2011 SFI Annual Conference

Presentations

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011: Keynote Address

Remarks by Larry Selzer
President and CEO, The Conservation Fund
SFI 2011 Annual Conference, Burlington, Vermont
Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011

I have been a part of SFI since its very beginning, and every time I visit with the many people associated with SFI, I learn something new about emerging issues, about the partners who make things happen on the ground, and about the program itself.

To paraphrase those awful commercials we used to see on television for the Hair Club for Men, I am not only a Board member of SFI, I'm a program participant as well. The Conservation Fund now owns and manages almost 100,000 acres of working forests around the country – all of it on the tax rolls, actively managed, and certified under SFI – and we, like many of you, have felt firsthand the pain and glory of being a forestland owner.

Population increases, global competition, shifts in land ownership, loss of domestic markets, disincentives in the tax code, government regulation – it isn't easy being a forestland owner – and the ongoing economic crisis has only made it worse.

In addition, as a nonprofit, believe me, I've spent my share of time explaining why a so-called conservation organization supports working forests, cutting trees instead of just leaving them standing as God and the activists intended.

Even in my own office we have young people requesting that we go paperless, not understanding the direct connection between robust markets for forest products and the willingness and ability of landowners to keep forests as forests.

Reminds me of that great line in the movie Cool Hand Luke when the prison warden says to Paul Newman, "What we've got is a failure to communicate."

You see, our inability to clearly articulate the importance of working forests is at the heart of our collective failure to align policies and practices toward ensuring that our nation's working forests remain forests.

Advocacy for working forests is as fractured as a mirror that has fallen to the floor, with just as many sharp edges, and the result is that forests are shrinking. From the remote backwoods to groves near small towns: 35 acres here, 500 there. The decline is so incremental it masks a crisis. You wake up one morning and the forest you took for granted has bulldozers tearing up the trees.

13 million acres lost since 1992. Another 23 million acres, or more, projected to be lost by the middle of this century.

The pace of the losses is staggering.

And the current economic downturn is no cure. America continues to add 2.7 million people each year, and by the turn of the century we are expected to reach 600 million. Already, we lose about a million and a half acres of forestland each year in this country, and the needs of these new Americans will place even greater stress on what remains.

We need a new narrative, and we need to inject some urgency into its development.

Yet, this too is not without pitfalls. We must be thoughtful about the words we choose, as how we frame our arguments will make all the difference to those that we want to hear our message.

Words matter. And so, today, I'd like to propose a new way of talking about working forests that I believe will elevate them to a much higher level of discourse when it comes to policy decisions, funding and citizen support, and here it is:

Forests are infrastructure.

Not forests as wilderness, not forests as parks, not forests as sanctuaries for wildlife, or forests for recreation.

But forests as infrastructure.

Just like our rail lines, fiber optic cables and the interstate highway system, forests are an essential part of our nation's infrastructure, and we should start investing in them accordingly.

Listen to what, Peter Kilborn, a writer for the New York Times, said about the nation's highways back in 2001:

"The 46,000-mile network of limited-access roads that make up the Interstate System is a linear economy-on-wheels, a distinct and self-sustaining 51st state, in a sense, that generates life and commerce . . ."

What a marvelous description – a linear economy on wheels…a distinct and self-sustaining 51st state.

Well, I suggest that our nation's working forests should be considered our 52nd state – a self-sustaining 400 million-acre economy in green that provides us with clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, carbon sinks to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a source of renewable energy - not to mention the more than 2 million jobs that depend on them.

It is profoundly disturbing to see Congress's current treatment of infrastructure writ large, and forests writ small – branding all investments as waste and zeroing out, for the second time, all funding in support of working forests, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the highly successful Forest Legacy Program that is targeted specifically at conserving private working forests.

This is government at its worst – shortsighted and shallow. America cannot cut its way to greatness, and the private sector cannot shoulder alone the burden of rebuilding our critical infrastructure. These investments benefit us all – clean air, clean water, energy independence, good jobs - and are precisely the kinds of investments that we should be making right now.

We tend not to notice our infrastructure until we have a problem.

As a nation, we didn't acknowledge that our bridges were crumbling until one fell into the Mississippi River. And we didn't worry about the loss of 90% of the wetlands along the Louisiana coast until New Orleans was nearly wiped out. And even before Hurricane Irene, we didn't seem to care that our electrical grid was terribly outdated until California, Texas and the entire northeast suffered blackouts.

