By Bruce Urben, President
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s April 2020 Newsletter edition.
Lately it seems the only thing on most of our minds is the Coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has certainly changed our world in the last several weeks! No one person, company, business, recreation or organization has not been touched by this issue. Lost amid all the dire news of infection numbers and deaths are those heartwarming stories of human compassion, teamwork and the hordes of volunteers trying to make life a little more bearable for all of those most stricken. Volunteers are our country’s lifeblood. I know that first hand by the work they do for our organization! Thank you to all volunteers, together we will get through this hurdle known as COVID-19.
Bruce’s grandkids, at a DNR banding event last August
April brings another thought to my mind, and that is the annual Earth Day observance on April 22nd. This year marks the 50 year anniversary of Earth Day and the modern environmental movement of 1970. Earth Day has a special meaning for me and a number of my high school classmates as we graduated amid the environmental fervor of early 1970’s. As a junior, I knew I wanted to “fight pollution” as a career and make our world a better place for my kids and my grandkids. As a result, I ended up working for the WDNR for 38 years in the Environmental Regulation side of the Department.
Little did I know in the early 1970’s that several people from Wisconsin would leave such a legacy from the conservation and environmental prospective. Without the work of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson there never would have been a mass organization to focus on our environment and the annual Earth Day recognition. Without the work of Professor Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin we would not have been able to approach conservation as a state of harmony between men and land. Leopold taught us that land is a “community” and is the basic concept of ecology. Incidentally, this is the concept that WWA uses in designing our wetland restoration projects.
Wisconsin has always been a leader in this field, and I am sure that some of our next high school graduates will be leaders in this field in the future!
As April comes around, please take a minute to think about our environment and what we can do to continue to make Mother Earth a better place. Consider taking a few minutes to remind ourselves of our great accomplishments since that first Earth Day back in April, 1970. It may just give us a break from all the news of COVID-19 and the fears we are feeling.
Our medical and healthcare professionals tell us it’s okay to go outside, take a walk or a bike ride in nature – maybe even pick up a good book. What would I recommend? Of course “Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold!
Happy Earth day, 2020!