Protecting our land and water used to be above politics. It should be again.
Iroquois wisdom held that we should think ahead seven generations. Today, too often, we seem challenged to think ahead even one.
The consequences fall not only on our kids, but the new generation of other species, like our region’s iconic orcas. Our resident pods, starved for the chinook salmon that make up 80 percent of their diet, have now dwindled to 75 members. So, probably like you, I was devastated to learn that a new calf, the first in three years, died shortly after birth. His grief-stricken mother, unable to say goodbye, has been pushing it’s body around the Sound, keeping it close.
One of the proud achievements of my organization, Forterra, is working with a group of determined partners to save shoreline along Maury Island, where now and again you get a heart-stopping view of a breaching orca. A moment like that is captured in a large photo hanging in my office. We never weary of looking at it; it says so much about this region, its beauty, its bounty, its possibilities.
