude, effect that needs to be considered.” costs more or less in proportion to their

specifically proximity to the equator. Other prominent voices in the global- income. So most costs would end up being

“One of the things that we were warming debate have expressed increasing paid by the largest, wealthiest nations. But

shocked by,” says lead author Robert alarm about that possibility. Ian Pearson, in U.S. agriculture, Mendelsohn found that

Mendelsohn, Ph.D. ’78, Edwin Britain’s climate change minister, recently latitude made a huge difference: Farmers

Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor of Forest warned of an “urgent need” to help devel- in lower-latitude areas that are already

Policy, “is that basically if you are in the oping countries adapt to the impacts of relatively warm would do worse if the

middle to high latitudes, climate change climate change. Indonesia’s Environment climate got even warmer. But farmers in

is going to have no effect on you, on net. Minister recently warned of rice shortages middle- to high-latitude areas that are

That is, there are going to be good things due to climate change as early as next year, now cool would benefit from warmer

and bad things that are going to happen and predicted that rising sea levels could temperatures and a longer growing season.

to you, and by and large, if you added inundate 2,000 Indonesian islands by 2030. “It was really the first study to show

them together, you’ve got no serious The Pacific Island states recently cited the that climate change could be beneficial in

consequences. fear that they will be inundated by rising some circumstances,” says Mendelsohn,

“But if you go to the low latitudes, seas, as an argument for pressuring who is a natural resources economist. “At

they’re very dependent on agriculture, Australia to accept more guest workers. that time, the mantra was that climate

and agriculture is going to be harmed by And Tearfund, a British charity, predicted change would be bad, and that it would

any kind of warming. And it’s going to that there may be up to 200 million be bad for everybody and in every way.







28 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

So it was a huge surprise and upsetting to different economic sectors from country satellites to measure local wetness and

people who were trying to advocate strong to country, considering variables like the temperature. They also devised a

policies.” But he adds, “Common sense length of the coastline and the amount of questionnaire and collaborated with local

would tell you that if you’re going to land used for agriculture. The bottom line research teams to do the legwork of inter-

change the climate across the entire world, was an estimate of the aggregate impact viewing farmers – more than 10,000 of

and all sorts of different things are going for each country. them in Africa and close to 2,000 in Latin

to occur, there would be some things that The researchers put special emphasis America – typically spending 90 minutes

have to get better, in addition to some on agriculture in part because crops are so per interview, not counting travel time or

things getting worse.” vulnerable to climate change. Agriculture social niceties.

The 1994 paper on U.S. agriculture also typically accounts for 27 percent of The questionnaires didn’t ask about

caught the eye of Ariel Dinar, a natural gross domestic product (GDP) and 50 how farmers are currently adapting to

resources economist at the World Bank. percent of employment in developing climate change, because the effects so far

He wondered whether latitude might also countries. (In developed countries, it’s are too subtle. Instead, the aim was to

affect the distribution of global warming .)

just 5 percent of GDP But information record how farmers from one district to

impacts internationally. Dinar and on agriculture and climate in Third Word another have adapted to existing climate

Mendelsohn have been collaborating ever nations is often incomplete or unreliable. variations. With that information, the

since, with funding from the World Bank So the researchers turned to weather researchers could then project how they

and the Global Environment Facility, a

United Nations/World Bank program

focused on the developing world. I MPACT OF C LIMATE C HANGE M EASURED AS A P ERCENT OF GDP

Preliminary studies by Dinar and

Mendelsohn in India and Brazil seemed

to confirm the latitude effect. That is, it

Percent change

seemed as if farmers in low-latitude in GDP from

countries, on either side of the equator, predicted levels

would suffer under global warming, for 4.5 to 6.5

the simple reason that the climate there is

YEAR

2.5 to 4.5

already too hot.

For their current study, Mendelsohn 2030 0.5 to 2.5



and Dinar, together with Larry Williams 0 to 0.5

of the Electric Power Research Institute, No change

looked at three separate forecasts for

0 to – 0.5

global warming in this century, predicting

– 0.5 to –3.5

global temperature increases of 2.5, 4.0

and 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, along –3.5 to – 6.5

with changes in atmospheric carbon – 6.5 to – 9.5

dioxide, precipitation and sea level. (To

– 9.5 to –13

date, global warming has produced only a

0.5 degree Celsius increase in temperature. YEAR

But carbon dioxide lingers in the atmos-

phere for decades or even centuries, with

2070

a cumulative heat-trapping effect; hence

Paul Smith









the forecasts for more dramatic warming

in this century.) Then the researchers Robert Mendelsohn believes that farmers in low-latitude countries, on either side of

analyzed how each scenario might affect the equator, will most likely suffer the most from global warming.







Spring 2007 29

would probably adapt if climate change indefinitely.” The optimal strategy “is be spending $5 or $10 per ton of fossil

gave them another district’s weather. For to have increasingly severe abatement fuels on the abatement of greenhouse gas

instance, if local precipitation decreased policies over time.” Any plan, he says, emissions, he says, either in the form of

by 10 percent or the average temperature should also include a mechanism for mandatory emission controls or a carbon

went up 2 degrees Celsius, farmers might “quickly, automatically” tightening regu- tax. In fact, the United States now spends

need to shift from wheat to maize or from lations if the problem turns out to be nothing on abatement, and past attempts

maize to millet. much worse than expected. to impose a fuel tax have met fierce oppo-

“Climate change is going to happen, Some critics argue that the peculiar sition. But he points out that the cost of

and people are going to have to adapt to character of global warming makes this such a tax would be trivial in the context

it,” says Mendelsohn. “Earlier studies go-slow approach risky. Because carbon of the recent run-up in oil prices.

assumed that people would continue dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere Mendelsohn also suggests that it’s

growing a crop that fails year after year, over such long periods of time, it may be time to start talking about a system

and that would be a disaster. What we’re too late to correct the problem once serious through which the countries that are

saying is that, no, farmers will switch to damage starts to appear. John Reilly, a causing the problem with their green-

crops that will do better. But they will be senior research scientist at MIT, also house gas emissions could compensate

shifting from high-value crops to lesser- worries that economic models of the likely the countries that will suffer the damage.

value crops. So there will still be damage.” damage “have little to do with what we’ll “You’re getting rich people benefiting

Adapting to global warming will also actually see. They do not really anticipate from emissions, and poor people being

entail introducing government programs the widespread ecological changes that hurt,” he says. But the damage will be

to make irrigation more widely available are likely to occur.” gradual, subtle and hard to quantify. So

and to allocate water more efficiently. In Gary Yohe, a climate economist at it’s not going to be possible to say, “You

areas where snowfall will give way to Wesleyan University, says the analytic show us the damage, we’ll send you a

rain, he says, governments will need to tools Mendelsohn relies on and his check.” Instead, he recommends antici-

build dams to reduce emphasis on adaptation pating the damage and compensating

flooding and store water tend to minimize the for it in advance, particularly through

for summer. effects of global warming. programs that develop local economies

“You’re getting

Does Mendelsohn’s In the real world, says and move people out of vulnerable sectors

inclination to view the rich people Yohe, the “magic” of like agriculture.

problem in shades of gray adaptation sometimes Will developed nations step up to pay

or in terms of costs and benefiting works, and sometimes the bill? Mendelsohn notes that the sig-

benefits risk encouraging doesn’t. But natories to the Kyoto Protocol are already

from emissions,

a do-nothing approach to it’s a mistake to regard struggling with the sacrifices needed to

global warming? “I never and poor people Mendelsohn as an apolo- control global warming. As they come to

said, ‘Do nothing,’” he gist for global warming, terms with the unequal distribution of

says. “I said, ‘Do modest being hurt.” Yohe adds. He’s an “honest costs and benefits from global warming,

things.’ That is, don’t scientist” asking “rigorous” they may become even less willing to

Robert Mendelsohn

spend too much money questions and setting up accept the sacrifice. “First World countries

on this problem – yet.” a useful benchmark. If have never shown a tremendous interest

From an economist’s Mendelsohn sees the in the Third World,” he says. If people

point of view, it makes sense for spending minimum likely impact of global warm- realize “that, more or less, they’re not

on abatement to increase at a measured ing increasing, says Yohe, that’s cause for going to get anything out of it and that, in

rate, in step with the increasing cost of everybody to be concerned. fact, somebody in some very distant coun-

the damage being experienced. But he Mendelsohn’s idea of “modest” action try is the primary beneficiary, enthusiasm

adds that this modest approach “is not would still entail a significant change for abatement may go way down.”

a forecast of what should be done from the status quo. We should currently







30 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

and social surveys.”

In short, they did work that F&ES

grads-turned-professionals do on a regular

basis for nongovernmental organizations,

private landowners, land trusts, govern-

ments and others. The students formed

three four-member consulting teams, and

each team was responsible for one plan.

The three properties under review were

Fairfield/Blum Farm at the Hotchkiss

School in Lakeville, Conn.; the William

Dudley Preserve in Guilford, Conn.; and

Beaver Ponds Park in New Haven.

To create their plans, students compiled

land use and zoning histories of their site;

mapped it; documented the types of rock,

soil, forest, wetland and species (including



Students Leaving invasive species) found there; and gave

clients recommendations for its future





Their Imprint stewardship. Judging by the reactions of

those assembled in Marsh Hall, the three

plans were successes.

For example, after vowing to implement

on the New England Landscape many of the recommendations, Hotchkiss

School representative Rosina Rand said,

“We are thankful for the exceptional

students who worked for and with us.”

Cristin Rich ’88, the school’s environmental

By Alan Bisbort ’94, Ph.D. ’99, a lecturer in social science

consultant, said, “We were so gratified to

and research scientist; Timothy Gregoire ’82,









L

have these students, because they offered

ast December in Marsh Hall, 12 .

Ph.D. ’85, J.P Weyerhaeuser Jr. Professor

terrific information that we don’t have the

members of the Class of 2007 of Forest Management; Ann Camp ’90, a

manpower to get.”

stopped being students for an after- senior lecturer and research scientist in

noon and assumed the role of, in stand dynamics and forest health; John Greener Pastures

the words of Professor Mark Ashton, McKenna ’00, GIS specialist and coordina- for a Friend of Old Blue

“apprentice professionals.” That is, these tor of certification and extension for the Hotchkiss has had a close relationship

second-year students presented their first school forests; and David Hobson ’04, with Yale since the school’s founding in

land management plans to some noteworthy manager of school forests. 1891. The school’s goal from the start was

clients, including a private school whose “It’s called capstone because it is a six- “to prepare young men for Yale” (and, after

Yale connections span more than a century credit terminal course that brings together 1974, young women too). Many Hotchkiss

and the city of New Haven. disciplines in the social and natural sciences students go on to Yale, and many Yale

The plans were the culmination of that a student should have learned,” said alumnae sit on the Hotchkiss board of

the six-credit capstone course called Ashton. “With the skills they’ve acquired, directors. In 1996, the school made a

“Management Plans for Protected Areas,” they focus on an assessment of a property commitment to environmental stewardship,

taught by Ashton ’85, Ph.D. ’90, professor with its user conflicts and ecological prob- and it now uses 500 acres of woods, wet-

of silviculture and forest ecology, and lems and suggest solutions based on gath- lands and fields, including Fairfield/Blum

Thomas Siccama, professor in the practice ering and analyzing primary information – Farm, as part of the learning experience.

of forest ecology, and assisted by David primary meaning that students obtained as The management plan was created

Ellum, a doctoral student; Amity Doolittle much information as possible from field specifically for the 260-acre farm, which







Spring 2007 31

abuts the Hotchkiss campus and was farm from eating native plants and soiling Matthew Brewer, Richard Campbell, Todd

purchased from the Blum family in 2004. the water; clean up a dump that includes Gartner and Hannah Murray. The Hancock

The land is located within the Housatonic old cars; and create a trail through the Group looked at the ecological, aesthetic

River watershed and bordered by Nature forests and a boardwalk over the wetlands and historical aspects of the property and

Conservancy property (Beeslick Brook for students and birdwatchers. To address conducted species abundance and diversity

Wetland). Christopher Craig, Avery the Audubon chapter’s concerns about surveys. They also distributed 70 question-

Anderson, Tamara Muruetagoiena and preserving habitat, the team recommended naires to neighbors and stakeholders of the

Ariane Lotti created the plan, under the installing bird houses to increase species property to elicit their ideas on how they

banner CATA Consulting. They surveyed diversity and implementing a new mowing would like to see the land used. Of these,

regimen in which only one-third of the 44 were returned, indicating an unusually

hayfield would be mowed annually in order high level of community interest.

“We are thankful for the to avoid the destruction of habitat that Overall, the Dudley Preserve was

results when the entire hayfield is cut. To deemed “a beautiful property in good

exceptional students who curtail the danger of Lyme disease, the deer health.” Its most prominent feature is a

population would be thinned by hunting. wetland created by Munger Brook and two

worked for and with us.” Because 150 of the 260 acres are still other streams that run through the woods.

potentially farmable, CATA recommended Two stands of trees, valued at $115,000,

Rosina Rand that Hotchkiss consider a poultry and veg- are ready for timber harvesting. However,

etable farm with a community supported because of the cost of overstory removal and

agriculture component – that is, an logistical impediments, the profit realized

the land and worked with the farm’s stake- arrangement in which members of the from harvesting would be negligible. The

holders, including faculty, students, the din- community pay an annual membership fee final recommendation, said Brewer, was to

ing hall manager, The Nature Conservancy, to cover the production costs of the farm “leave the forest alone; it isn’t broken, so

the Audubon Society chapter in Sharon and, in exchange, receive a weekly share there’s no need to fix it.”

and the Fairfield/Blum Farm Committee, of the harvest during the local growing As for the full preserve, the Hancock

which is composed of faculty, staff and season. The immediate goals, as presented Group suggested that passive recreational

consultants and makes decisions about by CATA, are to get basic information use (hiking, cross-country skiing) would be

how the farm will be utilized by the school. about the farm to all Hotchkiss students, enhanced if a hiking trail was cut through

CATA Consulting noted that 70 years faculty and staff; hire a full-time farm its most interesting natural features. A pro-

after the land was cleared for farming, manager who also teaches at the school; posed trail was mapped, in case the town

forest has returned to 80 acres of the farm and include a farm component in the chooses that option. Hancock evaluated a

and is broken into two parcels at the north science curriculum. The farm, CATA large (16.5-acre) field for recreational use,

and south ends. A diversity of trees, concluded, “is important for experiential suggesting that practices for athletic

including the dominant species white learning. … teaching students where their teams were feasible without the need for

pine, maple, ash and cedar, were found, as food comes from, how to work and manage permanent structures, but that any more

was “a veritable study in invasive species.” resources and deal with complex issues of substantial use, such as for horses or

Such introduced species as autumn olive, the natural world.” athletic league activities, would necessitate

honeysuckle and multiflora rose have building large public parking areas. The

Striking a Balance Between

expanded exponentially, overwhelming survey indicated that stakeholders were

Conservation and Public Use

native species and making the forest at the vehemently opposed to such construction.

The second management plan was

south end impenetrable; other invasive One of the immediate concerns was to

created for the William Dudley Preserve, a

species (Phragmites, purple loosestrife) are curtail the harm being done by all-terrain

141-acre parcel that when purchased by

also choking the wetlands. vehicles (ATV), which enter via a neigh-

the town in 2002 became Guilford’s third-

Among CATA’s recommendations were boring trail in North Branford. Since

largest open space. The land had been in

to adopt the invasive-species management enforcement of an ATV ban would be

the Dudley family for 10 generations; in

plan used by The Nature Conservancy on difficult, preventing access to the preserve

that time, it was both a farm and forest.

the adjoining land; set up a 50-foot buffer was suggested. “The only way to keep

The students who created the plan, calling

zone to keep cows from a neighboring ATV users out is to put up barriers or to

themselves the “Hancock Group,” were







32 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

allow the landscape to be its own prohibi- This site presented challenges not faced by There is another cattail marsh on one-

tive barrier,” said Brewer, citing his past the other two, as it has what Mark Ashton third of an acre, though Phragmites have

experience as a steward of a similar prop- called a “huge social and ecological context.” moved into it.

erty in Colorado. The park is located in a densely urban The team walked the area to get input

The Hancock Group also noted the spot midway between the city’s signature from park neighbors and noted five issues

need for a monitoring program for invasive ridges, East Rock and West Rock, adjoining of importance to stakeholders: conservation,

species. The edges of the property are two neighborhoods, a police academy and human use (e.g., hiking), wildlife, activities

already dominated by autumn olive, though several schools. It includes 86 acres of for children and recreational use (e.g.,

the most harmful invasive species found was natural areas and 21 acres of playing sporting events, ATV use). The most

garlic mustard, which kills soil microbes fields. The park’s core – most actively used immediate concern was the police academy’s

essential to healthy tree growth and has a by the public – is a 1.5-acre manicured area. firing range, which abuts the park, obstructs

long growing season. The Hancock Group Beaver Ponds Park, the team concluded, access and startles residents with the pop-

recommended hand-pulling it or using an is vital to the life of New Haven. Since its ping of discharging ordnance. Another

herbicide, such as Roundup, to eradicate it. creation as a park in 1893, it has provided concern was the trash that collects in the

The second most harmful invasive species “connectivity” socially, as part of two ponds. To address these and other issues,

is Oriental bittersweet, which grows into distinct neighborhoods, and ecologically, as the Yale team organized a forum after its

the tree canopy, making it top-heavy and a conduit through which much of a 1,200- Marsh Hall presentation to which all parties

susceptible to the destructive weight of acre watershed’s stormwater drains. It puri- were invited. A group called Friends of

snow and ice. fies water, enhances habitat and provides Beaver Ponds Park drew the largest

Members of the Guilford Conservation education and recreation to city residents. contingent, many of whom came to Marsh

Commission who attended the Marsh Hall Despite its urban surroundings, the Hall for the management plan presentation.

presentation expressed their appreciation park has eight vegetation zones, including The team organized its recommenda-

for Hancock’s “striking a balance” between a 6-acre forest along Sherman Avenue, with tions by category.

conservation and public access. impressive stands of oak and maple. The Hydrology: If nothing is done, the

forest has wildlife value, its snags providing ponds will silt in eventually, leaving no

One Urban Park

habitat for woodchucks and salamanders. marsh and no ponds. The city could dredge

With Many Stakeholders

The team noticed that the water table has 10 acres of the ponds to make it better for

The third management plan, for

risen in recent years, slowing tree growth fishing and boating, at a cost of $4 million.