We need to fully recognize the critical importance of working forests before they are gone and the services they provide are no longer available.

The good news is that most Americans have already accepted the fact that we need to invest mightily in our nation's infrastructure.

In a recent national poll, a near unanimous 94% of Americans were concerned about our nation's infrastructure. Fully 84% of the public wants more money spent to improve America's infrastructure. And here's the kicker: a majority of Americans said they were prepared to pay 1% more in taxes if that's what the money was used for.

Our challenge is to make sure that working forests are included in the mix.

Perhaps we should take a page out of the farmer's playbook. Beginning in the 1950s, our nation's two million farmers began to speak about food independence as a key component of national security, and I don't need to remind any of you how much money is invested in agriculture through the Farm Bill each year.

There are only two million farmers in this country and yet their clout is enormous.

There are over 10 million private forestland owners, and yet we command only a fraction of the nation's attention. We need to come together and speak with one voice about the need for strong markets, reducing regulatory risk, favorable tax policy and dedicated public funding.

We need to reframe our conversations about forests to include water security, energy independence and jobs here at home, for these too are parts of national security.

And there is something else we must do as well. You see, before we can ask the American people to invest more in forests, we first need to convince them that those forests are, and will be, well managed - and that's where forest certification comes in.

Certification provides the public a window into the forest, and it provides them with independent assurance that certified forests are managed well. And, it is working.

Certification has fundamentally changed the way forests are managed here in North America - SFI alone has certified more than 190 million acres in North America and, in collaboration with state forestry associations, universities and others, has trained more than 130,000 loggers – a record of success that no other forest certification standard can match.

These achievements are in part why I came back to the SFI Board. I came back because SFI is making a real difference on the ground. I came back because there is so much more to do to make sure we do not continue to lose millions of acres of working forests. I came back because the vast majority of the world's forests are not yet certified.

These are the great challenges we face, and it is what I and all my colleagues at The Conservation Fund are dedicated to addressing.

One thing I did not come back for, however, was to waste countless hours responding to the steady stream of falsehoods being spread about SFI.

John Burroughs said "To treat your facts with imagination is one thing. To imagine your facts is another."

The kind of behavior we see out of the activist community represents a profound crisis in leadership. I cannot think of a more withering indictment of the environmental movement. The continued actions of a small group that is fanatically mired in an ideology of the past is proof that they are bereft of any ideas about how to expand conservation in the future, reverting only to dissembling and name calling.

This is not leadership, and they are not leaders. Albert Camus said, "The most incorrigible vice is that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything."

It is time for the foolishness to stop.

We face great challenges in conservation today – the very premise of environmental regulation and public funding is under attack, and if we are not careful, we will lose them for years to come. These are the issues real environmental leaders are focused on.

And don't think this lack of leadership is solely the purview of activists.

Too many corporate leaders give in at the first sign of pressure, allowing company policy to drift weakly on the current called "risk avoidance'.

A friend of mine, watching corporate behavior of late, told me he was thinking of opening a new consulting practice that he called 'capitulation counseling'. I fear that his new business would do well.

Leadership means standing up for what is right, not for what is expedient.

Across the board, we can and must do better than this, and so I offer some words of advice – to government, to industry and to environmentalists.

To our elected officials: It is time to invest in our future - time to invest in those things that are essential if we are to remain a great nation - energy, education, transportation, technology – and yes, forests.

Allowing our nation's working forests to be destroyed in the name of economic development is bad policy, bad economics and bad planning.

It is the ultimate disinvestment in America, and we deserve better.

This past Sunday, I stood at the crash site of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and reflected again on the events of that terrible day in 2001. Not long after the crash, I received a call from the White House asking The Conservation Fund to quietly acquire the crash site and hold it until it could be transferred to the National Park Service.

Protecting that hallowed ground was an act of leadership by the administration – it was an investment for the future so that all generations to come would know what happened and say, never again.

Today, we need a similar burst of courage and vision and leadership from our elected leaders, and I urge them to act boldly and invest in our future.

To our corporate leaders: Stiffen your spine.

Too many of you fail this basic test of leadership. You can answer questions but don't know how to ask them. You can fulfill goals, but don't know how to set them. And you can think about how to get things done but not whether they are worth doing in the first place.

SFI is a great program and you should start acting that way.

And finally to my brethren in the environmental movement, I say 'Grow up!' The world can no longer afford your petulance.

