TogetherGreen -- Again

I wrote this essay as the Director’s message for the January 2010 edition of Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s members magazine. I am sharing it here because the story of the seventh generation is especially relevant to TogetherGreen and to our conservation projects, including mine at Lehigh Gap where we are turning a Superfund site into a nature center. To learn more about LGNC visit www.lgnc.org.

TogetherGreen -- Again

December 31, 2009 marks the end of my 16-month TogetherGreen Fellowship. The TG program is sponsored by an alliance between Toyota Motors North America and the National Audubon Society (see www.togethergreen.com). Last year, 40 TG Fellows were selected by Audubon to participate in the Fellowship program and I wrote a year ago about our Conservation Leadership Institute at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. A major goal of TogetherGreen is to engage diverse new audiences in conservation. The fellows are certainly a diverse group -- diverse in age, race, religion, and conservation projects.


During the last week of October, Audubon and Toyota brought the 40 Fellows in the first class (there will be five classes over five years) back together for a retreat to share stories, celebrate achievements, and continue learning from each other and from the Audubon staff and guest speakers at the retreat. The retreat itself met all expectations and more. I find it very difficult to explain the energy, the passion, and support we all feel for each other as TG Fellows and the staff who worked with us. I now have brothers and sisters in conservation around the nation (in 23 states) that I know I could turn to for help if it is needed. I see their names published in national magazines like Audubon. We keep in touch via email and Facebook, and although that will diminish over time, there is a special bond with these folks that can never be broken. Knowing they are out there working like we are for conservation is an inspiration to me. If you want to get an idea of what happened in Washington, listen to Drew Lanham's speech on the last day of the retreat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDm4twqHIIc). Drew is one of the Fellows and we all looked up to him as our spokesperson.

The retreat took place at the new National Museum of the American Indian. The new museum is beautiful and inspiring and I surely recommend you visit it the next time you are in Washington DC. One of the features of the retreat was a guided tour of the museum and the young Cherokee woman who guided us was excellent and made the tour and the museum feel authentic.

One of the items she showed us is a sculpture on the 4th floor -- don't miss this and its interpretation if you visit. Featured in the sculpture were George Washington and two Oneida Iroquois -- a clan mother and a chief. These two took food to our soldiers at Valley Forge in the terrible winter of our revolution and quite possibly changed the course of history. There are many other features on the statue -- wolf, turtle, bear, eagle, a rock in the white pine tree, a wampum belt -- all with meaning and interest.

But it was the back of the statue that made an impression on us all. There was a little Oneida girl representing the seventh generation. She represents the American Indian tradition of making decisions thinking how they will affect the seventh generation of descendants. That's your grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's children.

We stood silently listening to the guide tell us about this and also her tradition of knowing the presence of her grandmothers watching over her. At this point I realized how appropriate is was for this TogetherGreen event to be at this museum and how much what we do at Lehigh Gap fits with this philosophy. We took a ravaged landscape and began the process of healing and recovery that will go on for generations. We leave behind a legacy and I hope the seventh generation who comes after us gets to enjoy what we have left behind and continues to care for it.

My TG Fellowship officially ends on December 31, but the fellowship will continue -- with the Fellows, Audubon staff, the conservation heroes of the past, and the generations of conservationists still to come.

Dan Kunkle
Executive Director, Lehigh Gap Nature Center