Beaver Ponds Park in New Haven, was

but enhancing a unique 7-acre red maple Or, it could drain the ponds, take away the

created by Roderick Bates, Margaret

swamp, a model riparian zone for turtles. dam that created them and allow the area to

Carmalt, Rachelle Gould and Krishna Roka.

revert to a system of streams and a healthy

marsh. The team favored the latter idea.

Invasive species: The Norway maple

and euonomous should be removed, and

the area should be replanted with native

species like pokeberry. The city should

also apply for the state Phragmites removal

program through the Department of

Environmental Protection.

continued on inside back cover





Red flags mark a trail proposed by

students in the Dudley Preserve in

Guilford, Conn. The trail will maintain

the three most popular uses of the

preserve – hiking, walking and cross-

Hannah Murray









country skiing – while limiting its

accessibility to all-terrain vehicles.







Spring 2007 33

Insuring the



Survival

of the

Snow

Leopard

By Heather Millar









W hen he first came across a

paw print of a snow leopard,

Shafqat Hussain was hiking

high above the tree line in

what’s often called “Little Tibet,” the

Baltistan region of Pakistan’s Northern

Areas near Kashmir. The track, large and

“Shafqat Hussain’s project deserves

support, because it touches a worldwide

issue – predators versus human attempts

to preserve their livestock,” says Mark

Shuttleworth, a South African technology

entrepreneur and one of the 2006 Rolex

judges.

and snow leopards, with little long-term

success. “There’s a history of insurance

programs failing,” explains Brad Rutherford,

executive director of the Seattle-based

International Snow Leopard Trust.

“Typically, they’re set up by the government,

underfunded and undermonitored. Soon

wide like the snowshoes used to manage As they roam the forbidding peaks of there are too many claims and not enough

the snows of Central Asia’s high peaks, Central Asia, snow leopards face threats money. Then the program goes bust, and

was but a few hours old. Hussain bent from many fronts. Though trade in snow villagers end up being even more angry at

down to press his face to the indentation. leopards is banned by the Convention on the animal you’re trying to protect.”

“I still don’t know why I did it,” says International Trade in Endangered Species To try to move beyond this flawed

Hussain, an economist-turned-environ- of Wild Fauna and Flora, their pelts bring dynamic, Hussain hit upon an original,

mental-activist who is a Ph.D. candidate at high prices on the black market, often two-pronged strategy: first, he set up a

F&ES and in the anthropology department. equivalent to an entire year’s income for a village-administered, livestock co-insurance

“I just got this wonderful feeling, to connect, mountain villager. In booming East Asia, arrangement that discourages fraud; then,

to see that ‘Oh, this animal was right here.’ their various body parts are increasingly he linked the insurance system to a snow

The snow leopard has a mythical feel to it.” prized as ingredients for traditional medi- leopard ecotourism venture. The pooled

Generations from now, people may cines. At the same time, subsistence herders money from locals, plus income from the

still be able to have that sort of experience, with growing families push their animals tourists, helps make the program self-

thanks in part to an inventive insurance higher and higher up the mountain slopes sustaining. In good years, the funds may

program Hussain designed to protect to find more forage for their flocks. This even support community improvement

the cats, which have been on the World has the effect of taking food away from projects like building wells and upgrading

Conservation Union (IUCN) list of endan- wild prey species like blue sheep (bharal). sheep corrals.

gered species since 1972. The plan seeks As wild prey populations

to discourage villagers from killing snow decrease, leopards sometimes

leopards that occasionally attack their have no choice but to venture

herds. Many studies have concluded that down from their mountaintops

these retaliatory killings of snow leopards to hunt at village elevations,

remain one of the greatest threats to the especially in winter when

survival of the species in the wild. food is scarce. Occasionally, a

Last October, Rolex SA, the Swiss leopard will get into a pen

watch company, recognized Hussain’s and become frenzied, killing

Project Snow Leopard as truly innovative, dozens of animals at once.

naming him one of five associate laureates Understandably, these losses

of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. The enrage villagers, who live

awards, presented every other year since close to the edge both physi-

1976, recognize and support pioneering cally and economically and

work that advances human knowledge and for whom the taking of even

well-being. The 2006 awards committee one goat or sheep is a devas-

picked Hussain’s project from a pool of tating blow.

1,671 entries from 117 countries, also Around the world, vari-

Shafqat Hussain’s Project Snow Leopard was

granting him $50,000 to continue his work. ous insurance schemes have introduced near Skardu and his doctoral research

Five laureates received $100,000 awards. attempted to insure locals takes place near Gilgit. Both towns are located

against livestock killings by in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.

Left, a snow leopard in captivity. endangered predators like lions







Spring 2007 environment:YALE 35

Shafqat Hussain, second from right, talks

to the members of the Hushey community

in the Baltistan region of northern Pakistan

about his insurance program and their

views about the conflict between snow

leopards and humans.





Hussain, who grew up the son of a civil

servant in Lahore, Pakistan, didn’t set out to









Thierry Grobet

crusade for the snow leopard. He came to

the United States to study economics at

Indiana University of Pennsylvania. After

“We got all the villagers to participate,” Most scientists believe that the snow graduation, he returned to Pakistan to

Hussain explains. “And we’ve had no leopard’s numbers are decreasing mainly work in the Northern Areas for the Aga

complaints that losses were not verified or because of poaching and reprisals from Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP).

that claims have been fraudulent.” locals. That’s difficult to prove definitively, He lived in Skardu, a town of 50,000 that

Project Snow Leopard has been so though, since populations are estimated by mountaineers and trekkers use as a staging

successful in the villages of the Skoyo and indirect evidence, such as tracks, interviews area for expeditions to the many 26,000-

Basha valleys, where it has been instituted, with locals and the remains of kills. foot peaks in the nearby Western Himalaya,

that Hussain is fielding inquiries from all The cat is so reclusive and hard to Hindu Kush and Karakorum ranges. In

over the world. He juggles these calls while track that it has taken on an aura of myth. addition to tourism, the local economy

also finishing his thesis at F&ES, writing Only two Westerners have seen snow depends on the production and trade of

an historical analysis of the changing con- dried apricots, walnuts and almonds.

ception of nature and society in the Hunza ,

AKRSP Hussain says, focused on small

region. Organizations in India, Nepal and “Shafqat Hussain’s project infrastructure projects that would increase

Mongolia are either cooperating with agricultural productivity: better water

Project Snow Leopard or starting their own deserves support, because it channels, better varieties of seeds, better

programs modeled on his approach. touches a worldwide issue – farming practices. Hussain worked as a

The snow leopard, if you can catch a monitoring and evaluation officer, traveling

glimpse of one, is a graceful predator, with

predators versus human attempts through the region and judging the success

a luminous soft grey coat marked with to preserve their livestock.” of various programs. “My job was to go

rosettes of black on brown and a long tail out in the field and talk to villagers,”

that helps it to balance and also doubles as Mark Shuttleworth Hussain says. “I would get their feedback,

a muffler in bitter weather. A bridge species ask them whether programs were working

between smaller felines like bobcats and or not. Villagers often complained about

great cats like lions and tigers, the leopard leopards in the wild since 1950. Author the depredations of wild animals. But our

rules at the top of the food chain in the Peter Matthiessen wandered around the work had nothing to do with that.”

mountain ecosystems that include famous Himalayas with Schaller for a year hoping At the same time, in the late 1990s,

peaks like K2 and Mount Everest. to see one. He ended up with a famous the IUCN began a multimillion-dollar,

No one’s sure exactly how many snow book, The Snow Leopard, but never set seven-year project to conserve wildlife in

leopards (Uncia uncia) remain in the wild. eyes on the object of his search. the area. In concert with the wildlife

The accepted estimates range from 3,000 “It’s so incredibly rarely seen, so elusive,” department of the Northern Areas region,

to 7,000. Only two population studies of says Rodney Jackson, founder and director the IUCN focused on large ungulates, like

the animals in Pakistan have ever been of the Snow Leopard Conservancy, based the Himalayan ibex (Capra ibex sibirica),

attempted – one in 1974 by noted biologist in Sonoma, Calif. “But if you protect a few markhor (Capra falconeri) and a local

George Schaller (now director of science for snow leopards, you also protect everything species of wild goat. The goal was to blend

the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation in their large habitat – the plants, the conservation with a trophy-hunting pro-

Society) and another by Hussain in 2003. mammals, everything.” gram that would show locals the value of







36 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

saving these species. the value of the goat. Each year, the village way: “First villagers have to verify the kill

That was great for the public apprecia- loses 1 to 2 percent of the herd from snow and the value of the animal. Then they

tion of these wild grazing animals, Hussain leopard attacks. When we told them that look to Fund 1 and see how much that

noticed, but not so great for the snow Project Snow Leopard would also chip in person has contributed. The person first gets

leopard. As Hussain traveled through the money, they all agreed. Villagers administer reimbursed from his own contributions. If

stone, mud and wood villages of this dry, the funds and investigate claims.” he’s put in 300 rupees, he gets back those

remote region, he kept hearing that locals With input from the villagers, Hussain 300 rupees. The balance, if any, of the

were amazed by how much foreign trophy designed clever checks and balances to value of the lost animal comes from Fund

hunters would pay: up to $5,000 to bag an discourage cheating and encourage coop- 2, which everyone owns in common,”

ibex and up to $50,000 for a markhor. eration. The Village Insurance Committee Hussain explains.

“Of course, if a snow leopard killed rotates membership every two years, so “It’s a psychological thing,” he continues.

one, the villagers got nothing,” Hussain that no one family or person can dominate. “The villagers monitor each other. It’s not

explains. “The villagers said, ‘This animal All the premium money goes into a pot in their interest to verify a fraudulent

kills not only our goats but these precious called “Fund 1,” where each villager’s con- claim, because they would have to draw

animals, the ibex and markhor.’ They tributions are recorded and kept separate. from Fund 2. They would not want to do

started persecuting the snow leopard. Of Meanwhile, Hussain founded an ecotourism that, because they’d be making someone

course, it was illegal. But in those remote company, Full Moon Night Trekking, to rich by making themselves poor.”

regions, who’s going to know? I asked the market snow leopard treks. A portion of Word of Hussain’s insurance plan has

villagers about the snow leopard. They the money from that venture – 70,000 spread through the mountains, and he’s

said, ‘We have nothing against it, but if it Pakistani rupees, or $1,151, in 2007 – goes gotten lots of inquiries from village lead-

attacks our goats, we lose a substantial part into another pot, called “Fund 2.” All the ers. “We got so much enthusiasm from the

of our livelihood. If someone compensated money in Fund 2 is held in common by villages, but we didn’t have the resources

us for our loss, then we would leave the the village. The trekking company also and manpower to expand,” Hussain says.

leopard alone.’” employs two villagers as guides. With the Rolex award money, Project

Hussain tried to get conservation and If a villager loses a goat to a snow Snow Leopard can expand into six more

development groups to incorporate the leopard, the system springs into action this continued on page 41

snow leopard into their plans, but he got

nowhere. Then, in 1998, he got a grant

from the London-based Whitley Fund for

Nature at the Royal Geographical Society.

That money allowed him to start Project

Snow Leopard the same year. He chose to

focus on the Skoyo valley, where about 400

Balti people carve out a living, tilling fields

and orchards in the valley and herding goats

and sheep on the nearby mountain slopes,

which are also ideal snow leopard habitat.

Hussain consulted with the villagers,

and together they devised a locally sup-

ported insurance plan. “We asked the

villagers to pay a small annual premium

for livestock, 15 rupees, about 1 percent of





Hussain called this photograph of a snow

leopard eating a dead goat “remarkable,”

given the elusiveness of the species. The

photograph was taken by a remote camera

in the Hushey village.





Spring 2007 37

class notes

1942 65th Reunion Year 1950 with the U.S. Forest Service, followed

Class Secretary by a dozen years part-time with a small

1946 Kenneth Carvell consulting firm assisting federal and

Class Secretaries kencarvell@aol.com state agencies with fire management

Paul Burns planning and budget analysis. My wife

pyburns@lycos.com 1951 and I now live in the Piedmont of

David Smith Class Secretary North Carolina, where we can dote on

david.m.smith@yale.edu Peter Arnold grandchildren and I can enjoy unlimited

arnoldp@nccn.net golf.” Jack Mullholland writes:

Paul Burns, Ph.D. ’49, is still up to

“After graduation, I spent the next 34

winning medals in the 85-to-89 age .

Ben Bryant, D.F ’51, founder and CEO

years working in the panel manufac-

class of the Louisiana Senior Olympics, of Appropriate Technology Briquettes,

turing area of the waste wood industry –

as well as to being active in community writes: “The concept of making

primarily hardboard. I retired in May

affairs in Baton Rouge. He writes: “In briquettes from fibrous material

1989 and spent the next 10 years con-

January 2007, I was pleased to serve as evolved from a research grant I

sulting in the United States, Canada

one of the local hosts of the Yale Glee obtained while a professor of wood

and New Zealand. I am still married to

Club. This group of 65 singers was utilization technology at the University

my high school sweetheart; we have

taking a midwinter tour in the South, of Washington College of Forest

lived in Barrington, Ill., for 38 years,

and they performed at a church in Resources. Having worked as a con-

and we are still in touch with Barbara

Baton Rouge the night of January 6. I sultant in more than 22 developing

and Bob Bond ’52, with whom I shared

took in three young men for the night – countries during my 38 years at UW, I

the bathroom while at Yale. Since 1999,

after they sang. Although I have heard became keenly aware that the greatest

I have been taking it easy, traveling,

the Whiffenpoofs sing, this was my first single use of wood in the world is for

working with our church and visiting

time at a Yale Glee Club performance. firewood and charcoal. The shortage of

our grandchildren. (We just returned

They were excellent, and I noticed that fuel wood has reached crisis propor-

from California to see our grandson

there were women in the group. They tions in many semiarid and wood-

play high school basketball – he was

led off with “Gaudeamus igitur,” one deficient countries. Where population

voted MVP in his league.) Life is good.”

of my favorites. They each left an elo- growth has exceeded economic growth,

quent thank-you note on the pillow overcutting of trees has created social,

Sunday morning. I learned that one of ecological and environmental condi-

1956

Class Secretary

them had the surname ‘Yoder,’ which tions that adversely affect the livelihood

Jack Rose

is my middle name and the surname of about 500 million disenfranchised

jackarose@sbcglobal.net

of Clara Yoder, my mother’s mother. rural and urban poor families.” Ben

The Yoder student came from Partridge, has supported the work of Richard Jack Rose writes: “I am no longer ski-

Kan., in an area where several Yoders Stanley in adapting the briquetting ing or cross-country hiking, which has

related to me reside. I told this young process to the cultures and traditions something to do with having had three

man that in the South this possible of developing nations in Africa, Latin lower-back surgeries. I intend to drive

relationship permits each of us to call America, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and this fall from my Sun Valley, Idaho,

the other ‘Cuz.’ There are only four of elsewhere. By working as a catalyst, home to Winthrop, Wash., for the

us still alive in the F&ES Class of ’46: strategist and publicist, he hopes to reunion of Smokejumpers from 1950.”

