Caroline Griffith, NEC Executive Director
As the days grow shorter and the leaves fall from the trees, it’s natural to think about transitions. Our gardens transition from bounteous, living green to crunchy, fallow brown. The species of birds in our local trees transition as fall visitors show up. Plants go dormant for the winter. This season also marks a transition for the NEC; this issue will be my last as Editor of EcoNews and Executive Director of the Northcoast Environmental Center. I am a creature of change and it’s time for me to move on to other work.
I joined the NEC team in late 2019, so the first two years of my tenure were during those strange early pandemic days when it seemed like the world at large was finally questioning the wisdom of “business as usual”. Stay at home orders and social distancing were inspiring a new generation of birders, botanists, and naturalists who now had more time on their hands to build relationships with the environment. Mutual aid was becoming a household term as community support networks sprung up to help people meet their basic needs. Some days it really seemed like we were on the precipice of change as a species, like we could come out of the pandemic more connected to the earth and each other, and less motivated by money and personal gain.
During this time, the NEC also celebrated its 50th anniversary. Both the pandemic and our celebration of a half-century of existence as an environmental organization inspired some institutional soul searching. What would our next 50 years be like? How could the NEC take the lessons learned since 1971 and evolve to meet the needs of the 21st century? How could we apply the principles of social, racial, and economic justice which were highlighted so dramatically during the pandemic to our work as environmentalists? And what does it even mean to be an “environmentalist” anyway?
These questions have been at the heart of my work with the NEC, regardless of whether we are watchdogging industry and development, advocating for climate action, or training new activists and advocates on how environmental decision-making processes work. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed these questions in EcoNews articles, either overtly or more subtly. Questions about who is involved in making decisions about what happens to our environment—whether in the government, business, or organizations—and who isn’t; how race, class and gender impact the ways people are affected by industrial and environmental degradation; and how all of these issues are intertwined.
Through this, the staff of the NEC recognized the need to explicitly center environmental justice in our work. “Business as usual” could also apply to how we were running this organization and it was obvious to us that we needed to change how we engaged with environmental work, whose voices we were centering, and how we define “expertise.” This has led to some push back from some self-described “long-time supporters of the NEC” and we were told more times than I can count that Tim McKay would be angry with us for some stance or another that we took, usually those having to do with our unhoused neighbors. (To be fair, we also heard from some folks that Tim would be proud of the changes happening at the NEC, so we learned that we had to follow our own compass.) At the same time we started to see an increased interest in the NEC by a younger, more diverse group of people, which showed us that we were moving in the right direction.
Throughout my time at the NEC, one thing that I have delighted in is having access to old issues of EcoNews where I can read about what has changed, and what has stayed the same. Some days it can be demoralizing to read old issues and realize that we are still fighting the same battles as we were decades ago (nuclear energy, pesticides, clearcut logging, the prioritization of human “needs” over all other species). Change happens slowly, especially when we are fighting entrenched, monied interests like logging and energy companies. But I’ve come to realize that our real battle is against the status quo, and those old issues of EcoNews reminded me that we are carrying on the important work of questioning why we are engaging in certain activities and behaviors as a society, and presenting alternative ways of being. Then, as now, what is needed is a philosophical and spiritual shift away from individualism and anthropocentrism, away from patriarchy and white supremacy and the idea that leadership and expertise look and sound a certain way, and towards curiosity, cooperation, and shared power. We’ll never win any of these environmental battles if we keep replicating the same power structures as those we are fighting. I am thrilled to have been able to be a part of the NEC leadership as we started to examine how race, class, and gender have shaped the organization, and as we started to challenge our own status quo.
Transitions can be difficult, but it has been an honor to help steward this organization into its next phase which, to be honest, probably has more in common with the early days of the NEC than more recent years. Our staff is made up of experienced, dedicated activists and advocates, a number of whom started out as volunteers or interns. Much like the early days of the organization, we are attracting young people who care enough about the environment and all of the beings that call this place home that they have often given their time and expertise for free to help defend them. Also like the early days, these staff are dedicated to sharing knowledge and training new activists and advocates through workshops and mentorships so more people understand how to read a Timber Harvest Plan (THP) or Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Their knowledge and passion is an endless inspiration to me and I am so happy to pass the baton onto this amazing crew of people. I’ll let them introduce themselves in the upcoming pages.
And I want to thank you, dear EcoNews reader and NEC supporter, for sticking with us, for sending your compliments and complaints, and for your love of the natural world. I hope to run into you in the forest someday.