It is time for you to peel back your fear of, even contempt for the marketplace.

You cannot be pro-jobs and anti-business at the same time. You cannot love employees and hate employers.

If well managed forests are the goal, then we should all be celebrating the remarkable victory of having millions of acres of forests across North America certified. Instead, we waste precious resources while millions of acres of forests disappear.

This is wrong. It is time we began to work together to ensure that working forests remain forests, and that the rest of the world's forests are managed equally as well as they are here – those are goals worth fighting for.

As the theme of this conference says, we need to focus on the bigger picture, the bigger challenges we face with respect to working forests – whether or not we will have forests to manage in the future, and whether future generations will be prepared to inherit and be good stewards of the legacy of forested lands we will have spent our lives creating?

You see, over the past 30 years, children of the digital age have become increasingly alienated from the natural world with disturbing implications, not only for their physical fitness, but also for their long-term mental and spiritual health, and of course, for the environment.

Young people who grow up without spending time in nature are much less likely to be strong champions of the environment when they reach voting age. Twenty or thirty years from now, we will have a generation of leaders in our public, private and nonprofits institutions who will be asked to make policy and budgetary decisions about forests and wetlands who have never seen a forest, or waded a stream.

Kids today have access to an unprecedented array of media in their homes and in their bedrooms. While opening up a wealth of "virtual" experiences to the young, these technologies have made it easier and easier for children to spend less time outside.

Wall Street calls this progress. But if that's true, then Ogden Nash was right when he said, "Progress may have been a good thing at one time, but it went on a little too long."

What does it say about our priorities as a society when we will drive miles out of our way to buy free range chicken but are too busy or too scared to encourage free range children?

There is a dullness in our young people today because they have lost the spark that comes from interacting with the world around them. It is time we reclaimed the higher ground.

But how do we get there from here? Martin Luther King said that the success of any social movement depends on its ability to "show a world where people will want to go."

But where is that?

You and I may want to go to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge or the canyons of Zion National Park. But for a child in East Philadelphia, East St. Louis or East L. A., it may be someplace entirely different.

In fact, it may be the abandoned lot next door -- New York City has over 47,000 vacant land parcels totaling thousands of acres.

For decades, these have been considered liabilities, to be fenced off, avoided. What a waste. Where is the vision, the creativity in that?

Mark Twain said "you cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

I prefer Agatha Christie's outlook better.

You see, she was married to one of the preeminent archaeologists of her time. Once when she was asked what's it like to be married to an archaeologist, she replied…"It's wonderful! The older I get, the more interested he is in me!"

She was clever enough to see her age as an asset rather than a liability. And we need to be clever enough to recognize that New York City with its 47,000 abandoned lots has an amazing asset just waiting to be deployed.

This brings up a central point in our efforts to reconnect children with nature. As we become more of an urban nation, and as the demographics of our country continue to change, reconnecting children with nature will be less about bringing kids to nature, and more about bringing nature to the kids.

Taking an inner city kid from Washington, D. C. to Yellowstone is a bit like sending her to the moon for a week. It is too big a leap. We need to bring nature to these kids in a way that makes sense to them. Then, later, after they have developed a connection, a love for nature, we can make our way to Yellowstone.

By the year 2050, 85% of Americans will live in cities, and for the first time in history, we will be a majority, minority country. If we are to make nature relevant to these Americans, then we must recognize the value, not only of our national forests and wildlife refuges, but also of our neighborhood parks, wooded cul-de-sacs, and abandoned lots that have yet to be restored.

For too long, we in the environmental movement have defined nature in terms of wildness, far away and pristine. And the result is that nature has become a foreign country that we get to visit only once in a while. That will never do.

Nature must be nearby, accessible. It must be returned to our day care centers, our schools and our communities. We need to rethink our priorities and remake our culture – and that is a tall order indeed.

But, Daniel Burnham told us "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood". Restoring our connection to our natural world is no little plan, and we have little time to waste.

Consider this, there are 20 million diabetics in this country today; there will be 40 million in 2015; and, if we don't change course, 80 million in the year 2050!

Already, we spend over $2 trillion each year on health care with 95% of that spent on direct medical service – and only 5% allocated to preventing disease and promoting health and a healthy lifestyle.

The implications for the country are severe – from a health perspective, to the impact on local, state and national budgets, to corporate competitiveness, to the future of our magnificent land and water legacy. We need to rethink our approach to wellness and health – nature as the 1st prescription rather than the last.