Dave Smith, Ph.D. ’50, Cliff Bryden, help alleviate the fuel wood crisis and

C. Don Maus and me. Bob ‘Bamber’ the ecological damage caused by 1957 50th Reunion Year

Marshall also took classes with us unsustainable tree-cutting.

while we were at Yale.” 1958

1952 55th Reunion Year Class Secretary

1947 60th Reunion Year Class Secretary Ernest Kurmes

Class Secretary Milton Hartley ernest.kurmes@nau.edu

Evert Johnson redheded@olympus.net Doogie Darling writes: “I have pub-

swede-doc@mindspring.com lished a 68-page booklet, A History of

1953 the Mills, Logging Camps, and Early

1948 Class Secretary Forestry Operations of The Crossett

Class Secretary Stanley Goodrich Lumber Company. It is a compilation

Francis Clifton slgmyg.good@quest.net of photographs, maps and interviews

fhcpbyfor@webtv.net with oldtimers, and it traces the move-

On February 2, Francis Clifton wrote 1954 ment of logging camps in the virgin

from DeLand, Fla.: “The tornados missed Class Secretary timber days. It also addresses the

me by a mile. No damage in immediate Richard Chase beginning of the world-renowned

area. Everything OK with me.” rachase@aol.com forestry program by Crossett Lumber

Dick Chase writes: “Finally I have had Company. The Yale School of Forestry

a full year of retirement after a chal- was deeply involved in this, and a lot

lenging and diverse 40-year career of alumni came through the Yale camp

during the 21 years it was active here.



38 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Some, like me, worked most or all of 1965 1972 35th Reunion Year

their careers at Crossett or at the sister Class Secretary Class Secretary

company, Fordyce Lumber Company. James Howard Ruth Hamilton Allen

Herb Winer ’49, Ph.D. ’56, of course, jhoward@sfasu.edu ruth.allen@aehinstitute.com

came to this Yale camp for five-week

periods for a number of years to teach 1966 1973

harvesting and manufacture of the Class Secretary Roy Deitchman writes: “I am vice

timber. Dave Smith ’46, Ph.D. ’50, Howard Dickinson Jr. president of environmental health and

was here in the original Yale class at safety at Amtrak in Washington, D.C.

Crossett and is familiar with the whole 1967 40th Reunion Year Recently, we have been working on Visit the Yale

operation. Don Bragg, Ph.D., the Class Secretary: projects to find more efficient diesel

manager of the Crossett Experimental Robert Hintze locomotives, including conducting a School of Forestry

Forest for the U. S. Forest Service, was bclues@aol.com trial on a diesel hybrid switcher engine

interested in my paper and has redrafted

& Environmental

Robert Hintze writes: “‘The Yale Tree and installing automatic start-stop

it for submission to The Arkansas

Things’ gathered for a class reunion devices on locomotives to limit idling; Studies website at

Historical Quarterly, a publication of restoring seven wetland areas in

the Arkansas Historical Commission.”

and visit at Pete and Jan Ludwig’s new environment.yale.edu

home in Newport, R.I., during the last Connecticut by improving water flows

weekend of August. Among those through railroad culverts; and reducing

1959 attending were Elise and Gordon Enk PCB discharges from historic contami-

Class Secretary nation at railyards. We were very

’70, Ph.D. ’75; Penny and Reg Elwell;

Hans Bergey pleased to host two F&ES students in

Sue and Brad Wyman; Wyllis Terry

hberg16@aol.com January during the job fair in D.C., and

and good friend Marianne; and Barbara

and I. We got caught up and recalled were impressed by their description of

1960 our great moments with Professors course work and activities at the school.”

Class Secretary

Smith, Lutz, Worrell and others.”

John Hamner

Brad Wyman was elected a fellow of 1975

jhamner1@bellsouth.net Carol Harlow writes: “My life and work

the Society of American Foresters in the

Gregory Brown was elected a fellow of 2007 elections, as reported in the have taken a number of turns that have

the Society of American Foresters in society’s newsletter, The Forestry Source. included project manager work in

the 2007 elections, as reported in the renewable energy in the Philippines for

society’s newsletter, The Forestry Source. 1968 USAID; service as an internal environ-

Class Secretary mental advocate within a major electric

1961 Gerald Gagne utility company; and several years as

Class Secretary gerald.gagne@sympatico.ca an independent consultant, the high

Roger Graham point of which was a major advisory

1969 project with the government of Brazil

1962 45th Reunion Year

Class Secretary involving their bioenergy program and

Class Secretary Davis Cherington the problem they then faced in dealing

Larry Safford cheringvt@aol.com with Daniel Ludwig’s ‘Projeto Jari’ in

lsaffordnh@earthlink.net the Amazon Basin. I also spent nearly a

1970 decade during the 1990s in the Foreign

1963 Class Secretary Service, with postings in Washington,

Class Secretary Whitney Beals Paris, Manila, Yokohama and Sapporo.

James Boyle wbeals@newenglandforestry.org I’m now with Dartmouth’s Thayer

forsol40@comcast.net School of Engineering, representing the

Bill Lansing retired in April 2006 from school to its ‘leadership’ constituency

being in charge of management of

1964 forests, mills and other operations of

in the United States and abroad. I’m

Frank Bock writes: “I had a delightful married to Dr. Jerry Lineback, a

Menasha Corp. in the Coos Bay area of consulting environmental geologist.

New Year’s celebration with the Rev.

Oregon. He is busy writing about local My two children, Nicholas and

Gary Steber in Mobile (Ala.) and did a

history. He is on the corporate boards Jonathan Harlow, graduated from

lot of reminiscing!” George Nagle,

of a bank and a timber company and Milton Academy and Stanford, and

Ph.D. ’70, writes: “Mary and I are

chair of an energy company, traveling Exeter and Harvard, respectively.”

retired and live in Summerland, B.C.,

to various parts of the country. Suzanne Reed writes: “On January 4,

and spend winters in Palm Springs. Our

sons, David and Geoff, young mascots I started working on the Center for

of the 1965 Yale camp, are working

1971 Clean Air Policy’s (CCAP) California

Class Secretary Anchor for Domestic Climate Change

out of Whistler and West Vancouver,

Harold Nygren Policy. My focus is assisting in the

B.C. David’s two kids are rushing into

tnygren@juno.com implementation of California climate-

teenhood; Geoff’s three are 7, 9 and 11

years old.” nawitka@aol.com change policy, specifically the develop-

ment of programs and regulations to





Spring 2007 39

class notes

reach the greenhouse gas emission Padres National Forest. In May 2006, taking some time off to work on some

reduction goals established by legisla- he was named Ranger of the Year for TNC and World Wildlife Fund projects

tion enacted this year. CCAP is an the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest in Rome. I have been working for the

environmental think tank that has a Region. Fire season in Tom’s district past 13 years for Industrial Economics,

substantial presence in national and began with a vengeance last June and an environmental and economic con-

international activities related to culminated in October with the sulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. There

climate-change policy.” 163,000-acre Day fire. At its peak, are a number of F&ES alumnae on

more than 4,500 firefighters and 40 staff here, and several of our research

1977 30th Reunion Year aircraft engaged in suppression efforts. analysts attend the school after leaving

Class Secretary: He is proud and grateful that every here. We have two kids who have

James Guldin firefighter got to go home safely. largely flown the coop. Our daughter,

jguldin@prodigy.net Michael Rees writes: “I’ve been Devin, lives in New York City and is

Dave Hall writes: “My son, Brooks, working as a planner at the Denver an events planner for Morgan Stanley,

and I visited Bill Hanson and Kate Service Center for some 16 years now. and our son, Ted, is a senior at Colgate.

Troll in Juneau, Alaska, in August. I’m working on a variety of projects, We keep in touch with a number of

Along with flyfishing for salmon, we including general management plans F&ES folks, including Ed Becker, Phil

kayaked to the face of Mendenhall for Channel Islands National Park Hoose ’77, Pam Kohlberg ’77 and Tim

Glacier, watched humpback whales (California), Chickasaw National Glidden ’77. Last summer I took a

bubble netting and fished in Bill’s skiff. Recreation Area (Oklahoma), John Day two-week canoe trip in Alaska with

Our family also rented Bill and Kate’s Fossil Beds National Monument my son, Chuck Hewett ’77, Ph.D. ’82,

house on the Yucatan Peninsula in (Oregon), Apostle Islands National and Jackie Kennedy. I look forward

Mexico earlier in the year.” Lakeshore (Wisconsin – with Super- this spring to the Aegean cruise with

intendent Bob Krumenaker ’82), a Bob Gipe and crew. Preferring terra

1978 wilderness management plan for Lake firma, I remain somewhat ambivalent,

Class Secretaries: Mead National Recreation Area and an but all are looking forward to the

Susan Curnan EIS on restoring natural quiet to the adventure.” Luke Umeh has retired

curnan@brandeis.edu Grand Canyon.” Tom Rumpf and from the African Development Bank.

Marie Magleby his wife, Annee, recently moved to

lomamag@aol.com Brunswick, Maine, to do their part to 1979

Regina Rochefort lower their carbon footprint. They now Class Secretary:

regina_rochefort@nps.gov walk to stores, restaurants and shops, John Carey

Bob Gipe and his wife, Betsy; Tom and Tom walks or rides his bike to carey@aya.yale.edu

Rumpf and his wife; Loring (LaBarbera) work at The Nature Conservancy. Tom

and Andy Schwarz; and Kate Troll ’77 continues to work on large projects, 1980

and Bill Hanson ’77 are on schedule like the Penobscot River Restoration Class Secretary:

for the Second Western F&ES Class Project to restore 1,000 miles of Sara Schreiner-Kendall

Reunion in Turkey this spring. After diadramous fish habitat by taking out sara.kendall@weyerhaeuser.com

touring Istanbul and the Aegean coast, three dams on the Penobscot. He’s also Susan (Suey) Braatz moved back to

they will then charter a sailboat and working on the controversial Plum FAO headquarters in Rome in January

sail for a week under the steady helm Creek Moosehead Project, where TNC after being based for 15 months in

of designated Captain Gipe (erstwhile led a partnership with AMC and the Bangkok as program coordinator of a

member of the U.S. Navy). Nickie Forest Society of Maine to negotiate a regional forestry project for rehabilita-

(Dominique) Irvine writes: “I set voluntary agreement with Plum Creek tion in the Asian countries affected by

down roots in the Bay Area after get- to protect over 400,000 acres of forest- the 2004 tsunami. She is now the

ting my Ph.D. in anthropology from land around Moosehead Lake through forests and climate change officer at

Stanford 20 years ago. I’ve combined the so-called Conservation Framework FAO. Star Childs writes: “Last fall,

working with nonprofits with teaching agreement. Andy Schwarz writes: I accepted the position of chair of the

anthropology at Stanford. After work- “Greetings from Sudbury, Mass. Loring external advisory board of the Global

ing with indigenous federations in the (LaBarbera) Schwarz and I have been Institute of Sustainable Forestry at

Amazon setting up forest management living here for 15 years since moving F&ES!” Ellie Lathrop writes: “I

programs, I helped to found the Forest from Washington, D.C. Loring is the changed jobs in 2006, though I remain

Stewardship Council and put in many, deputy director of the Massachusetts in the same Weyerhaeuser organization.

many years of my life on that! I’m cur- Office of The Nature Conservancy, and I now manage our commercial thinning

rently contemplating a research project has been with the organization for most program, which is quite large, as many

on people living with redwoods in the of the time since we left Yale. Over that of the replanted stands within the

Bay Area (using an historical ecology/ time, she has worn many hats, includ- Mount St. Helens blast zone are grow-

land use change approach), so if any ing that of director of the National ing into thinning age. I do the stand

of you have suggestions or interest in Heritage Program and of TNC’s selection and permitting, and manage

that or could share contacts, I’d be very Caribbean Program. She has spent the contractors who actually thin out

grateful.” Tom Kuekes is district time in Italy learning the language and the trees. It is a great combination of sil-

ranger of the Mt. Pinos District, Los re-establishing roots. This spring she is vicultural stand improvement and pro-



40 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

F&ES Water Program... aquifers that provide drinking water,” he

says. “And inorganic colloids, such as clay

continued from page 15

particles, can absorb and accelerate the

exporting,” Benoit says. “We’re looking for transport of dissolved contaminants. We’re

individual chemicals that have single sources, using laboratory work, field experiments

duction, i.e., making money. I was

happy to shed my land use functions so that we can say, ‘That’s where this pollu- and mathematical models to identify the

after 14 years and do something new. tion is coming from!’ Increasingly, we are physical and chemical factors governing

On the home front, come this using caffeine and ibuprofen as markers, the interaction of these substances within

September, Al and I will be empty- geologic systems.”

nesters, when our son joins his older because they come only from sewage. Once

sister at college, likely somewhere in perfected, this tool could be used to identify In his work in the Florida Everglades,

the Northwest. We’ll be able to devote defective septic systems, leaking sewer Saiers notes that he is “looking at an enor-

even more time to our main nonwork lines or illegal discharges.” mous wetland ecosystem whose hydrologic

pursuit – golf.” Peter Lewis writes:

With Diana Balmori, a lecturer in land- functioning has been devastated.” Begun

“I had the good pleasure of escorting

Kent Olson (Ollie) around Yosemite scape and urban history at F&ES, Benoit by planners in the late 19th century and

National Park last summer. The last recently authored Land and Natural advanced later by congressional action, the

time our paths crossed in that magnifi- Development (LAND) Code: Guidelines for scheme for developing the Everglades for

cent landscape was right after Mount

St. Helens blew 26 years ago, and he Sustainable Land Development, whose agriculture produced a 70 percent reduction

had brought me a jar of fresh volcanic target audience is architects, engineers, land in the region’s water flow, sending 1.7 billion

ash as a gift. This time the gift was his developers and government officials. He gallons of fresh water a day into the ocean

good humor, a glass of gin and an and resulting in a decimation of the bird

says, “I also want to have an impact outside

enduring friendship. Ollie was on con-

tract with the Yosemite Fund, helping of research by designing recommendations population and threats of extinction for

them raise millions for a Trail for developing land in a way that will cause dozens of plant and animal species. Saiers

Restoration Capital Campaign, and I the least environmental harm.” is part of a team of scientists working on a

was visiting with a pair of CCC trail massive 30-year plan to restore, protect

crews that I had sent there to repair

Like Raymond, James Saiers, a professor

winter storm damage.” Patricia of hydrology, is working on how chemicals and preserve the Everglades. “Part of the

Millet writes: “I’m still working as a move through the environment, and like restoration plan involves removing levees

silviculturist for the Forest Service, but I several other colleagues, he is working to and canals to restore the system’s natural

am looking at a potential career change, behavior,” he says, “and my colleagues and I

possibly becoming an entrepreneur in understand the impact of development on

Cape Breton – absolutely fell in love ecosystems – in his case, the Florida are creating ground water and surface water

with the place on a visit there. Nathan is Everglades. models that we hope will allow us to project

22 and studying environmental engi- Saiers is involved in two areas of how the system will respond to proposed

neering at Humboldt State, has worked

hydrologic research related to how water changes.” But he adds this cautionary note:

seven seasons for the Forest Service –

guess he has the ‘green underwear,’ as moves and carries chemicals, including “The health of this ecosystem is still to be

they say. Emma, 20, has been a tall ship pollutants, on and below the Earth’s surface. determined. There are never guarantees.”

sailor for five years and recently got

“The Department of Energy manages sites

her captain’s license. Jack is working

contaminated with radionuclides from

on getting his contractor’s license,

home-building being better at paying weapons and spent commercial fuel,” he

Snow Leopard...

the bills than was consulting forestry.” continued from page 37

says, “and inorganic chemicals, released

Fran Rundlett writes: “I can’t

believe it’s been more than 12 years

inadvertently from liquid and solid waste valleys, improve guarding pens and main-

that I’ve served the school as chair of sources or as a result of mining operations, tain a system of unmanned cameras to try

class agents. It’s been wonderful to see have polluted ground waters across North to better monitor the population of snow

the Annual Fund grow over those years America and Europe. We’re looking at the

and to see the school’s development leopards.

team grow too. I keep busy teaching effects of geochemical and hydrological Jackson, of the Snow Leopard

botany at Georgia State University and processes on the migration of metals such Conservancy, says he is optimistic that

environmental science at the Savannah as cobalt, chromium and cesium, so that we

College of Art and Design. The best part Hussain’s model can be used throughout

can design strategies for the remediation of

of my jobs is taking the students on field the snow leopard range. “Hussain talks to

trips to nature preserves around Atlanta. polluted ground water.”

the villagers,” Jackson says. “What’s most

And, of course, my third job is enjoy- Saiers is also researching how organic

ing two active teenagers, Sasha and

important about his work is that he thinks

and inorganic microscopic particles move

Irina; my terrific husband, Stuart; my in anthropological terms. That’s an area

through soils. “Viruses and pathogenic

grown kids, Patrick and Sharon; and that’s been sorely neglected by biologists

four grandchildren.” Jane Sokolow bacteria represent a risk to human health if

designing conservation programs.”

writes: “I am coordinating and consult- they are transmitted to ground water

ing for OASIS – Open Accessible Space





Spring 2007 41

class notes

Information System (www.oasisnyc.net). years, we established a regional office the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

This integrated, layered online mapping in New York City and have made sig- Change. She has provided technical

project of New York City area green nificant strides. In spring of 2006, we and policy briefings to senior U.S.

space and related issues puts the power hosted an evening with Lowell Thomas Administration officials and congres-

of GIS in the hands of anyone with a Jr. at the Explorers’ Club in order to sional staff on issues related to conser-

computer, and provides a common, build a coterie of support for Alaska’s vation programs overseas. Andy

free and online open space inventory. national parks, and we are at the Brower writes: “I’m working in the

In my spare time, I am working to moment carefully scrutinizing and cri- Middle Tennessee State University

keep gambling casinos out of the tiquing the general management plan biology department.” abrower@mtsu.edu

Catskills.” for Fire Island National Seashore. We Eric Schenck resides in Canton, Ill.,

spent a great amount of time battling with his wife, Jackie. They have two

1981 profound changes to the National Park girls who are freshmen in college. Eric

Class Secretaries System’s management policies.” serves as the Illinois regional biologist

Fred Hadley for Ducks Unlimited, with responsibility

mrm@evansville.net 1986 for acquiring and restoring critical wet-

Carol Youell Class Secretary land habitats along the Illinois River and

envstew@snet.net Caroline Norden throughout the state. He also helps his

cnorden@maine.rr.com dad with the family farming operation.

