After the death of our kit in March, I was contacted by Susan JunFish of Parents for a Safer Environment. She has worked fairly tirelessly since the group’s founding in 2002 to raise awareness about pesticides and safer alternatives. She advocates Integrated Pest Management (IPM) a policy which utelizes chemical control only after less invasive measures have failed. She points to the fact that many of our pesticides are known endocrine disruptors and carcinogens, and that when studies show that they are safe in low levels they are failing to take into account our hazardous lives of multiple and cumulative exposure.
Susan informed me that even though San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties had stopped spraying herbicides on plants that lined the water ways, Contra Costa was still a prime offender. These chemicals leach into our waterways and travel downstream right to the beavers. She wondered whether there could be any effect on kit vulnerability overall because of this cumulative exposure, and whether we would be willing to explore this if funds could be obtained for a grant to look at liver toxicity in the necropsy of the kit.
An interesting and eye opening conversation began. Susan was interested in using our visibility on this issue, and I was interested in providing the most safe habitat for our beavers. On Monday Susan had arranged a meeting with State Senator Mark DeSaulnier’s office and a few community leaders interested in the issue. She invited Worth A Dam to be there, along with a representative of the West County Toxics Coalition, Moraga Parks & Rec Commission, Life Gardens, and Gardens at Heather Farms. The plan was to explain the issue, its far-reaching consequences, and demonstrate broad community support for Senator DeSaulnier if he should introduce legistation about a statewide IPM.
As I listened to Susan’s intelligent and persuasive presentation, I was a particularly struck by how much endless pressure she had already administered, and how well she managed her own frustration at the snail’s pace with which change moved forward. It reminded me that part of good advocacy is not just passion but temperament. You need to keep saying the same thing over and over again, sometimes to the very same people, and not get furious, impatient or condescending. You need to be able to hear each repetitive, obstinant, insular and ignorant question and answer it like you were thinking about the issue for the first time. You need to appear to weigh the pros and cons of your position even though you have a wealth of data and research to back you up and you know the other side is bogus and wrong.
(In short, you need to walk softly and carry your big stick under your coat.)
As a woman who has spent a comparatively tiny fraction of time trying to advocate for these beavers, I can tell you how enormously exhausting that is. Not just the tireless, scrappy, confrontation of THEIR SIDE but the sustained, internal self management of MY SIDE that restricts one from exploding at one’s (sometimes stubbornly) unenlightened audience, slapping them on the forehead and yelling “WTF!!!!!!!” Self management and other management is a massive responsibility, and one that I’m learning certain kinds of people are better suited for.
I definitely understand why some give up on the reasoned discourse side, and just chain themselves to a tree or do this:
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=mZeEu_DmSzI]
The outcome of the meeting? The snail moved forward a 16th of an inch–a conversation was started, a dialogue opened. Another day in the life of an advocate.
