Terry Tempest Williams Biography

Taking on a journey stretching well over 2,100 miles, covering fourteen states (from Maine to Georgia) by foot is no simple stroll where at the end of the day a comfortable bed and hot meal would await you. Instead, hiking the Appalachian Trail can be an endless battle with all the elements of mother nature: whereas in one state spring would have sprung already with wildflowers dressing the forest floors and insects buzzing through crisp air, on other parts of the trail it [the weather conditions] would be smothering heat, but meanwhile a few states north the rain would fall endlessly with gusts of cold wind, and snow would blanket the pathways of the trail and more than likely blizzards

Even if the lands are protected, they are not safe from the ecological burden of protecting our borders. Due to changes in legislation the Border Patrol Agency is exempt from stringent environmental laws. This is true in any of the areas surrounding the border, and they are looking to expand the radius of exemption, to better protect our borders. The Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, and the Northern Jaguar Project are looking to reinstall a social rule which the United States already implemented with the Endangered Species Act. This legislation created the social rule that no species should be forced into extinction due to human activities. Riders on the Illegal Immigration Act and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and the Real ID act of 2005 allowed this social rule to become obsolete. Social rules changes in favor of the environment occur when the public is largely in support for saving the environment. However this support can be splintered by another need of the country especially when the opposing discourse has a crisis wave to ride. This case shows how the issue of border security triumphs environmental needs due to the pertinence of immigration reform along with the crisis impact caused by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The scenes journey along the Appalachian Trail captures the true magnificence and greatness of the eastern U.S. of wilderness. Starting in the Deep South at the foothills of the smoky mountains, this journey overwhelms one with southern beauty while also making one experience the South’s legendary simplicity and retreat from the urban gridlock of modern society. The Appalachian Trail’s scenery attracts many people from all over the world to witness it for them. Causing many people to come with their families and possibly volunteer.

Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”(1) The Keystone pipeline project is an excellent example of our entitled view regarding the environment. The last phase of the Keystone pipeline has finally been approved by President Trump after nine years of governmental delay. The first three phase have been completed, however this phase named the XL is the final phase of the Keystone pipeline project and it is the most important. Spanning two

I'm an established freelance writer based in San Diego covering environmental stories in the Southland and beyond. My focus is the intersection

The Holocene is long gone and the Anthropocene, an epoch marked by human progress and environmental decay, has begun. Pronounced human activity has led to rising carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and methane concentrations that disproportionately affect terrestrial and marine life (Kolbert 108). We have outcompeted marine predators with our fisheries and led many to extinction with our fertilization practices. Horrified, the Conservation Movement has attempted to influence the way Americans act towards nature, but its mission; to “preserve and protect America’s wildlife” remains an idea that the average citizen is a stranger to. In view of a possible “Sixth Extinction,” it is imperative that biodiversity is preserved by incorporating rewilding techniques

Three issues Americans face in 2017 are the Trump campaigns against national preservations and oil drilling, poaching, and extinction, as well as climate change and water pollution. Trump is launching a campaign against the Arctic National Preserve to open for oil drilling which can cause major problems in the future and could quite possibly be politically explosive. In addition on another side of the world, poachers are hunting innocent animals to near extinction, and finally, climate change due to oil drilling and pollution cause people and animals to face a huge threat. There must be something that can be done to fix these issues.

Throughout the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th centuries, we saw an extreme shift in mindsets about the environment and how it should be managed. Iconic utilitarian conservationists, such as Gifford Pinchot, led this march to a more scientific approach to conserving land to produce maximum resources efficiently for the benefit of the people and country. Even after Pinchot’s firing as the first ever Chief of the U.S. Forest services in 1910, we would see his conservation principals integrated throughout years to come in pivotal environmental issues that would abrupt within the United States. Throughout these national issues such as the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, WWII and the Cold War, along with others, we would see the need for this utilitarian conservation movement idea to help progress us into the modern “green” era of scientific environmentalism. With these events, the inventory of federal land use and water resources agencies would be prompted and encouraged to develop and transform into more