1982 25th Reunion Year

Class Secretaries 1987 20th Reunion Year 1988

Barbara Hansen Class Secretaries Class Secretaries

Kenneth Osborn Christie Coon Diane Stark

forstman@fidalgo.net cacoon7@aol.com salserad@yahoo.com

Michael Dowling writes: “I am serving Melissa Paly Philip Voorhees

on a recently constituted statewide panel mpaly@aol.com pvoorhees@npca.org

on reducing Colorado’s contribution Jean Brennan, Ph.D., joined Defenders

and vulnerability to climate change.” of Wildlife as an international conser- 1989

vation scientist in the international Class Secretaries

1983 conservation program based in Susan Campbell

Class Secretary Washington, D.C. She brings to the job susan.campbell@comcast.net

Stephen Broker over 10 years of professional experience Jane Freeman

ls.broker@cox.net across a range of technical areas, jane@ewalden.com

Mary Ann Fajvan was elected a fellow including wildlife conservation, forest Anthony Boutard writes: “Carol and I

of the Society of American Foresters in ecology and natural resource manage- own and operate Ayers Creek Farm in

the 2007 elections, as reported in the ment, climate-change science and Gaston, Ore. Established in 1998, our

society’s newsletter, The Forestry Source. international environmental policy. farm is fully Oregon Tilth Certified

Jean was previously employed by the Organic, and we have about 100 acres

1984 U.S. Agency for International under cultivation. The farm includes

Class Secretaries Development (USAID), where she 20 acres of mixed orchard land, pre-

Therese Feng served as a senior science advisor. dominantly chestnuts and plums, 20

Therese_feng@yahoo.com Among her duties, Jean helped the acres of cane fruits and currants, 12

Roberta Tabell Jordan environment staff and NGO implement- acres mixed vegetable production, a

rjordan@clinic.net ing partners overseas carry out strategic one-acre test plot of table grape vari-

planning and program design, including eties and an acre or so of specialty

1985 establishing performance monitoring small grains. The balance is in clover

Class Secretary plans and conducting follow-on evalu- for seed and hybrid poplars. The hall-

Alex Brash ations. Her most recent work in Asia mark of our farm is its diversity. Our

abrash@npca.org focused on issues related to wildlife first Tilth certificate in 1999 identified

Alex Brash, senior director of the trade and forest governance and illegal a single crop, blackberries. The 2007

Northeast Regional Office of the logging. Prior to joining the USAID certificate covers approximately 75

National Parks Conservation technical staff, Jean was employed as a crops, represented by more than 175

Association (NPCA), writes: “‘The science officer for the U.S. Department individual varieties. We have also

Yellowstone to Yukon’ conservation of State, Office of Global Change, where diversified our outlets. In 1999, we

initiative links the great national parks she represented the Office at Federal had one buyer for our berries, and

stretching from the Yellowstone in the Interagency working groups before they were all processed. In 2006, our

Rocky Mountains to the Yukon penin- other bilateral donor and U.N. organiza- accounts included 12 retail stores, 12

sula in Alaska. NPCA has been a partner tions. She has served as a member of the restaurants and Bon Appetit Cafeterias

in the effort. We are considering start- U.S. delegation at international negotia- at Intel and Reed College. We also

ing something similar for the Atlantic tions under the U.N. Framework pack about 250,000 pounds of black-

Coast’s barrier islands. In the past two Convention on Climate Change and of berries for Cascadian Farm, all high-

quality, hand-picked fruit.” Kyle



42 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Datta writes: “I am now the chief I have always remembered our field Wildlife Service in Glenwood Springs,

executive officer of U.S. Biodiesel mods, when she carried a leaf around Colo. I’m in the new energy office,

Group, a nationwide biodiesel company all day, only to find out the very hard which was set up last year to process

funded by private equity. We have over way that it was poison ivy! I remember oil and gas permits on federal land.

50 million gallons of biodiesel plants that day for her determination to hold I’ve been working for the FWS for the

under construction, and our goal is to onto that leaf until she could correctly past five years. Prior to my current

build over 300 million gallons by the classify it. At the time, I had not the position, I was a fire ecologist for the

end of 2008. Our company is commit- maturity nor the wisdom to take my FWS in Ventura, Calif. In Ventura, I

ted to whole-system sustainability, and classes, and things I could really learn would occasionally run into Peter

will be the first major U.S. player to from them, as seriously as she did.” Schuyler. Otherwise, I’ve been largely

purchase only feedstock that was grown Laura Simon writes: “I’m the field out of touch with my F&ES friends –

Listen to

based on Sustainable Roundtable director of Urban Wildlife for the not good!” Timothy Donnay writes: F&ES podcasts at

Principles. I am living in Hawaii, Humane Society of the United States. “After a stint with the Institute for

coaching my daughter Ariana’s soccer My office is in Woodbridge, Conn., Sustainable Communities in Vermont, environment.yale.edu/

team and am on the Board of Hawaii’s minutes away from our beloved F&ES. I decided to go back into government. 1000/environmentyale_

Sierra Club.” The Class of 1989 I am having fun watching my 3-year- I joined USAID in 2002, spent two

mourns the passing of classmate Alice old, Jack, grow; already he has helped years in Washington, two years in podcast/

Eichold, who died on August 23, 2006. me on many wildlife rescues. We had Ghana as the program officer, and last

Jane Freeman writes: “I am the a great time in the summer of 2006 August started a four-year tour in

special legislation program manager visiting Kate Heaton and her 4-year- Macedonia as program officer. Although

for the Bureau of Land Management in old (Hans) and daughter (Kaya) in Ghana was great, I must admit I really

Reno, Nev. I am still enjoying the Vermont.” like Macedonia – a beautiful country,

change and new challenges after 15 great people and in a wonderful location.

years with the EPA. I was saddened to 1990 (There is lots to see and do in south-

hear of Alice Eichold’s passing; I always Class Secretaries eastern Europe, and transport routes

appreciated how much she embraced Judy Olson Hicks are easy.) Work is challenging in the

life. The world was a more interesting Carolyn Anne Pilling Balkans, particularly as countries work

place with her in it.” Laurie Lynn capilling@gds.org toward NATO membership and

Kelly writes: “When Alice’s mother Seema Bhatt writes: “I am an inde- European Union accession. Thus, I am

came to visit, she made us laugh by pendent consultant on biodiversity kept very busy with projects in eco-

telling us how Alice used to stay in her issues. My focus in the last year or two nomic growth, agriculture, education

room, reading and oblivious to the calls, has shifted to looking specifically at and democracy. The USAID program is

‘Come join the company, Alice!’ Alice the links between conservation and scheduled to end in 2011, so this is an

would invite you along to Professor livelihoods. I have just finished co- important time to complete initiatives

Scully’s architecture lectures just because authoring a book on ecotourism, prior to close-out. I enjoyed playing

she thought you might like them, or which should be published sometime softball with a group of Ghanaians, who

explain the advantages of her computer this year. I live in Delhi, India.” had been taught baseball by volunteers

mouse, which she operated by nodding Alan Haberstock writes: “I live in at an American company.” Sean

and shaking her head. Her resume Canaan, Maine, with my wife, Carrie Gordon, Ph.D., writes: “I started a Ph.D.

details Alice’s career as an architect. It is (a New Haven native), and 3-year-old program at Oregon State, and the so-

good reading at http://pweb.jps.net/ Charlie. I work for a water resources called terminal degree almost proved

~gangale/opsa/cv_frm_aje.htm.” consulting firm, Kleinschmidt interminable, but I finally finished last

Claudia Martinez writes: “I just came Associates, doing wetlands assess- July (a sociology/policy study of the use

back from a great trip in Los Roques, ments, stream and riparian buffer of computer models in forest decision-

Venezuela, a real paradise. We rented a restoration, hydroelectric relicensing making). A big punctuation in our

sailing boat for five days and had the and environmental work associated equilibrium was James, who just turned

best vacation my two sons can remem- with dam removals and modifications. 5 and is usually found in superhero

ber. I remembered Alice while in the I’m a founding board member of the attire. I’m now doing a post-doc with

boat, because she had a very small and Sebasticook River Watershed the Forest Service in Portland.”

efficient apartment that was like a small Association, and am on the board of Alicia Grimes writes: “I continue to

boat or a spaceship, but with a piano. supervisors for the Somerset County work at the USAID in Washington, D.C.,

Her ideas about life on Mars and her Soil and Water Conservation District. I fighting to maintain natural resources,

great imagination and futuristic sense work too hard, but still get out to enjoy conservation and the environment in

always impressed me. She had a great Maine and my 26-acre wood lot.” U.S. foreign assistance and development

smile and sense of humor. Her spirit strategies. I coordinate with U.S. gov-

will remain in my thoughts.” Mary 1991 ernment agencies on illegal logging

Nelligan Robbins writes: “I was sad- Class Secretary and trade, and play an active role for

dened to learn of the death of Alice. As Richard Wallace the United States in the International

someone who went to F&ES straight rwallace@ursinus.edu Tropical Timber Organization. Life is

from college, I was fascinated by the wilder now with daughters Julia, 4,

depth of academic and working expe- J. Creed Clayton writes: “I’m doing and Nelle, 18 months, both highly

rience that she brought to our classes. well working for the U.S. Fish and active blonde bombshells!”



Spring 2007 43

and practice while visiting remote logging responsible or to access capital from

Logger’s Malfeasance... camps in Indonesia, which she said are socially responsible investment funds, this

continued from page 25

“hemorrhaging wood.” She has seen Asian is a tool you can use to substantiate that.”

record “because it represented the first timber companies “trying to greenwash and Indeed, Bulkan and her Guyanese

wave of foreign investment in a relatively co-opt the (certification) system,” even colleague, Jocelyn Dow, both suggest that

intact area of forests of global significance buying out the newspaper in Papua New Barama’s move toward certification may

(the Guiana Shield). We felt it important Guinea to stem bad publicity. have been calculated to bolster its initial

to set a precedent, early, if we were to have Where totalitarian regimes dominate, public stock offering on the Hong Kong

any influence on subsequent waves as the she said, companies don’t expect much Exchange on March 7. Even before the

tropical timber trade moved out of Malaysia regulation. “In these remote frontier cul- offering, Reuters reported that the company

due to dwindling log supplies. The Samling tures where there’s no real rule of law, had sold more than a billion shares, raising

representatives running the operation at there’s not a lot of accountability.” And $280 million. The Samling website cites

that time were willing to engage, reached because low-level officials are often very two certified operations, one in Malaysia

out and did everything we asked of them poor, “there’s a lot of incentive to look the under the Malaysian Timber Certification

(albeit not without delay or difficulty) to other way with a little baksheesh (bribe).” Council (less stringent than FSC), and the

get Barama certified. We took, and still Because of that corruption, even the other in New Zealand, an 86,000-acre

maintain, the long view on this.” most conscientious American shopper can plantation called Hikurangi Forest Farms

The Barama Company reiterated its be duped. Curran recently spied a good- (HFF), with FSC certification. “With the

intention to work toward reinstatement of looking and inexpensive bookcase at a FSC certification, HFF now has an edge in

certification at a February meeting in Bonn, Marshalls store near New Haven. It carried the market to deliver quality and certified

Germany, with representatives of the FSC a sticker proclaiming that it was made from wood products,” the website states.

.

and its accreditor and the WWF The com- “Indonesia plantation wood,” but Curran Bulkan remains in Guyana, writing her

pany website states: “As a responsible and recognized that the wood had to have been thesis. Her research is on the relationship

responsive company, we have assigned the harvested in the wild. “If I wasn’t in the between forest policy and what actually

resources to take the necessary actions to field, I would have looked at the bookshelf takes place in the forest, an issue that she

lift the suspension. These include: con- and said to myself, ‘Great, it’s wood grown said is vital not only in Guyana but also in

ducting the necessary tests, conducting on a plantation.’” (She didn’t buy the shelf.) other fragile nation states in Latin America,

refreshment training on first aid treatment, This sort of consumer uncertainty is Africa and Asia that are threatened by “the

installing the necessary facilities at the camp the weak link in the certification process, draining of the world’s resources for the

sites within our concession, and procuring said Benjamin Cashore, professor of envi- emerging economies of China and India.”

and upgrading the necessary equipment ronmental policy and governance and of Her role in pushing for scrutiny of the

recommended by the independent assessor. political science. “The largest benefits of certification system in Guyana grew out of

… Barama is committed to sustainable certification have yet to accrue,” said her academic work, but it required her to

forest management and practices. …” Cashore, who specializes in sustainable step beyond it. “I was finding out these

(Neither Barama nor Samling officials forest policy. “They require consumers to amazing things, and I thought, ‘I have a

could be reached for comment, despite know about the system.” He recommends choice. I can simply plod on with my

attempts to contact them in Guyana and a single universal label for all products fieldwork and thesis write-up – the easier

in Asia, both directly and through Hill & that are in some way certified, whether road – or I can publicize my findings; I

Knowlton in Malaysia, which handles they are organic apples or Yale T-shirts not can tell this monumental story of slippage

public relations for Samling.) made in sweatshops. between written policies and actual

Bulkan believes that news of the process At this point, he said, certification serves practices in the forest; and perhaps I can

of suspension and negotiation will resonate more as an insurance policy for industries galvanize some public response to the

with citizens’ groups worldwide that are worried that an advocacy group will target hemorrhaging of prime timbers in Asia.’

trying to protect local resources: “It means and embarrass them. Cabarle agrees, calling I decided that I didn’t just want to be

that marginal voices will be heard.” certification more of a mechanism “for a Yale student.”

The Guyana story is part of a much managing a potential risk than it is for

bigger picture, said Lisa Curran, professor marketing some environmental attribute.”

of tropical resources and director of the Certification can also attract capital. “If

Tropical Resources Institute at F&ES. you are positioning your company to be

Curran has observed the gap between policy socially responsible or environmentally





44 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Bram Gunther writes: “I am the adjunct professor of environmental eventually, Peru.” Oliver Barton,

deputy director of forestry and horti- studies at Ursinus. Rich also enjoys New Haven Ecology Project and

culture for the New York City Parks working closely with a host of F&ES Common Ground High School director,

Department. My boss is an F&ES folks in the policy sciences community, was honored last fall by the Volvo for

graduate, and my colleague is Jennifer including Matthew Auer, Ph.D. ’96; Life Awards. These awards “recognize

Greenfeld. I live with my wife, Kate, Murray Rutherford, Ph.D. ’03; Peter individuals who are courageous, dedi-

and son, Eli Zane.” Erin Kellogg Wilshusen ’96; Dave Cherney ’05; cated and committed to helping others.”

writes: “We adopted a love of a little Christina Cromley, Ph.D. ’02; and, of Selected from more than 4,000 appli-

boy, Satjee, from India. Rod and I went course, faculty member Susan Clark cants in the environment category,

over to Pune, a few hours southeast of and visiting scholar Dave Mattson. Barton received $25,000 to be donated Listen to

Mumbai, last summer to bring him to the organization of his choice (and

home. He is a happy, curious, very 1992 15th Reunion Year he chose Common Ground). Eliza F&ES podcasts at

busy little 2-year-old. His big sister, Class Secretary Cleveland writes: “I am still living in

Keelia, 5, has been fantastic given the Katherine Kearse Farhadian environment.yale.edu/

Branford and working at the Peabody

major change to her life. Now that he is farhadian@aya.yale.edu Museum. There are some fantastic 1000/environmentyale_

walking, they have a ball together. We exhibits for kids. Both my kids are

are happily ensconced on Bainbridge 1993 grown and live nearby, which is won-

podcast/

Island, just a half-hour ferry ride from Class Secretaries derful. Gusty is getting her master’s in

Seattle, but worlds away. We live on Dean Gibson teaching math, and Tommy is a hydrog-

the south end of the island, where we deang@duke.edu rapher. I am still racing Hobie Cats,

can walk to two or three sweet little Molly Goodyear and Bob and I won the U.S. trials for

beaches and hear sea lions barking bvidogs@cox.net the Pan American Games for the

from our front porch most nights. I am Heather Merbs Hobie 16. So we’ll be competing in the

a full-time mom, while Satjee adjusts hmerbs@aol.com games down in Rio de Janeiro in July

to his new life and enjoys seeing the Chip Darmstadt is the executive after training during the spring and

remarkable changes since we picked director of North Branch Nature summer.” Chris Cosslett writes:

him up eight months ago. I also very Center in Montpelier, Vt. It’s actually “I’ve spent the last year working out of

much enjoy the company of Jennie the same nature center he’s been run- Tirana, Albania, where my wife, Gulden,

