It's been a hot minute since ya'll have delighted in the rockological sciences. I know- I was over here doing job stuff and having my lumbar spine laid open by a surgeon with the acuity of migrating albatross (which is some finely-tuned intelligence, folks). So, since we last spoke, some seriously dank s--- has been going down up here, in Spokane! I will be brief: I met this pair of women doing good things, was invited to a benefit dinner, went to the dinner, and had a braingasm all over the place. See Figure 2 for the event flyer.
There's this organization out here, in the rambling steppe of Eastern Washington, called the Spokane Riverkeepers. According to the guy on stage last Thursday, they are one of, like, 200 waterkeepers in the United States and like 50 in the western states alone! Unsure about those stats, as instead of researching the org itself I partitioned my time into compiling info on the rad series of speakers lined up for the evening. I'm gonna pause for a second to point out that this organization has legit funding and does some incredible river conservation and how did they populate their annual benefit lineup? Authors. Words. Poetry. Persons who stood in front of the hundreds of attendees and worked their fingers nervously at the edges of their books, poems, and short-stories, and smiled at us over the top of their carefully printed selections.
I don't have to convince you folks who powerful that s--- is. Ergo, the Spokane Riverkeeper knows how to play the conservation game. By that, I mean, they know that the key to any successful revitalization lies in the milquetoast efforts of pandering with outdated paradigms about the top-down method of restoration. By this, I mean the attempts to restore areas with money and laws, only to have them be sold back into industrial use after they regain the resources that are valuable. Think soy farmers, palm oil deforestation, and subsistence hunting of endangered wildlife. I think of these tactics as "bandaids." Maybe you do, too.
So, today I submit for your braining the following three speakers from last week. They're goodies. Sidebar: there is one image from each author's public appearances, and one from where I was sitting, at the Trout Unlimited table (Table #6). Just to give you a feel for the event. Ok, now get to it!
#1 The Eager Beaver Guy
Ben read from his book, Eager, about air-dropping beavers to their reintroduction sites. Which was done successfully! Check it out, him out, and educate someone on the value of beavers in ground efforts at water conservation and fire damage control.
I actually don't know if the book talks about the fire-control bit, but it's something we learned in higher ed. so I am clinging to the idea that what I learned is either A) still applicable or B) was worth the six and a half years of toil.
In any case! Read! Learn! Laugh! And enjoy Eager, by Ben Goldfarb.