Mexico border has some of the largest amounts of protected land in North America, in fact there are over eight different national or state parks, forests, or land preserves, on both sides of the boundary. The Rio Grande valley, where the great river is still thin is one of the most biodiverse areas in the United States. However, the extensive building of fencing has caused a drop in biodiversity in the area. Newsweek wrote that “the barrier affects as much as 70 percent of the valley's three national wildlife refuges,” and that “the wall puts additional stress on Arroyo toads, California red-legged frogs, black-spotted newts and Pacific pond turtles--all listed as endangered or threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature--and the jaguarondi, a small wildcat endangered in the U.S. and threatened in Mexico.” This is a serious problem for the area, as many of the towns and people rely on this biodiversity as a source of income through tourism. This border could also put stress on one of the most amazing joint U.S. Mexican co-operations, in Big Bend National Park. In this area U.S. National Park Service and Mexican firefighters are constantly working on keeping invasive tall grass in check on the border, with controlled burns, without this effort one of the last pristine areas in the continental U.S. could disappear. Donald Trump’s wall proposal would work to effectively end this co-operation and block off more area from

Careers In The Wild By: Branden Arndt Park Naturalist Details- A person in this career makes activities

As for me, I'm an established freelance writer based in San Diego covering environmental issues in Southern California and beyond. Over the years, I've covered many aspects of the food web and I take a cook's delight in applying those lessons in the

Driving up a steep mountain in my 2007 trailblazer, my palms are sweaty and I am shaking. “This is finally happening”, I whisper to myself. Its mid October ,and the crisp air in the Rocky Mountains is tousling my hair through the open window. I am thinking about when I first dreamt of this moment, it was junior year of high school and we had just read “Walden” by Ralph Waldo Emerson . I was so eager to escape like he did, to separate myself from society , to not be influenced by anything except for nature itself. This is the time I have been waiting for, for eight long years... my entire life is about to change.

The Federal Government owns nearly “30 percent” of the United States land mass- almost “650 million acres of land” (Paul, 2012). National parks, National Forests, and National Wildlife Refuges comprise the federally owned and managed public areas. These areas are managed by three main entities: “The National Park Service (NPS), The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)” (Edwards, 2012). The primary goal of these three agencies is to avoid the tragedy of the commons by preserving the natural resources on these lands, while still exhibiting economic growth based on them. Although, the Cato Institute study conducted in 2009 revealed shortcomings in the current managed plan. It showed overgrazed BLM lands,

The environmental photographer is often driven by a political agenda to expose “damage, human impact, pollution, solutions to these problems and in a sense a warning cry about the impact of humanity on our earth as well as the power of the natural world” (Ed Kashi, personal communication, January 20, 2011). Another photographer said, “The work of photographers specializing in environmental issues is actually the combination of social and environmental activism. Straight "nature photography" is responsible to inspiring the viewer and connecting them to a love of nature in (hopefully) all of us, where-as environmental photojournalism is responsible for taking that consciousness to the next level of being more aware of the human effects on nature and the need to protect it” (Bridget Besaw, personal communication, March 2, 2011). Like this, the environmental photographer uses the camera to reveal the decay or spoiled land, endangered cultures and wildlife, loss of open spaces, impoverished human life, environmental injustice, rising sea levels, pollution, global warming, and other ecological concerns causing the degradation of the Earth. They question what they see and purposefully use photography and all media to send a message about what is happening in the world. Hence, environmental photographers are visual advocates for people, places, spaces, nature, and sea and driven by a social responsibility to protect the entire environment.

Since the only way to speak one’s mind and talk to each other was through verbal words, it is very powerful. The quote Storytelling is the oldest form of education" by Terry Tempest William is a great example showing that storytelling has a purpose behind it. In this case it is to teach others and even yourself. Stories have been around for many years and each one has a lesson to be taught. As time goes on there are other ways to get education but storytelling will still be the oldest and the best. This is because as it is passed down and told to other people it adds value and meaning to the story. Still today we use storytelling, since storytelling is just talking to others about a certain topic we do every day including at home, school and