Wood Sheldon and James Sheldon ning for the last 10 years, but it splin- is the United Nations resident coordi-

and their two kids, who live about tered from the parent organization, nator. I am an independent consultant,

three miles from us as the crow flies!” after it decided to cease operations in mainly formulating biodiversity projects

Chris Rodstrom writes: “I work Montpelier. You can check them out at for submission to the Global Environ-

with quite a few F&ES alumni at The NorthBranchNatureCenter.org. On the ment Facility. I worked in Morocco,

Trustees of Reservations, but they are home front, Chip and Alisa are busy Egypt, Albania and Turkey last year,

from different classes. My wife, Jen, with their three boys, Brandon, 10, and began developing a project in China

and I have two small children at home, Sammy, 7, and Charlie, 5. Jon Garen is in March.” Tad Gallion writes: “I am

and I’ve been with the same organiza- director of business development at working in the U.S. Senate with the

tion for 10 years.” Kalyanakrishnan Forest Laboratories in New York City. new majority there. I miss all you old

(Shivi) Sivaramakrishnan writes: “I Jon and Nieves live in Weehawken, N.J., forestry chums.” Erik Kullesei

rejoined Yale on January 1 as a professor and have two children, Amanda, 1, writes: “I am the deputy commissioner

of anthropology.” Rich Wallace, and Tomas, 2. for open space protection in the New

Ph.D. ’00, is living with his wife, York state Office of Parks, Recreation

Shannon Spencer, and their two sons, 1994 and Historic Preservation. I’m excited

Tucker, 8, and Jonah, 5, in Collegeville, Class Secretaries about the move, but sad to leave my

near Philadelphia. He is in his fifth Jane Calvin colleagues at the Trust for Public Land,

year at Ursinus College, an undergrad- jcalvin@prospeed.net where I’ve been New York state program

uate liberal arts institution, where he is Cynthia W. Henshaw director since 1999. I’m also relocating

an associate professor and the founding chenshaw@newenglandforestry.org with my family from our beloved Upper

chair of the environmental studies Jane Whitehill West Side of Manhattan to Albany.”

program. At Ursinus, he has been busy janewhitehill@hotmail.com Sherry Login writes: “In August,

building a program that provides lead- we had our second child, Gal. He is

Brooke Barrett writes: “I decided to

ership and scholarly opportunities for now 16 months old, and his brother,

take some time off after working many,

its students in the mold of F&ES. Ziv, is 3 years old. In November, we

many hours for about a year in post-

Prior to joining the Ursinus faculty, he took a five-week camping vacation to

Katrina New Orleans, with occasional

spent three years as co-director of Australia with the two boys. We rented

trips to my home in Seattle. The inner

Eckerd College’s environmental studies a campervan and drove from Sydney,

strength, courage and religiosity of the

program. He loves being in touch with up the coast to Cape Tribulation and

people of the Gulf region are inspiring.

two of his former students, who are then to Cairns. Eli and I managed to

now also F&ES alums: Kim Mortimer It was a privilege to experience this

culturally unique city. I am enjoying a get in a few dives on the Great Barrier.

’04 and Patty Ruby ’06. Rich has also It was quite an adventure camping with

had the pleasure of working with Ted three-month respite in Rapa Nui

(Easter Island), Chile, Argentina and, two kids. Our next family vacation

Wong ’94, who is an occasional



Spring 2007 45

class notes

was to Israel for three weeks in March. 1996 Bolivia. I am married and my first

Jessica Eskow McGlyn writes: “I Class Secretaries child, Sebastian, was born in Lima last

got married in September to Paul Kathryn Pipkin December.” cag8@cornell.edu

McGlyn. We live in D.C. with two kate@goodisp.com Shalini Ramanathan writes: “I’m

dogs and a cat. I am a senior program Julie Rothrock based in Nairobi, Kenya, and working

officer at WWF .” Dave Moffat jarothrock@juno.com for Africa Clean Energy, a renewable-

writes: “I am thrilled that the F&ES energy project development company

Jen Pett-Ridge writes: “My husband,

alumni executive committee is being owned by U.K.-based Energy for

Logan, baby Ellie and I had a wonder-

taken over with ’94s, as Jane Calvin Sustainable Development. We’re devel-

ful time at a reunion gathering hosted

rejoined Javier Dominguez and me on oping a number of commercial ven-

by Peter Yolles ’97 and Dave Ganz in

it, and now we are lucky to have Oliver tures in East Africa, including a wind

Marin County. Thanks so much to Kath

Barton and Jessica Eskow as new farm, biofuels project and biomass fuel

in F&ES Alumni Affairs for helping

members. The Class of ’80 is now out- substitution business. In 2004, I mar-

out with the funding. It was great to

numbered, and we will have a critical ried Chris Tomlinson, who is, like me,

reconnect with folks I hadn’t seen in

mass for a ’94 reunion in May. a University of Texas alum. He’s the

years – it may have helped Logan in

Speaking of reunions, rumor has it Associated Press’ bureau chief for East

his job search!” Pam Weiant writes:

that Diana Wheeler and Don Africa.” shalini@esd.co.uk José Juan

“I work for The Nature Conservancy

Redmond are organizing a Great Terrasa-Soler will receive a master’s

in Hawaii in the marine program. I am

Mountain get-together this summer. I degree in landscape architecture from

the statewide marine coordinator and in

can only hope that they will show up the Harvard Graduate School of Design

charge of planning and other statewide

with Texas BBQ, which they have got- in June 2007. After graduation, José

initiatives (community-based projects,

ten into a wonderful habit of shipping will return to Puerto Rico to resume

invasive species, recreational fishing,

to Carol and me in BBQ-deprived New his career as an environmental con-

among others). I graduated from the

Hampshire. We had a wonderful time sultant and also offer landscape plan-

University of California at Santa

seeing Lindsey Brace Martinez ’95 ning and design services. José is mar-

Barbara in 2005 with a Ph.D. in

and Peter a few weeks back, and I too ried to Alicia Olmo, a clinical psychol-

marine science.” pweiant@tnc.org

infrequently run into Ted Diers ’93, ogist, and they have a 2-year-old

who is doing a great job protecting daughter, Sara Lauren. Cristin

New Hampshire’s coast.”

1997 10th Reunion Year

Tighe writes: “I am in D.C., about two-

Class Secretary

thirds through a Ph.D. at John

Paul Calzada

1995 pcalzada@eco.org

Hopkins University School of

Class Secretaries Advanced International Studies. My

Marie Gunning Christina Cromley Bruner writes: “I focus is international health and envi-

mjgunning@aol.com got married in June 2006 to Dave ronmental policy, researching malaria.

Ciara O'Connell Bruner. I’m living in Herndon, Va., and My fiancee is Czech and works for the

cmoconnell@comcast.net am director of external audits in the European Commission, based in

inspector general’s office at the U.S. Brussels. I also own a yoga center

Gregory Dicum writes: “As recently as Department of the Interior. I’m going

10 years ago, it was unheard of and, in (www.spiralflightyoga.com) in D.C.”

to Ireland for two weeks.” Paul Peter Yolles is director of water

fact, illegal for solar-powered houses in Calzada writes: “I moved to New

California to connect to the grid. Now resource protection at The Nature

Hampshire and did some environmental Conservancy in California. He’s working

power companies are legally required education with a local nonprofit and

to credit their customers for the excess on restoration of the Klamath River

4-H. I taught junior high school science Basin. His wife, Jill, is returning to

power they produce.” Some California for a year in Lawrence, Mass., and

installers are expanding nationally, work in internal medicine. His kids

then worked for an environmental (Sam, 4, and Amanda, 2) are enjoying

including PowerLight and Akeena Solar. consulting company for several years.

In the Northeast, New York state’s frequent trips to Stinson Beach. Peter

I’m with the Environmental Careers and David Ganz hosted an informal

incentive program, in place since 2002, Organization (www.eco.org), based in

covers 40 to 70 percent of the cost of a gathering of Bay Area F&ES alumni

Boston, though I still live in New from classes 1995 to 1997 to celebrate

home solar system. New Jersey, he says, Hampshire. We recruit college students

started offering rebates to homeowners their 10-year reunion, including David’s

for environmental internships. I owe a wife, Be; Tim Bishop; Arah and Erik

for photovoltaic systems in 2001, and special thanks to Sharon Katz ’96 for

now ranks as the second-largest market Wohlgemuth; Greg Dicum ’95 and

introducing me to contra dancing, Nina Luttinger ’95; Jonathan Kaplan

in the country. Connecticut’s rebate which I’ve been doing now just about

program pays up to $25,000 per solar ’96 and Sarah Malarkey; Tom Baginski;

every weekend for the past several Anna and Alexis Harte ’94; Janet and

photovoltaic installation. Michelle years.” Carlos Gonzalez, Ph.D. ’03,

Gottlieb writes: “I am working Tolan Steele; Jessica Hamburger ’98;

writes: “I am a foreign service officer Kassia Grisso ’96; Chris and Derek

with Health Care Without Harm with the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural

(www.noharm.org).” Denniston; Marsha Tobin ’96; and

Service. I am in the first year of a four- Jennifer Pett-Ridge ’96. The group

year tour as the agricultural attaché at thanks Kath Schomaker and F&ES for

the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, with supporting our Bay Area alumni network.

regional responsibility for Ecuador and



46 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

The Forests Dialogue...

continued from page 26

after the International Institute for Environment

and Development wrote a report encouraging peo-

ple from industry, environmental agencies and

1998 brothers, Jack and Will.” Joseph

others to set “globally acceptable guiding princi-

Class Secretaries Guse writes: “My wife, Lucy Lyons,

Nadine Block and I moved to Lexington, Va., from ples for sustainable forest management.” At the

nadine.block@verizon.net Madison, Wis., in the summer of 2005. same time, the World Business Council for

Claire Corcoran I’m in my second year at Washington &

corcoran_claire@verizon.net Lee University, where I enjoy teaching Sustainable Development, the World Bank, the

Kimberly (Strum) Baymiller writes: undergraduates a variety of courses in World Wildlife Fund and the World Resources

“For over a year now, my husband and microeconomics. Lucy gave birth last Institute were seriously considering this vision.

I have been living in Shanghai, China, May to Greta Katherine Guse, a very

curious and generally happy baby girl. “So many people were talking about the same

where we were transferred for my hus-

band’s work. Being an expat limits my Our favorite local activity is hiking thing that it was obvious they needed to talk,” said

career. I am a part-time employee of with Greta and our two dogs in the

R. Scott Wallinger ’61, an advisor in forest

International Paper, though in com- nearby Blue Ridge Mountains.”

Jessica Hamburger writes: “I’m sustainability and one of the co-founders and first

munications rather than forestry and

environment. Everything has an upside, enjoying my new job working on co-leaders of TFD. What they needed, as it turns

and I have much more time to study sediment management and wetland

restoration at the San Francisco Bay out, was time together around a conference table

Mandarin, do yoga and volunteer. I to hear each other’s points of view.

have become active in Roots and Shoots, Conservation and Development

which is part of the Jane Goodall Commission, a state agency based in “A decade of open warfare had existed between

Institute. Through them, I am able to San Francisco. Those soil science classes

are really coming in handy.” Vanessa the forest industry and NGOs,” Wallinger said.

keep my foot in the environmental

Johnson writes: “At the end of 2006, I “What caused the change was that TFD for the

arena and help educate future gen-

erations of China’s environmentalists. decided to relocate to the East Coast, first time provided a format and a forum in which

My husband and I have been able to and I am a land protection specialist

with the Massachusetts Department of some of the leading figures in these communities

hike some truly amazing landscapes –

the Great Wall, rice-terraced moun- Conservation and Recreation.” Brad could meet face-to-face in a private setting and

tains and Shangri La.” Claire Kahn traveled nearly two months in begin to talk to each other in facilitated sessions

Corcoran writes: “I have a new baby Africa and three months in Southeast

Asia. Brad writes: “If you’d like to read that were off-the-record and unstructured. Equally

boy, Robin, born November 11. Life is

busy, but good – big brother Richard, 3, about some of our Africa experiences, important was the opportunity for participants to

and big sister, Sylvia, 5, are loving their visit the blog at the Web address below. eat meals together, to socialize with one another

new baby.” Antonio Del Monaco You will also find a link on the blog to

recent photos posted on Treemo.” over drinks in the evening, to take a walk together.

writes: “After 12 years working in the

environmental field, I have established www.bradanderintravel.blogspot.com Previously, the only contact had been in public

my own financial planning practice Jennifer Kefer writes: “I continue forums, where each party or person was sort of

with two partners and manage over $5 to work as a litigation consultant for

Environmental Defense in Washington, duty bound to assert the organizational position,

million of client assets. I began manag-

ing my own finances many years ago, D.C. I am expecting my second child and organizational pressures didn’t allow debate or

and investing became a fascinating this spring. My 2-year-old, Ari, is con-

the ability to concede any points. Communication

hobby. After several years successfully fident that mom is having another boy;

however, he also believes that he is was characterized as ‘throwing bombs from a dis-

doing this, I began doing it for others.

This allowed me to see the great need pregnant with a baby sister, so his tance into each other’s castles,’ with the objective

that people have for financial planning credibility is questionable.” Laurie

Koteen writes: “In 2006, Gilbert to destroy the other party, not build consensus.”

and also the need for trusted independ- Today, Dieterle, Phillips, Ginn and others

ent advice. I graduated from the finan- William Bade was born.” John

cial planning program at Georgetown Kuriawa writes: “We moved to Severna describe the dialogues as “thoughtful,” “energizing”

University in 2005, while still working Park, Md., so that I could try my hand

at regional coastal management from and “positive.”

full-time for the Global Environment

NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office in At each dialogue, there is always a visit to a

Facility. Although currently our core

focus is on individuals and families, I Annapolis. I hope to learn to sail this forest, such as a Eucalyptus plantation in Brazil or

hope to use my financial and environ- summer with the neighborhood racers.

At work, we’re trying to help Virginia the Project Grow site in KwaZulu-Natal Province,

mental experience to extend our asset

management services to some environ- and Maryland communities prepare South Africa. “Everyone carries in their head a

mental endowments in the near for inevitable growth in the face of a different vision of a forest,” Phillips said. “It’s

future.” www.duswealth.com Todd rising Bay.” Katherine Lieberknecht

writes: “I’m finishing my doctorate at important to see it.”

Forrest writes: “Elizabeth Pratt Forrest,

Eliza to us, was born on August 31. Cornell University this spring; this Typically, they walk and observe until they

She is now fat and happy and the summer, my husband, daughter and I find a clearing. They gather there and talk some

source of endless amusement to her are moving to Eugene, Ore., where my

husband and I will join the University more.







Spring 2007 47

class notes

of Oregon faculty.” Nayo Parrett where Allyson is a forest stewardship a surprising number of F&ES grads

writes: “I am an environmental project extension associate at Penn State and and faculty. I am also co-chair of the

manager at American Transmission, a Norris has a postdoctoral research environment committee at my church,

public utility, in Wisconsin, and I work fellowship at Muehlenberg College in St. Columba’s Episcopal, in the city,

on environmental permitting and Allentown. Zeon Nam-Jin writes: “I where there’s a very green and socially

licensing for transmission line projects. am in Rome and am minister at the active congregation that buys 100 per-

I live in Milwaukee.” embassy of the Republic of Korea.” cent renewable power. I saw Megan

Jennifer Garrison Ross writes: “My Shane Hellstedt at an EPA Conference

1999 husband, Darren, and I work in Los in Arlington, Va. She is doing well.”

Class Secretaries Angeles and live in North Hollywood

Jocelyn Forbush with our son, Carter (7 months).” 2000

jforbush@ttor.org Dan Shepherd works at the Class Secretaries

Jennifer Garrison Ross Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of Erica Shaub

jennifermgarrisonross@yahoo.com the Inter-American Development Bank easffe@hotmail.com

Christiana Jones (IDB) in Washington, D.C., focused Zikun Yu

christiana@jonesfamilyfarms.com on new areas for private-sector devel-

Erik Hellstedt will finish his M.B.A. at opment in the Latin American and 2001

the University of Southern Maine this Caribbean region. Dan and his wife, Class Secretaries

spring. He left the world of public poli- Deb (Weiner ’97), have two wonderful Leigh Cash

cy consulting last fall and joined his girls, Haley and Lucy. All are excited leigh@cultureearth.com

brother in timber framing. Their current about their upcoming move to Ecuador, Adam Chambers

project is a series of structures for a where Dan will continue his work achambers@aya.yale.edu

new park in Freeport, Maine. Megan with the MIF/IDB, which is part of the Jennifer Grimm

Shane Hellstedt is the environmental institution’s efforts to decentralize jennytheforester@yahoo.com

affairs manager for Hannaford Bros., a activities from its headquarters in Leigh Cash is living and working in

Northeast supermarket chain based in Washington, D.C. Sarah (Shaw) New Canaan, Conn. Finally, she has

Maine. While working on a sustain- Tallarico writes: “I love reading the her dream commute – walking every-

ability agenda, she also handles the class notes section of the magazine. where. She, her husband, James, and

recycling programs, composting and I’m living in Rochester, N.Y., with my their dogs took an extended beach

customer environmental education. husband, Frank Tallarico, and our two camping trip for the month of May.

