We know of, and support, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership but, as far as we know, only a fraction of the fishing / environmental / conservations organizations are members. Could the fact that the environmental and outdoor recreation community finds it difficult to impossible to speak to the public policy makers with a unified voice help explain why:
88% of Minnesota’s waters are impaired for fish consumption
49% are impaired for aquatic life
57% fail to meet standards for water contact recreation.
A long time ago, the founders of Trout Unlimited observed that if we “take care of the fish, then the fishing will take care of itself.” It’s not possible to take care of the fish without taking care of the fish’s habitat, the water. We are continuing to do a poor job of that.
Not that very long ago, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was governed by a citizens’ board. No more, thanks to the legislature. Corporate voices, including especially corporate agriculture, are often heard and accommodated in the halls and corridors of the capitol. Money talks. Citizen voices are what’s needed to speak on behalf of the air, water and land we need restored to cleanliness if we are to thrive instead of simply survive. If all the outdoor recreation and conservation organizations in Minnesota created a 501(c)(4) organization, or something like it, we might be able to speak almost as loudly as corporate persons and might get heard more often in the capitol.
Dr. Seuss and the Lorax know:
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
The problem is, caring is not enough these days. Big Ag and Big Mining carry big sticks of campaign cash and the promise of jobs. We need to see them and raise them. More on that later.
The poor live on low ground waiting for the river to rise one night and sweep them out to sea. I’ve seen small cradles floating by, the wrecks of house, chairs, and a great rage of ash— pale water draining terror from the sky: this is all yours, poor man, for your wife and crop, dog and tools, for you to learn to beg. No water climbs to the homes of gentlemen whose snowy collars flutter on the line. It feeds on this rolling mire, these ruins winding their idle course to the sea with your dead, among roughcut tables and the luckless trees that bob and tumble turning up bare root.
Translated from the Spanish by John Felstiner
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
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