For example, we know that patients in rooms with tree views have shorter hospitalizations and that children with ADHD who have access to natural areas are calmer and require less medication.

And we know that the presence of trees outside apartment buildings in a public housing project in inner-city Chicago predicted better coping skills, less crime and less violence.

And finally, we know that among children who play in paved over playgrounds, the leaders tend to be the most physically mature; while among children who play on green playgrounds, the leaders tend to be the most creative.

Remember, these are the future leaders of our country. With all the complexity in the world today, from global warming, to free trade and immigration, to ethnic and religious intolerance, do we really believe we can lead based on strength alone?

All Americans care about these issues. They may come to the table for different reasons, but they want a seat at the table. And we need to set a place for them. Poor people, people of color, people with disabilities, and others who have the least access to natural settings, and who may need it the most. As a nation, we will be paid back many times over.

My favorite lapel button says simply "The meek are getting ready." Now I'm not sure if the meek will inherit the earth, but I am sure young people will. And you need to help them get ready.

As I travel across all 50 states, too often I witness a culture of confrontation, rather than collaboration. Too often I am reminded of John Gardner's phrase "The war of the parts against the whole".

Over fears of liability, we post 'No Running' signs in county parks.

Over fears that our children may encounter a sociopath, we encourage sedentary, anti-social behavior by allowing our kids to spend hours in front of an electronic screen.

And over fears of nature itself, we quarantine kids under virtual house arrest, thereby ensuring that they too will fear the very thing they need the most.

For tens of thousands of years, kids went outside and played in nature, and we are reversing that in a matter of decades. The area beyond which children are free to roam has shrunk by 89% in the past 20 years.

It simply doesn't add up.

We need a Children's Bill of Rights that is explicit about the freedom to explore and improvise, about the right to experience nature in a meaningful way. If the world of our future, with all its complexity, will demand people who are able to understand and adapt, who have creativity and compassion, can we afford anything less?

In the Declaration of Independence, it says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. With all we know about the benefits of nature to children's health, cognitive ability and socialization, shouldn't access to nature be an unalienable right?

In my career, I have had the privilege of visiting with farmers, ranchers, forestland owners, hunters, fishers, and people who just like to walk in the woods.

And I have listened to citizens in small towns and big cities; in red states and blue. And while we have many differences, we share one thing in common – a love for the land.

The rancher on the Rocky Mountain Front who wants to pass on the family operation to his children, the woodlot owner in Georgia who has nurtured her forest for a generation in order to send her child to college, the grandfather on the Chesapeake Bay who wants to take his daughter duck hunting for the first time, and the urban teacher in Los Angeles who, desperate for some respite from the stress of the city, just wants to take her class to the park down the street.

These are the lands that have shaped us as a people and defined us as a nation. They provide us with clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and support millions of jobs. They teach us who we are by preserving where we have been. They nurture our souls.

They are not some kind of amenity, something that is nice to have; they are a necessity, something that we must have, and we should invest accordingly.

One hundred and fifty years ago, President Lincoln transformed this country by beginning a transcontinental railroad during a time of war.

And in 1944, FDR's GI Bill allowed millions of Americans to attend college and become the source of our technological and intellectual power.

And in 1956, President Eisenhower launched the Interstate Highway System, creating millions of jobs and a suburban economy still basic to the United States.

We need this kind of leadership now. Whether it is the National Infrastructure Bank proposed in the Senate, or President Obama's proposal to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, it is time for Congress to recognize that great nations invest for the future, and that our forests and ranches, civil war battlefields and urban parks, all are appropriate and necessary recipients of public funds.

In today's highly polarized environment when it seems there is no room for compromise, getting agreement on this may seem out of reach, but that is what leadership is all about.

Christopher Reeve, the actor, who had on the wall of his room when he was in rehab a picture of the space shuttle blasting off, autographed by every astronaut then at NASA. On top of the picture it said "We found nothing is impossible".

And Reeve said, "That should be our motto. Not a Democratic motto, not a Republican motto, but an American motto. Because it's not something one party can do alone. It's something we as a nation must do together.

"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible", he said. "Then they seem improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable."

Vast landscapes of working forests and vibrant communities that are connected to them - it is time we began to speak of these things as if they are not only possible, but inevitable. This is a vision for a great nation, and thanks to each of you, we are one step closer.

For all you have done for working forests, and for all I know that you will continue to do in the future, it has been a privilege to be with you today.