Christiana Soares Jones works part- boys, Will, 3, and Matt, 1. I miss Nothing like sun, sand and dogs to

time for the Connecticut Department everyone. I look forward to the next make life great. John Daly writes: “I

of Environmental Protection. She and environment: YALE.” Tommy Trexler am program director for the Alliance

her husband, Jamie, have a 2-year-old writes: “Suz and I are well. Our kids for Puget Sound Shorelines (a collabo-

son and another baby due this spring. are 7 and 5. I’ve been at this environ- ration of The Nature Conservancy, The

Working and living on her husband’s mental consulting firm for nearly five Trust for Public Land and People for

family’s 400-acre farm has given her a years and it’s going well. Some of the Puget Sound). Also, my wife, Joy, and I

new way to connect people to the land projects are mundane, but every now had a baby boy, Kieran, in February

and sustainable land practices through and then I get a chance to make a dif- 2006.” After Dong-Young Kim

supporting local agriculture. Jacob ference in the outcome of a potential earned a Ph.D. in public policy and

Masenior and his wife, Heather, live in environmental impact.” Julie True environmental planning at MIT in

Massachusetts. They have a 21-month- writes: “I have been working for the 2006, he got a job at the KDI (Korea

old daughter, Elliaand, and another Santa Fe National Forest in Pecos, Development Institute) School of Public

baby due on April 20 (Jacob was hoping N.M., for the last six years. My primary Policy and Management as an assistant

for April 22nd on Earth Day). Jacob job is planning, but my duties on the professor in May 2006. He is living

enjoys shaping the minds of future district range from lighting prescribed with his wife, Younsun, and lovely

leaders in his work as a high school burns to rounding up cattle. I live on 3-year-old daughter, Sooahn, in Seoul,

environmental science teacher. He and 12 acres in a little community with a Korea. Pia Kohler finished her Ph.D.

his students have developed a school- lot of barn-raising spirit. Cypress, the in January 2006, and in August she

wide recycling program, planted native chocolate lab, is still with me, and I took a tenure-track position at the

species and are implementing a caf- have a palomino quarter horse named University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She is

eteria composting program. Noah Amigo. I got married to the most won- in the political science department and

Matson has been in D.C. since gradu- derful man, Mike Bain, in August and teaching mostly international relations

ating, working for Defenders of Wildlife am just very happy about life!” courses. She is planning to continue

on public lands policy. Noah has two John Wickham writes: “I am work- her research on the science-policy

daughters, 6 years old and 3 years old. ing independently as an environmental interface in international environmental

He recently met up with Drue DeBerry, consultant in Washington, D.C., while negotiations, and also to study the

Marty Kearns, Jamie Shambaugh and working part-time as a waiter at The incorporation of traditional and local

Steve Bosak, who also live in D.C. Tabard Inn, a well-known restaurant knowledge into international environ-

Allyson Brownlee Muth and Norris (one of the first to offer organic ingre- mental policy. Jeff Luoma finished

Zachary Muth are living in Pennsylvania, dients in the 1970s) and where I meet a contract job as an extension forester



48 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

through Cornell for upstate New York I was a kid, and I love Berkeley’s Benitez ’00 in Quito, Ecuador. Lisa

north of the Adirondack Park. He’s done greenery and amazing produce. I miss Schulman and her husband, Dotan,

some theater (El Gallo in the Fantasticks living in New York City, but I visit often welcomed their beautiful baby boy,

last year), taught salsa classes and is to see my boyfriend and my family.” Asher Gabriel Ziv, into the world on

even picking up the guitar again. His Stephanie Jones writes: “In April, June 2, 2006. Lisa is a project engineer

partner has an 11-year-old daughter I moved to Oberkirch, Switzerland, in support of environmental risk

he’s been helping to raise for several with my husband, Chris Binggeli ’02, assessments at Merck & Co.

years now. Jeff@LuomaForestry.com and Hanna, 2, from Boston, where Michael Sterner writes: “I am

David Ellum, Ph.D. ’07, is finishing we lived for five years. I continue enrolled at the University of Washington

up his run at the school. He defended consulting in energy efficiency and Law School. My wife, Blair, and I have Visit the Yale

his dissertation in March 2006, and is learning Schweizerdeutsch. Chris is a two daughters, ages 4 and 1. We will

now looking for a faculty position. His forester for the Canton of Lucerne.” probably go back to Portland, Ore., School of Forestry

son, Townes, is 4 years old and a great stepherjones@gmail.com Barry when I finish with school.” Our

kid. He also had a little girl, Seija, in Muchnick and Kate Harrison ’08

& Environmental

deepest sympathies and condolences

October. Maria Fandino writes: appeared in The New York Times on go out to Tracy Triplett, whose hus- Studies website at

“After graduating from F&ES, I February 11 for their “green” wedding band, Adam Estreicher, 33, died from

worked for a year at the University of plans. “It’s well worth it to start your environment.yale.edu

injuries sustained in a car accident.

Connecticut in the Laboratory for life together in a way that’s in line with Tracy described Adam as fiercely

Earth Resources Information Systems, your values and beliefs,” Kate told the devoted to the study of acupuncture

with a new Arc Views extension for reporter. “You don’t want this event and Chinese medicine. “He really lis-

city planning and management called that is supposed to start your life tened to people, and just by nature he

Community Viz. Upon returning to together to come at the expense of the was a healer,” she says. “I spent 15 years

Colombia in December 2002, I was environment or workers in another of my life with him. We were planning

coordinator of the policy and legislation country.” Barry and Kate’s plans to buy a house with a garden.”

research program with the Humboldt included a rehearsal barbecue at an Christian Wippermann writes: “I

Institute of Biological Research, organic farm in Garrison, N.Y., a cere- have been with McKinsey & Company

responsible for a number of projects mony at a state-owned 19th century for almost three years now. Surviving a

that deal with the conservation and castle in a scenic trail area and a recep- bunch of projects not related to any

sustainable use of biodiversity. In 2005, tion at a golf club restaurant that serves green thing whatsoever, I am now fully

I had my second son, Jeronimo.” organic food. Chie Nakaniwa involved in very interesting topics

Mary Ford moved back to writes: “I received the Environmental around the pulp and paper industry, as

Washington, D.C., in March to be the Business Woman Award at the Eco well as renewable energy. I’m still

manager of education at the National Japan Cup 2006, which was organized dreaming about a long vacation in the

Audubon Society. She is excited to be by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment. U.S. West.”

with F&ES friends in D.C., although Since I graduated, I have been involved

very sad to be leaving behind her in industrial ecology, especially LCA- 2002 5th Reunion Year

F&ES friends in California. YinLan related issues.” Diane Russell writes: Class Secretaries

Zhang and Matt Fladeland live in San “I work with F&ES students on publi- Catherine Bottrill

Francisco. YinLan just had a baby girl, cations and help out where possible. cbottrill@hotmail.com

named Willow, last September. Mary, This year, two publications are forth- Roberto J. Frau

Ray Wan and Colin O’Brien, J.D. ’03, coming in the Journal of Sustainable rfrau@aya.yale.edu

who is an attorney with the Natural Forestry. I am always interested in see- Sofie Beckham and Kelly Droege are

Resources Defense Council’s Clean Air ing F&ES grads in Washington, where living in Sweden, where Sofie is the

Program, got to see Willow in the I am a biodiversity and social science forestry coordinator for IKEA, and

UCSF hospital right after she was specialist in the natural resource man- Kelly is a forester for an international

born. Fortunately, Mary arrived in agement office at USAID. I’m also forest investment firm. Sofie is expect-

D.C. just in time to be there for the chair of the conservation committee of ing her first child in June! Ryan

birth of another baby girl belonging to the social science working group of Bennett is living in and loving San

Kerry Cesareo and Jim Woodworth. the Society for Conservation Biology Francisco. He does a lot of biking in

Her new job will take her all over the and actively seeking new members for Marin. He’s working at a boutique

country. maryelizabethford@gmail.com the committee.” dirussell@usaid.gov private equity firm called Greenrock

Katy Guimond writes: “I’m living Abby Sarmac and Matt Clark are Capital, which invests in renewable-

the grad student life again in Berkeley, creating a superhuman army of energy projects, including wind, solar,

Calif., where I’m in the second year of Caucapino Clarmacs (half Filipino/ geothermal, biopower and biofuels.

a Ph.D. in geography, focusing on half Caucasian). The first prototype, Sarah Canham is in Jackson, Wyo.,

tsetse fly control and the production of Rowan Sarmac Clark, arrived on skiing, canoeing and otherwise cavort-

space in Tanzania. It’s a far cry from December 20, weighing in at 7 lbs., 12 ing, when she’s not working on the

what I was doing before, running a oz., with a 110 percent adorability factor. digital vegetation map of the Bridger-

nature center in the South Bronx, but Three months prior to Rowan’s birth, Teton National Forest. Vic Edgerton

somehow it all fits together. I’m riding Abby and Matt enjoyed a mini-reunion has been an advisor to Congressman

a bike regularly for the first time since with Luis Rodriguez and Silvia Dennis Kucinich in Washington, D.C.,



Spring 2007 49

class notes

for the past three years. Scott married Kimberly in 2004, and they the EPA in Denver. Carlos Linares

Fenimore continues to work for the now have a beautiful son, Atticus, left his post with UNDP in New York

U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. born in April 2006. Clayt was with GE at the end of 2006. He is working at

He is working for the Fire & Aviation for six years, before joining FP&L Camp Dresser McKee, a consulting

Management staff, focusing on ecosys- Energy’s strategic policy group in Juno firm in Arlington, Va. He recently won

tem restoration and community pro- Beach, Fla., and will be relocating from a contract in Mozambique and served

tection through the hazardous fuels Erie, Penn., to Palm County, Fla. Clayt there for several weeks as team leader.

reduction program. He regularly bumps stays in regular touch with Elizabeth Andres Luque is working in London

into Meg Roessing ’03 and Beth Egan Ban and Liam Carr ’01, who are with the engineering firm Arup. He

’04 while wandering the halls of Forest engaged. Jay McLaughlin is director works as an urban designer on a team

Service headquarters. Scott and his wife, of Mt. Adams Resource Stewards. Life that uses sustainability methods in the

Lindsey Adams, welcomed their second is a little scary when living between design of cities and neighborhoods.

son, Lucas, in October. Their older son, grants, but he’s loving most every They are the team behind Dongtan,

Wesley, just turned 2, and is becoming minute of the work. Bridget, Liam, 4, near Shanghai, the first carbon-neutral

quite the soils expert. Rachel Fertik and Willa, 22 months, are great. “We city in the world. It’s a beautiful

returned from a yearlong journey had a fun gathering in Glenwood, project that is changing the way the

around the world with her boyfriend, Wash., with Kelly Droege, Sofie world thinks about cities, and they

Jon Pattee. Along the way, she worked Beckham and Brad Hunter over the are working to develop similar projects

for the IUCN on Mekong River wet- New Year.” Laura Meadors is with in many other cities and countries.

lands conservation in Cambodia. She Evolution Markets in San Francisco, andres.luque@aya.yale.edu Flo

also convinced Becky Tavani and but has transitioned from brokering Miller spent the winter digging

Colleen Ryan to join her in Laos, renewable-energy credits and emission herself out of snowdrifts in Vermont.

where they kayaked down the Mekong. credits into helping launch a new She organizes retreats and workshops

In Washington, D.C., she is developing venture, which is providing investment for environmental leaders

Clean Water Act policy at the EPA. banking services to the renewable- (wholecommunities.org). She and Bill

Derik Frederiksen works for energy and green-business sectors. Finnegan are planning a wedding for

Sealaska and gets to travel a good deal. She finished the Chicago Marathon in this September. Wei-Shiuen Ng has

He bought a house in Seattle. Ella is 8 3:02. Josh Zaffos is the news editor been working at the World Resources

and in second grade. Michael for the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, a Institute Center for Sustainable

Funaro and Zhanna Beisembaeva are new independent weekly newspaper Transport since 2004, and still enjoys

still in NYC, and Michael still works in Fort Collins, Colo. (online at developing and managing urban

for the Department of Health on the rmchronicle.com). He’s also had some transportation and energy projects in

GIS team, although he is a project freelance articles in Trout magazine, Washington, D.C. She got engaged to

manager now. Zhanna is home with two Orion, High Country News and Land Evgeniy “Eugene” Gladyshev, and

kids. Danna is in the fourth grade and & People. they are planning to get married in

Kair was 10 months on March 16. early 2008, which is also when

Molly Kate Giese and John E.B. 2003 Evgeniy will complete his Ph.D. in

Wofford were married on October 21 Class Secretaries molecular and cellular biology at

in Greenville, S.C. Molly is the director Brian Goldberg Harvard. Bryan Petit recently

of conservation at the Wood River brian.goldberg@aya.yale.edu received the Chief’s Award for

Land Trust in Hailey, Idaho. Shalini Scott Threadgill Interagency Partnership for the work

Gupta is the senior energy associate at michael.threadgill@aya.yale.edu he’s doing in southern California.

the Izaak Walton League of America, Word on the street is that Bryan Soni Pradhanang is preparing for

doing policy research and advocacy on Goldberg slowed down long enough her upcoming qualifying exam at SUNY,

domestic renewable-energy policy and to get married. J. Bishop Grewell is and enjoyed the snowy winter in upstate

climate legislation. Shalini got married living it up for the year in Denver, New York. Her big field season is

and had a green wedding in Minneapolis. working as a clerk for the 10th Circuit approaching too, and she can’t wait to

Her husband is Jim Kleinschmidt, who and living downtown. Krithi go out to her research sites. Love

works on sustainable agriculture issues Karanth is in the third year of her recently drove Liz Shapiro to move to

with the Institute for Agriculture and Ph.D. at Duke. She and her husband College Station, Texas. In the mean-

Trade Policy. She’s still dancing, taking are expecting their first child, a girl, in time, she is inching toward finishing

flamenco dance classes and yoga, and early April. Pete Land and Willy her Ph.D. Scott Threadgill is still in

enjoying being the proud new owner the Dog enjoyed winter in Burlington, D.C. with Paula, Sageboy, 3, and Kai, 1.

of a 100-year-old house with an energy- Vt., following the second biggest Nicole Vickey is still with The

efficient boiler. Robin Kriesberg blizzard on record. Pete and Bill Nature Conservancy, and is getting a

works on the restoration and steward- Finnegan are increasingly busy with seagrass protection and enhancement

ship of Long Island Sound at Save the Tamarack projects, including six project under way with the Gulf Islands

Sound. She enjoys being back in New short films they submitted to the National Seashore. Jesse, Elle and Nicole

Haven three days a week and working “Convenient Truths” contest. Visit the are planning a move this summer to

from a satellite office in Greenwich for new website (tamarackmedia.com) for Jacksonville, Fla. Guoqian Wang

the rest of the week. Clayt Lauter details. Ted Lanzano is working for writes: “I finished my two-year tenure



50 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

at the World Bank, and the time came work from Italy with Seafood Choices moved from Cambridge to Somerville

for me to move on. In December, I Alliance. We are organizing the move recently, hence Tucker’s name.”

relocated to Beijing and joined the small and looking for a new roof in Rome.” Brynn Taylor is living in Noe Valley

group of people at the newly opened Amanda Farris is engaged to Kevin in San Francisco and is working on

company of Louis Berger Group in Mahaffey. She writes: “Give us about the environmental causes of breast

China.” louisberger.com Jason 30 years to send the next generation of cancer at the Breast Cancer Fund.

