(Note – it was looking like this was going to be the intro article to the last “Highlands News” email blast when this was written on December 12, 2008. It is being added to the blog today, April 21, 2012, because the thoughts about – and tributes to – those mentioned need to live somewhere more regularly and easily accessible to the environmental community — Scott)
As things look at this moment, this will be the last full Highlands News post, at least for a while anyway. With that in mind, this seems to be a perfect opportunity to reflect on a couple of phone and email conversations I had this past August, shortly after learning of the sudden passing of Bella Keady. The topic: “Why do we do what we do?”
Now compared to many of you, I’m relatively new at this tree-hugging-salamander-protecting-sprawl-stopping thing. For me the start of my activism began one day late in the winter of 2000, when I answered the door to find a postman with a certified letter. “One Main Street, LLC is pleased to inform you that a 48-unit subdivision will be built on the 80 acres of beautiful Highlands forest across the road your home.” It’s been a constant battle since then – one that has certainly had its share of ups and downs – a long, strange trip for certain.
So after receiving word of Bella’s passing, I called Robin O’Hearn at Skylands CLEAN to give her the news, and as we pondered the fragile nature of our existence and the sometimes futile feeling of our daily environmental battles, the question arose: What drives us activists to do what we do? What motivates us to so often put our own desires or personal well-being aside for the “greater good?” Is it that in the back of our minds, we fear that no one else will step up and take the time, show the concern, or devote the energy to these challenges? Or is it the satisfaction of knowing that we’re doing our part to preserve these precious resources for the next generation?
I have to admit that perhaps the greatest satisfaction I got from beating that development, and preserving 60 of those 80 acres, came several years ago, while spending an Indian summer afternoon on that parcel with a good friend’s two young boys – turning over rocks near a spring-fed stream and finding dozens of newts, salamanders and frogs while exploring this newly won prize under a glowing canopy of yellow maples. Knowing that I had played a small part in permanently preserving that opportunity for them, and others like them for years to come, made all those long, late planning board meetings worthwhile.
An email conversation about a week later with Mike Keady took this same direction. Mike told me that environmental activism was against Bella’s basic nature. “But like so many of us, she discovered that one or a few people could really make a difference. And that if she didn’t do it, no one would, and another piece of nature would be lost.”
“The other element of why we do this, at least in our case, was paying back those who were helpful to us,” Mike told me. “Pass it on. Dozens of people helped us understand how to fight. When we were successful, and others came to us for advice, how could we refuse to help by passing on what we had learned in so hard a way?”
It all gets a little clearer, when you step back from the daily grind and look at the bigger picture. And that brings me to the here and now.
It’s the people I’ve called upon for help and learned so much from that have motivated me “to do what I do” these past eight years also. People who have gone from just names in papers or on emails, to valued friends and associates. People like Robin O’Hearn, Ross Kushner and Ella Filippone – my “Northern Alliance” friends – who have offered support and advice, acting as sounding boards for my sometimes far-fetched ideas.
Or Damien Newton, formerly of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, who help steer me in the right direction in our fight with NJDOT on Route 206, often in disbelief himself at what we were able to accomplish.
Or Bill Wolfe, who despite a rather tense start to our dealings, has become a good friend and infinite source of unique angles on regulatory and policy discussions.
Or my newest motivator, Dena Mottola Jaborska, whose focused, straight-forward “here’s the facts” approach has made her a joy to work along side on my latest challenge – the PSE&G power line project.
And finally, there’s Tina Bologna. As I’ve “fought the bad guys” (a simple explanation she’d give her young children for the countless hours of council and planning board meetings we’d attend), Tina has pushed me to reach higher, challenged me to think differently, and helped teach me the value of patience and persistence.
I can only hope that I have been able to repay these people – and everyone else who has been a source of assistance to me – for all they’ve helped teach me, and the valued friendship they have offered. And hope that somehow, I can continue to do so for others in the future.
Drawing on the inspiration that Mike attributed to Bella, I’ll end with the wisdom of one of my favorite fortune cookies, which I’ve taped to the frame of my computer monitor as a constant reminder: “One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interest.”
Be that “one person,” keep believing, and pass it on.
Scott