Love affair with a river spawned activism

Published 6:00 am Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Small acts led Mark Dubois to rally environmental voices around the planet.

Island resident Mark Dubois co-organized the first international Earth Day in 1990, an event that inspired 200 million people to act.

It all started when he fell in love with a river.

To the teenage Dubois, California’s Stanislaus River was an adrenaline-rush for whitewater rafting, but also brought “magic of the quiet waters.” It reconnected him to nature.

“This place made me come alive,” recalled Dubois.

When the Stanislaus was threatened by a dam, Dubois began writing letters to save it – a simple act, among millions of others that Earth Day has inspired each year since its founding in 1970 in the U.S by Dennis Hayes.

Each act may be small, but together they become significant in their number.

“The only reason we know about problems is because people speak out,” Dubois said.

A dam on Dubois’ beloved Stanislaus would flood some areas, destroying habitat while keeping fish from swimming upstream.

From his letter writing, Dubois eventually started Friends of the River, which got a state-wide initiative to protect the river through the ballot in 1974.

It was defeated, but realizing there were other rivers to be saved, Dubois started the International Rivers Network and ended up fighting for river preservation for 10 years.

Dam projects grew out of the 1930s and ’40s when they brought jobs and created farmlands. But by the 1970s, although Dubois felt building more dams didn’t make economic sense, the government kept scheduling new projects as a matter of course.

“Many (pro-river groups) lost, but many succeeeded, but whether we won or lost, we’d contributed to something we didn’t realize,” Dubois said. “What forced them to reassess (dam building) was these grassroots groups.”

Dubois got the chance to reach beyond rivers when Hayes, a Washington resident, asked him to coordinate the first international Earth Day.

Dubois accepted and moved to Bainbridge Island in 1989.

Starting nine months before Earth Day events, co-coordinators Dubois and Teresa McGlashan sent out letters asking groups and individuals to be “part of the largest environmental movement in history.” The pair helped those who responded forge links and find each other through a monthly newsletter of who was doing what for Earth Day.

In the end, 200 million people in 141 countries responded, including schoolchildren, and folks from every province in Turkey and every sector in the Philippines – from passing legislation to planting trees. Dubois credits the grassroots nature of Earth Day with that “boggling” response.

“It’s part of saying ‘this is up to you.’ Earth Day was a tool for anybody to use,” he said. “Although very ad hoc, it continues to grow. It resonates with people’s spirit that we need to give back to the Earth.”

International Earth Day in 2000, which Dubois also coordinated, attracted 200 million people from 184 countries.

He believes there is no “us” or “them,” that every person needs to take personal responsibility for caring for the earth rather than waiting for the government or someone else to act.

“We can do a lot of things (hurtful to the earth) when we’re disconnected. I know everyone cares,” Dubois said. “On ‘Spaceship Earth’ there are no passengers, only crew. We can’t waste time fighting each other.”

The first step is to fall in love.

“Find an issue you care about and join those (with the same interest) or start your own,” Dubois said. “When our hearts are open, that’s when our passions come out.”

Locally, Dubois chops ivy off trees at Fort Ward State Park. Nationally and internationally, he works under the umbrella of the nonprofit WorldWise, which he founded in 1990 to change the direction of World Bank investments.

At first he protested outside the World Bank meetings, then he got inside to lobby the bank directors.

“The effect (of development) was squandering lives and people in third world nations,” DuBois said. “It was not helping sustainable and flourishing development.”

Dubois brought the people on the ground who had been impacted by the World Bank developments to be heard by the bank directors. Today he continues to help citizens around the world be heard to help generate an environmental network for healing the planet.

“I want more voices to be heard. When people choose to use their voices, things slowly change,” Dubois said. “We need many more voices to change (the way things are) for future generations and other species we share a planet with.”

* * * * *

Starting small

Earth Day activities in Bainbridge schools this year:

Woodward Middle School’s annual litter pickup (April 15)

Mr. Erler’s fifth-grade class at Sakai landscaping to improve bird habitat (April 22)

Mr. Olson’s sixth-grade science class tracking California Gray Whales migrating along the Oregon coast as part of a simulated maritime project (April 20-22)

Wilkes school’s annual sunflower planting (April 22)

At Ordway school, classes will sing songs about the earth and nature and perform skits with environmentally themed stories, followed by outdoor activities such as litter pickup and nature walks.

At Blakely, the kindergarten class is hatching and releasing butterflies.

For a calendar of Earth Day events on Bainbridge Island, see page A12.