Wilmot and his family spent the winter Loggerrhythms to F&ES!” Kathleen She loves being back in the West.

in a remote cabin in the Yellowstone (Campbell) Frangione got married brynn.taylor@aya.yale.edu Maria

area. Jason is director of the Northern over the summer to Chris Frangione, a Teresa Vargas writes: Teresa’s daughter,

Rockies Conservation Cooperative and Duke/Nicholas school grad. They are Maite, is 3 years old, and she is talking

Listen to

research manager for the Absaroka living in D.C., where Kathleen is the all the time. Teresa is executive director

Beartooth Wolverine project. Andrew press secretary for Trout Unlimited. of Fundacion Natura Bolivia, which F&ES podcasts at

Winston’s book (with Professor Dan She is learning to fly-fish, which she is received a $30,000 Innovation

Esty), Green to Gold, was published in lucky enough to count as “work.” Marketplace Award from CGIAR. The

environment.yale.edu/

the fall. He’s having a blast marketing Jennifer Vogel married Gordon Bass award winners included Fundacion 1000/environmentyale_

the book and speaking and consulting last August. She works at the Rainforest Natura Bolivia and the Center for

about green business. Andrew Alliance’s New York office as the International Forestry Research for podcast/

launched Winston Eco-Strategies. He communications manager for North Water for Life. This partnership pioneers

and his wife welcomed a baby, Jacob, America. Betony Jones writes: “I’m the use of payments for environmental

on September 1. They and the two still in the lovely Sierra Nevada, fid- services to conserve threatened rain-

boys, including Joshua, 3, moved out dling around with ecosystem services forests and protect watersheds in the

of New York City to Riverside, Conn., markets to find a way to provide Santa Cruz area of Bolivia. In a unique

in Fairfield County, where they both landowners some incentive to refrain arrangement, upstream landowners

grew up. from selling their precious acres to receive an artificial beehive and training

developers. I went to London over the in honey production for every 10

2004 holidays to finish identifying ethno- hectares of cloud rainforest conserved

Class Secretaries botanical specimens that I collected in for a year. Downstream users, who

Keith Bisson Borneo when I was at Yale. I was lucky have suffered severe economic losses

keith_bisson@yahoo.com enough to see Jessie Barnes and her from reduced water flows, contribute

Daniela Vizcaino delightful family, and I also got to spend to the payment scheme to improve

daniela.vizcaino@aya.yale.edu some time at festive holiday parties in water management. Daniela

Jennifer Vogel the home of the very glamorous Vizcaino writes: “I am working with

jen.vogel@aya.yale.edu Catherine Bottrill ’02.” Woon Conservation International Venezuela,

Laura Wooley Kwong writes: “After three years in the and I get to travel often to Canaima

le.wooley@gmail.com United States, I have moved back to National Park and some of the most

Irene Angeletti writes: “I finished my Asia. I recently transferred from New beautiful places in the world. I’m also

contract with the European Commission Jersey to Shanghai for an assignment studying photography on the side, and

in October. I began a new job with the with Honeywell.” Christopher Riely I am enjoying every second I have to

Wildlife Conservation Society in writes: “Having concluded my stint at take photos.” Baohui (Bonnie)

Ecuador in March.” Jessica Barnes Seattle’s Cedar River Watershed, I am Zhang writes: “I am doing fine in

writes: “I am in the third year of my in the Northwest and doing some work Boston. Kind of busy all day working

Ph.D. in sustainable development at for a regional consulting forestry firm 30 hours a week as a statistician and

Columbia. I live in Brooklyn with with projects around the ‘wet’ side of part-time student in biostatistics at the

Sarah Vogel ’03, but am heading off Washington state.” Nalin Sahni Harvard School of Public Health. I am

soon to rural Egypt for a year’s field- writes: “I am studying environmental married, happy and busy.”

work on water resources management law at the University of Toronto.”

for farmers in the Nile Delta.” Keith Neha Sami writes: “I’m in Ann Arbor, 2005

Bisson is managing the Northern Mich., doing my Ph.D. in urban plan- Class Secretaries

Heritage Development Fund for Coastal ning. I’m hoping to take my qualifying David Cherney

Enterprises, a $10 million privately exams this summer and begin fieldwork david.cherney@colorado.edu

and publicly funded community devel- in a year or so. I’ll be in India for most Dora Cudjoe

opment financial institution that sup- of 2008.” Corrina Steward works dora.cudjoe@aya.yale.edu

ports livable-wage jobs, green affordable with Grassroots International in Boston Virginia Lacy

housing and other community benefits and is about to head to Mali for the virginia.lacy@aya.yale.edu

in Maine’s historically forest-dependent first-ever global conference on food Benjamin Urquhart

rural regions. Marco Butazzoni sovereignty: Nyeleni 2007 – Forum for bnurquhart@gmail.com

writes: “Valerie Craig and I are about Food Sovereignty. She writes: “In other Brett Golden writes: “The National Fish

to move to Italy, because I am the exciting news, my boyfriend and I have and Wildlife Foundation’s Columbia

working field manager for the energy just gotten the cutest Golden Retriever Basin Water Transactions Program

and climate-change strategy team at puppy. His name is Lord Tucker Prince provides funding and technical support

Ecofys-Roma. Valerie will continue to of Somerville (Tucker, for short). We for water trust-type organizations,



Spring 2007 51

class notes

including the Deschutes River agement NGO called Tanggol Kalikasan Selva, setting up an experiment for my

Conservancy, in the Columbia Basin. (or Environmental Defense) in northern advisor, Deborah Lawrence. I’m getting

We meet several times a year to share Philippines, where she established ready for my first summer of research,

ideas and coordinate our work. We public-private partnerships in support and have started some research on

met in Portland at the end of 2006. I of environmental awareness campaigns phosphorus cycling in dry tropical

had my F&ES water bottle at the first for several coastal areas. In June, Dada forests. I hope to submit at least a paper

meeting, and the woman sitting next to will most likely head off to Uganda for this semester.” Reilly Dibner writes:

me told me that she was also an F&ES the Uganda Environmental Protection “I have been in Ireland for six months

alum – Rosemary Furfey ’84 of NOAA Forum for two years. Saima Baig now and am enjoying my time very

Fisheries. At the next break, the man writes: “I am coordinator for the IUCN’s much. Frog season has begun, so I’m

sitting on my other side said that he environmental economics and business busy counting spawn, getting stuck in

was another F&ES alum – Greg programs. One of my first assignments bogs and comparing the conifer plan-

McLaughlin ’02, with the Oregon Water is to conduct an economic valuation of tations to Yoda’s Dagobah. I’m out

Trust. Turns out that one of the con- a stretch of mangrove forests near the working in the field, training for the

sultants evaluating the program was Karachi coast. The other part of my Connemara ultramarathon, meeting

Jared Hardner ’96, and Peter Yolles ’97 job entails working with the private up with the Galway Triathlon Club or

of TNC in California was also at the sector on corporate social and envi- hanging out with my lovely Irish

meeting to learn more about our ronmental responsibility.” Patricia housemates. The Fulbright grant will

group’s work. We’ve finally achieved Buah has a job at the New Jersey carry me through the summer, until I

our goal of taking over the world. Department of Environmental begin a Ph.D. back in the United States.

(I also met up with Laura Bozzi ’04, Protection. Mohamad Chakaki I haven’t decided where I’ll be, but I

and Michelle Lichtenfels and her writes: “I now live and work in have to choose soon. Diana

husband, but that was planned.)” Washington, D.C.” Flora Chi writes: Dimitrova started an internship with

“I have worked for three months with the environmental department of

2006 Environmental Resources Management, Brown-Forman Corp. in Louisville, Ky.

Class Secretaries a consulting firm that boasts the world’s She writes: “I really liked the job and

Krista Anderson Mostoller largest provider of environmental, the people, so I decided to stay on for

anderson_kb@yahoo.com health and safety and risk consulting, a while. Now I am an environmental

Flora Chi with services ranging from strategic, performance coordinator, coordinating

ying.chi@aya.yale.edu board-level advice to site audit, per- the corporate greenhouse gas invento-

Reilly Renshaw Dibner mitting and decontamination. Most of ries and energy audits throughout the

reilly.dibner@aya.yale.edu our clients are in manufacturing, phar- company, and am working on other

Jill Savery maceuticals, chemicals, oil and gas, but environmental stewardship initiatives.

jill.savery@yahoo.com we also cover government, transporta- Louisville also turned out to be quite a

Jen Adler writes: “I am a botanist, tion, energy, water and entertainment, nice place to live; there is always

working on wetland delineations, to name a few. Located in Hong Kong, something going on, and the neigh-

restoration plans and rare-plant surveys we have engagements in Asia, Australia, borhood where I live reminds me a lot

for WRA Environmental Consultants. the Middle East and Europe. But as of the grad ghetto around Orange. So,

I recently went to Costa Rica for a China’s economy skyrockets, more in a way, it feels like I have not left

vacation, where I bumped into projects are pouring in from the F&ES.” Kostis Drakonakis writes:

Elizabeth Deliso.” Jessica Albietz Mainland. In the past few months, I “I am evaluating new and innovative

writes: “I have been living in Quincy helped prepare project proposals, trav- renewable-energy technologies as

in northern California since last June. eled extensively doing site audits and potential equity investments and

I am working on watershed protection then wrote reports back in the office. project financing for the Connecticut

and restoration as a project manager It was very much like going on Marian Clean Energy Fund.”

for the Feather River Coordinated Chertow’s field trips in her course, Jenny Frankel-Reed writes: “I am at

Resource Management Group. The ‘Greening Industrial Facility,’ though the the United Nations Development

Feather River provides about 20 percent learning curve was quite steep. Toward Programme working on adaptation to

of the state’s water supply. Last winter, the report deadline, everybody works climate change, and enjoying New

I went cross-country skiing and tried around the clock, which reminds me of York.” Ross Geredien writes: “I’ve

my hand at telemark skiing in Lassen.” finals weeks at Yale. Very challenging.” managed to string together a few dif-

Dada Bacudo went home to the Joel Creswell writes: “I’m in my ferent projects, including some GIS

Philippines thinking that it would be second semester of a Ph.D. in environ- work on mountaintop removal. I

easy to find employment in the envi- mental chemistry at the University of recently returned from searching for

ronmental management sector. But lo Wisconsin in Madison.” Jim Cronan the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker with the

and behold, development projects for is somewhere in Seattle. Jessica Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s search

the Philippines have moved to neigh- Darling is in Boston. Rishi Das team. Julie and I got engaged on the

boring countries like Cambodia, writes: “I started my Ph.D. at the Appalachian Trail in Vermont in

Vietnam and Laos. So, she decided to University of Virginia (environmental October, and we’re hoping to settle

offer her services as a fund-raising sciences) last fall after spending a month down in a place like Portland, Maine,

consultant for a coastal resource man- during the summer in Costa Rica at La or Ithaca, N.Y.” Gonzalo Griebenow





52 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

writes: “I am working with the Peruvian It’s nice to be home, although I miss research on climate change and

Mission at the United Nations. I am the stimulation of classes. I’m going to consulting.” Perrine Punwani

working on a couple of presentations be teaching an honors seminar at the writes: “I moved to Washington, D.C.,

overseas, one on climate change impacts University of Louisville in the fall of in January to continue my search for

over the tropical Andes and the other 2007 called Reading the Natural the ‘dream job,’ and I began working

presentation at Cambridge University Landscape: Tools and Perspectives on at the Post Conflict Development

on conservation science. I am receiving Environmental History and Planning. Initiative of the International Rescue

support and feedback from Professor It will combine fieldwork on ‘reading’ Committee at the end of March. The

Dave Skelly on both presentations.” and understanding cultural and eco- position is based in D.C., with regular

Jesse Grossman writes: “I started a logical landscapes, with a seminar travel to the IRC’s New York headquar-

Visit the Yale

renewable-energy company that devel- project interpreting those landscapes, ters and stopovers in Nairobi, Bangkok

ops, owns and operates solar renewable- which will become input for our parks and Istanbul to conduct training.” School of Forestry

energy generation stations across the project.” Kyle Jones writes: “I am Rebecca Sanborn writes: “I’m back

Northeast United States. I am living working in London at Morgan Stanley in in Vermont, living with my fiancee,

& Environmental

over the river from Manhattan in its energy banking group. We are doing Andy, and our two dogs. We are furi- Studies website at

Jersey City.” Gudmundur Ingi lots of renewables work, especially in ously planning our June wedding,

Gudbrandsson writes: “I have been biofuels.” kyle.jones@morganstanley.com and trying to find more time to enjoy

environment.yale.edu

fighting land degradation and desertifi- or kyleelizabethjones@gmail.com the mountains at our doorstep. I’ve

cation in Iceland. I am working with Alder Keleman writes: “I’m in been working for the Orton Family

the Soil Conservation Service, and have Mexico City on a Fox International Foundation since graduation, doing

been doing mostly plant ecology Fellowship doing research with the land use planning and communications

research, as well as working in the Colegio de Mexico on the impacts work, but will be making a change

international environmental arena for of free trade on maize diversity.” this spring.” Jill Savery writes: “I

my institute. In addition, I am leading alder.keleman@gmail.com Laura am now working for PMC, a municipal

the first Society for Environmental Kiernan writes: “This past summer, consulting company, where I am

Scientists and Managers in Iceland.” I went on a whirlwind tour of the starting a sustainability services

Kate Hamilton writes: “After travel- national parks on the West Coast. division. I am based in Sacramento.”

ing during the summer, I’m working I am an environmental scientist in Catherine Schloegel writes: “I am

on carbon markets at Ecosystem the transportation department of RKK, working for a community-run forestry

Marketplace in Washington, D.C.” an engineering consulting firm in enterprise called Ecomadera in

Maren Haus writes: “I’m having fun Fairfax, Va. I am living in an apart- Ecuador. I will be working with com-

working for the New Jersey State ment in Falls Church, Va.” munity members to help them create

Sustainability Institute and the Rutgers LauraDKiernan@gmail.com Linda forest management plans, as well as

Center for Green Building as a coordi- Kramme writes: “In January I moved to plans for social and economic devel-

nator for a sustainable-communities Richmond, Vt., to take a job as a chain- opment.” Caroline Simmonds

project in West Windsor Township.” of-custody associate with SmartWood, writes: “I am a program officer for the

marenhaus@gmail.com Emily Hicks a program of the Rainforest Alliance. Coastal Eastern Africa region for

writes: “I am based in Hanoi, Vietnam, I’m working with about 100 companies WWF-US. It is based in D.C., with

and am working for TRAFFIC, a joint in the United States that want to sell and travel to Mozambique, Kenya and

.

program of IUCN and WWF I’m coor- market wood products from FSC- Tanzania.” Critter Thompson

dinating a project funded by the World certified forests.” artemis_lk@yahoo.com writes: “I’m living in Seattle and

Bank that is examining the social and Wei-Chien Lai writes: “I am a working at Mithun. I got married on

economic drivers of trade in four research assistant in the Research Center San Juan Island in September.”

countries – Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos for Biodiversity, Academia Sinica. I am Yue Wang has temporarily settled in

and Vietnam.” Stephanie Horn helping to develop the management plan West Virginia to help The Nature

writes: “I’m an urban forester with of Dongsha Atoll ecosystem, which is the Conservancy answer fundamental

New York City’s Department of Parks first marine national park in Taiwan.” questions about and guide planning

and Recreation. I’m responsible for wei-chien.lai@aya.yale.edu Krista in the Western Allegheny Plateau.

planting street trees in the Bronx after (Anderson) Mostoller is researching Supported by TNC, F&ES and the

surveying citizens’ and local organiza- the health effects of indoor mold and Armbrecht Family Fund, Wang is

tions’ requests. Plantable sites must what the federal government is doing studying large, intact stretches of forest

meet Parks guidelines, and a hired to minimize and mitigate exposure and assessing what threatens them. It

contractor will plant the trees.” in Boston for the Government is hoped that her findings will help

Yukiko Ichishima started a job with Accountability Office. She writes: direct future conservation actions in

TetraTech. Dan Jones writes: “I’m “In December, I married Matthew the region. Xizhou Zhou writes:

in Louisville, Ky., serving as the CEO Mostoller and spent two weeks in “I enjoy my job as an environmental

of a nonprofit called 21st Century Parks. Hawaii on our honeymoon.” consultant for the International

We are working on the creation of a krista.anderson@aya.yale.edu Electrotechnical Commission. I saw

4,000-acre addition to the Louisville Shuichi Ozawa writes: “I am an Seth Cook ’98, Ph.D. ’04, who is

metro parks system. It’s a lot of work environmental consultant at Pacific heading IUCN’s China program in

and a lot of fun, and it’s going great. Consultants in Tokyo, mainly doing Beijing.”





Spring 2007 53

obituaries

Thomas Batey Jr. ’49 (1919-2006) including Kent Falls and St. John’s known to one and all as “Doc” Hill.

died on November 21 in Tacoma, Ledges. Throughout his career and He is survived by his wife of 62

Wash., in the care of his family and into retirement, he participated years, Doris Elaine Hill; his three

hospice. Tom was a graduate of the actively as a member of the Society children, Katharine Hill Wentworth,

University of Massachusetts and of American Foresters and the John Hill Jr. and Christian Hill; six

.

received his M.F from Yale. After Connecticut Forest and Park grandchildren, Jonathan and Hillary

graduating, he moved with his family Association in Middletown, Conn. Wentworth and Lindsay, Eliza, Nick

to Longview, Wash., to take a job He also served as a board member and Adrian Hill; and three nieces

with the Long-Bell Lumber Company. of Connwood in Rockfall, Conn., and two nephews.

Three years later, in 1952, he moved and as the chair of the Farmington

to Tacoma to begin what would Recreation Association, he helped William Klein ’59 (1928-2006) died

become a 30-year career as a wood establish Winding Trails, a nature in Ogden, Utah, on November 14 at

products researcher for the American center. He was predeceased by his the age of 78, surrounded by his

Plywood Association. In retirement, wife, Helen. His survivors include family. William served in the U.S.

he maintained his affiliation with the his children, GiGi Coe Robinson Merchant Marine and in the Army

Society of American Foresters and the and Carol Coe Fowler of Grand Infantry, stationed as a second lieu-

Forest Products Research Society. He Junction, Colo., and Kathy Coe of tenant in Germany. He graduated

was preceded in death by his son, Washington, Conn.; seven grand- from John Muir College in Pasadena,

Thomas Batey III, and his sister, children, Philip and Chas Hollinger, Calif., in 1949 and received a B.S. in

Dorothy Ernenwein. His wife of 63 Ryan and Anita Robinson and Meg, forest management from Oregon State

years, Eleanor, survives him, as do his Helen and Andrew Fowler; and a .

College and an M.F in entomology

daughter, Beatrice, of Tacoma and his brother, Robert, of Branford, Conn. from Yale. He was a firefighter in the

sister, Harriet Fisher, of Natick, Mass. mountains of California and enjoyed

John Ledyard Hill ’47, D.F. ’54 a long career with the U.S. Forest

Howard Coe ’46 (1914-2006) died on (1919-2006), died on December 15 Service. In retirement, he developed

October 19 in Boston at age 92. Born in Portsmouth, N.H. John served in remote sensing methods for forestry

on September 20, 1914, in Fair World War II as a lieutenant in the and, in the 1980s, taught remote

Haven, Conn., Howard formed a love 10th Mountain Division of the Army, .

sensing at Stephen F Austin

of boating long before receiving a B.F . participating in the Allied invasion of University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He

at the University of Connecticut. He Italy in 1943. He went on to graduate published widely and was honored

worked as a forester for the Saltonstall from Colorado State University, after by his students with the university’s

Division of the New Haven Water which he earned his master’s degree award for best teacher. He went on to

Company until serving as a naval and doctorate from Yale. He promoted travel and learn German. He success-

officer in World War II. Upon his the use of wood products for the fully spearheaded the placement of a

return to civilian life, he married National Lumber Manufacturers commemorative plaque at a Utah ski

.

Helen Reilly, and earned his M.F from Association in Chicago and resort honoring John Paul Jones, a

Yale. Stanley Works Corporation Washington, D.C. In 1964, he did Utah native and member of the U.S.

hired him the same year and moved research and taught at the University Army’s 10th Mountain Division, who

him to Vermont, where Howard put of New Hampshire’s Department of died in the battle of Belvedere in Italy

his vast knowledge of wood to use in Natural Resources in Durham, a during World War II. Active in the

the mill production of Stanley’s position he retained until his retire- civil affairs of both Davis, Calif., and

woodworking tools. He also took ment. After retirement, he pursued Ogden, Utah, he focused on initiatives

charge of the mill’s conversion from his passion for teaching and consult- to preserve the natural beauty and

water to electrical power. In 1951, he ing part-time, while conducting environment of California and north-

returned to Connecticut to assist in research on the kiln drying of wood ern Utah. Until the end of his life, he

building the Salmon Fishway at the at his lab at UNH. Friends and col- enjoyed skiing, hiking, fishing, camp-

Rainbow Power Plant. He went on to leagues recall him as a consummate ing and riding his motorcycle. He is

help establish the Sloane-Stanley gentleman, a selfless man, a dedicated survived by his wife of 33 years,

Museum in Kent, Conn., and played scientist, a faithful member and Marilyn Rita; a daughter, Norma Jean

a leading role in the conservation of deacon of the Community Church of Klein; a son, William Hugh Klein Jr.;

land along the Housatonic River, Durham and a beloved professor and a grandson, Caleb William Eddy.









54 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

John Noyes ’39 (1914-2006) died on Department in Washington, D.C., William Reifsnyder, Ph.D. ’54

December 22 in the town of his birth, and in the California governor’s office (1924-2006), of Lama, N.M., died on

Old Lyme, Conn. John was a direct on coastal zone management and November 3. A professor emeritus of

descendant of the first minister of water-pollution issues. At the time forest meteorology and biometeorol-

Lyme and Old Lyme, the Rev. Moses of his death, he had been a partner ogy, Bill held a joint appointment in

Noyes. He received his undergraduate for 12 years at the law firm of the Department of Epidemiology and

education at Connecticut State Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman Public Health of the Yale School of

College and earned his M.F from

. in New York City. An environmen- Medicine. He joined the Yale faculty

Yale. He began his career as a civilian talist and a dedicated student of in 1955 and taught courses in bio- Visit the Yale

construction inspector for the Army geology and marine biology, he meteorology, climatology, air pollution

School of Forestry

Corps of Engineers, but he left his wrote articles on offshore oil drilling meteorology and forest fire control.

position during World War II to serve and its associated pollution. He was Prior to joining the Yale faculty, he & Environmental

as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army a history buff, devouring volumes worked for the U.S. Forest Service’s Studies website at

Amphibious Corps in the southwest on World War II and the Civil War, California (now Pacific Southwest) environment.yale.edu

Pacific, operating large landing craft. and enjoyed reading biographies Forest and Range Experiment Station

After the war, he assumed broad and spy thrillers. He loved playing as a research forest fire meteorologist.

responsibilities in multiple-use land the guitar and piano and listening to He participated in the early atomic

management with the U.S. Forest jazz and songs from musicals. At bomb tests, evaluating the effects of

Service in the White Mountains, Dartmouth, he was co-captain of the nuclear explosions on forests. At that

Daniel Boone and George Washington rugby team; played soccer, baseball time, he also wrote and narrated a

national forests. After a stint in a and hockey; and enjoyed sailing the series of programs on meteorology

regional office of the U.S. Forest Maine coast. As a youngster, he was for the Berkeley radio station, KPFA.

Service in Pennsylvania from 1955 to dubbed “The Next Mickey Mantle” In Connecticut, he was an on-air

1957, he was named professor of on the front page of the local weather forecaster for the local

forestry and Massachusetts state Westport newspaper for his feats on NBC-TV station and served as chair

extension forester at the University of the baseball diamond. He is survived of the National Research Council’s

Massachusetts. He distinguished him- by his wife of 15 years, Ellen Committee on Climatology. His

self as a writer and leader, publishing Marjorie Iseman; a son, Alexander listings in Who’s Who in America and

more than 100 bulletins and articles Trevor Iseman O’Neill; his mother, American Men and Women of Science

and receiving numerous awards, and Cornelia Rockwell O’Neill; three highlight the far-ranging effect of

helped form the Massachusetts brothers, Bracken, Denis and his life achievements. He had been a

Christmas Tree Growers Association, Christopher; his aunts, Rowena and visiting professor at the Meteorological

Massachusetts Wood Producers Jean; several in-laws; and numerous Institute of the University of Munich

Association and Massachusetts Land cousins, nieces and nephews. In lieu and at the Swedish University of

League. He is survived by his wife of of flowers, donations may be made Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala.

58 years, Werneth; a son, John in Trevor’s memory to the Trevor He served as a visiting lecturer in

Noyes; a daughter, Susan Noyes O’Neill Arboretum, c/o Dr. Steven biometeorology at the Max Planck

Hollifield; four grandchildren, Cassie Tobolsky, head of the Lower Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg,

Hollifield Knight, John Hollifield, Division, The Horace Mann School, Germany; senior research scientist

Sarah Noyes and Ellen Noyes; and a 4440 Tibbett Avenue, Riverdale, at the Environmental Research

great-grandchild, Harrison Knight. N.Y. 10471. Laboratories of the National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration in

Trevor O’Neill ’82 (1951-2007) died Cesar Perez ’56 died on June 20, Boulder, Colo.; corresponding mem-

on January 3 at age 55 of lung and .

2005. After receiving an M.F at Yale, ber of the Connecticut Academy of

brain cancer at New York-Presbyterian Cesar moved to Medellin, Colombia, Science and Engineering and chair of

Weill Cornell Medical Center. Trevor to become a faculty member in the its committee on atmosphere; vice

was born in Westport, Conn., and Forest Science Department at the president of the International Society

was a graduate of the Hotchkiss National University of Colombia, a of Biometeorology; and chair of the

School, Dartmouth College, F&ES position he held from 1957 to 1993. committees on biometeorology and

and Yale Law School. After graduating He was esteemed by colleagues as a agricultural and forest meteorology of

from law school in 1985, he went great professor and a pioneer in ecolo- the American Meteorological Society.

on to work at the U.S. Commerce gy and land use studies in Colombia. He held a B.S. degree in meteorology





Spring 2007 55

obituaries

from New York University, an M.F . three children for several years, then of research on hardwood silviculture.

degree from the University of moved to Costa Rica in the early He was made a fellow of the Society

California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. 1960s. In 1962, he co-founded the of American Foresters in 1979. In

from Yale. He served as a second Tropical Science Center, which 1995, Earl and his wife, Opal, moved

lieutenant in World War II. He was brought under its wing the from Morgantown to Florissant, Mo.,

preceded in death by his wife, Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological to be closer to their daughter. He

Marylou Reifsnyder, an artist and Preserve in north-central Costa Rica remarked in 2005 that he considered

author of children’s books who co- in the early 1970s. A pioneer in fight- his research during World War II as

authored with him a hiking guide to ing deforestation with the creation of his nonmilitary contribution to that

the Alps. He is survived by a son, national parks and private reserves, national effort.

Gawain; two daughters, Rita Hall he studied and proposed a long list

and Cheryl Lama; four grandchildren; of protected areas. Many of these Richard Arnold Williams ’50 (1923-

and six great-grandchildren. eventually were set aside as national 2006) was born on Long Island and

parks or refuges, including Corcovado received a B.S. in forestry from the

Ricardo Tarifa ’95 (1962-2006), a National Park, Caño Negro Wildlife University of Massachusetts and an

Brazilian forestry specialist with the Refuge, Cahuita National Park, La .

M.F from Yale. Dick was a veteran of

World Bank and former Fulbright Amistad International Park, Barra del World War II, serving in the China-

Scholar, died on September 29, when Colorado Wildlife Refuge and Diriá Burma-India Theater. A forester for

a GOL Airlines plane crashed en National Park. A colleague at the Georgia-Pacific Corp. for 37 years, he

route from Manaus to Brasilia. Ricardo Tropical Science Center said, “The served on numerous committees of

.

held an M.F S. in tropical forestry noble mission that Joe Tosi set for the Ozark and Ouachita sections of

from Yale, a certificate in organic agri- himself as a young man in the wilder- the Society of American Foresters

culture from Emerson College and a ness is being accomplished today in (SAF). In 1988, the year he retired,

B.S. in tropical agriculture from Costa Rica, as key biological areas .

he was elected a fellow of the SAF He

Faculdade de Agronomia de Pinhal in come under protection in one of the served on the University of Arkansas

Sao Paolo. Prior to joining the World highest biodiversity regions of the at Monticello Forestry School adviso-

Bank, he served at the School for globe.” He was honorary president of ry committee, the Arkansas State

International Training and the the center at his death. He was pre- Plant Board, the advisory committees

Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente ceded in death by his brother, Charles of the U.S. Forest Service Crossett

(IMAZON) in Brazil. His tenure with Tosi; a son, Jonathan Tosi; and a Experimental Forest and the

the World Bank Group began in grandson, Sergio Andre Tosi. He is Southern Hardwood Lab at

September 1995 in the Brazil Rain survived by his wife, Mary Lu; a son, Stoneville, Miss. In addition, he was

Forest Unit. An avid cyclist, he was Alexander; a daughter, Lucinda; a Georgia-Pacific’s representative on the

finalizing plans at the time of his death brother, Peter; a sister, Beatrice; two forest industries telecommunications

for a two-year bicycle trip to visit the grandchildren, Joseph Tosi Cascante board of directors for 10 years. He

world’s major forests. Colleagues and Kesia Tosi de Kocak; and several had been a registered Boy Scout since

remember Ricardo for his love of the great-grandchildren, nieces and 1955 and worked with numerous

field, his passion for conserving the nephews. local Cub packs, Scout troops and

forests and his quest to better the troop committees. Beginning in 1954,

lives of the people of the forests. Earl Haven Tryon, Ph.D. ’45, grew up he maintained an active membership

in Maine and held a B.S. in forestry in the Crossett First United

Joseph Andrew Tosi Jr. ’48 (1921- from the University of New Methodist Church. After retirement,

2006), died in December in his home Hampshire, an M.S. in forestry from he pursued an interest in drawing

near San José, in San Ramón de Tres Oregon State University and a Ph.D. and watercolor painting. He is sur-

Ríos. Joseph was a geographer and from Yale. Earl had a long career in vived by his wife, Alice; a daughter,

ecologist known for his defense of forest ecology as a professor of silvi- Lynne Williams Jenkins; a son,

Costa Rica’s natural environment. He culture and as a forester with the Richard Williams; and two grand-

earned a B.S. at the University of Agricultural Experiment Station at daughters, Emily Herrin and

.

Massachusetts, an M.F at Yale and a West Virginia University in Madeline Claire Williams.

Ph.D. in ecology at Clark University. Morgantown, where he and Ken

He lived in Peru with his wife and Carvell ’50 collaborated on a program









56 environment:YALE The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Students’ Imprint... Ashton says there is a long queue of

clients waiting to take advantage of the

continued from page 33

expertise of F&ES students, ensuring that

Firing range: This facility should be the students will be leaving their imprint

moved; it deters people from using the park. on the New England landscape for decades

Gregorio Torio Zamuco ’29 (1901-

2007) was born in 1901 in Aguilar, Recreation: The creation of trails with to come.

Pangasinan, the Philippines. Greg signs and the removal of a fence near the

studied forestry at the UP College of police academy (if the shooting range is

Forestry in Los Banos (UPLB) and moved) are recommended. Donor’s Faith...

graduated at the top of his ranger continued from page 27

Trash: Catchment basins should be

class in 1921. From Los Banos, he was

sent as a government “pensionado” to added to collect all the detritus in one place. Ordway lives in Wyoming during the

the University of Washington in The final plan, in the form of a 150- warmer weather with his wife, Margaret

Seattle, where he earned a B.Sc. page report, was presented again in February, Doria, but since 1985 they have spent

forestry degree in logging engineering. to 30 park neighbors who met at the police winters in California. Margaret is a water-

He went on to obtain a master’s academy. Nan Bartow, head of Friends of colorist and the two share philanthropic

degree in forest management and

Beaver Ponds Park, thanked “the four very endeavors and a love of reading. Ordway’s

forest products from Yale. In the

early 1950s, when the United Nations industrious and capable students from the two daughters are full-time mothers, one

Food and Agriculture Organization Yale School of Forestry and Environmental living in Paris, the other in Montana. His

set up a training program in logging Studies, Professor Ashton and the adjunct son works for Boeing in Long Beach, Calif.

engineering for middle-management professors who worked with you.” Each summer, Fish Creek Ranch is a

officers from the various countries in Since Thomas Siccama informally started meeting ground for his five grandchildren.

the Asia-Pacific Region, he was During his Yale years, Ordway con-

the “Management Plans for Protected Areas”

appointed program leader. At UPLB,

course in the 1960s, over 110 management sidered F&ES to be an “industry school,”

he was a professor and the registrar

before becoming dean in 1958. His plans have been produced for properties to train people for the U.S. Department of

greatest legacy was his success in throughout New England, 70 since the Agriculture or the U.S. Forest Service.

getting approval of the (Philippines) course was formalized in 1993. Ashton “It has completely changed its emphasis,”

Congress of Republic Act 3523 he said. “The graduates have contributed

says that the clients cheerfully pay for all

in 1963, which placed the entire so much to these nongovernmental organi-

expenses that the students incur, because

Makiling Forest (formerly the zations and nonprofits, and there are so

Makiling National Park) under the in the end they avoid the fees charged by

many of the staff of these organizations who

jurisdiction of UPLB. It also estab- environmental consulting firms. And the

come from the school,” he said. “Because of

lished within that area a National students get invaluable practical experience

Botanical Garden and an Experimental the effectiveness of the programs, I began to

by putting their education to work in creat-

and Demonstration Forest, which contribute. I also got to know the school

ing the plans and in learning the art of

have served as permanent field through others in environmental organiza-

laboratories for forestry and natural- political compromise.

tions, and they were all enthusiastic about

resources research. His placement of “This is the second time we’ve availed

the school.”

this forest under the jurisdiction of ourselves of help from F&ES students,” said Ordway said one of the pleasures of

UPLB probably saved Mt. Makiling Rich, of the Hotchkiss School. “Three years contributing to scholarships at F&ES is

from destruction. When he passed ago, students from Professor Ashton’s class

away on February 17, he was just 81

receiving letters from the students who

created a plan for Beeslick Brook that codi- benefit from the contribution. “They tell

days short of his 106th birthday.

fied a base of knowledge that has proven me about their projects,” he said, “and

instrumental in generating interest in the many say that they are only able to be at

woods along the brook. We’ve since F&ES with help. It is there that they

reprinted additional copies of that report. become very accomplished in solving

Partly based on that positive experience, environmental problems.”

we contacted the school again when we

purchased the Blum Farm.”









Spring 2007 57

Yale School of Forestry

& Environmental Studies

205 Prospect Street

New Haven, CT 06511 USA

tel: 203-432-5100

fax: 203-432-5942