Todd Paglia, ForestEthics

Todd Paglia is the founder and director of The Paper Campaign at ForestEthics. When not working to protect forests, he's often found on his road bike, far off in the distance.

It is finally the end of a long week. I am up in Sonoma at the retreat center where we've convened to discuss the past, present, and future of the Paper Campaign -- its successes, areas for growth, strategic plan for the next six months, etc. The work is the easy part; the emotional issues are what end up knocking you out. We all feel passionately about this work. In fact, most of us have walked away from mainstream careers that paid a lot more, offered a future of financial stability, required less work and far less psychic investment. But these jobs left us feeling empty inside. So the intensity level most of us bring to the work is fierce.

Add to this the fact that our task is more art than science, that we work thousands of miles away from one another and only come together a couple of times per year, that we have an infinitesimally small fraction of the funding available to our opposition, and you have a potentially explosive mixture. Consequently, a significant portion of the last few days was spent not only planning our actions for the next several months, but creating protocols for becoming more systematic in our interactions with one another. Communication and trust will be the key to our success -- as they so often are in other areas of life -- and we have spent a lot of time working on these issues.

The challenges are clear and at times daunting but I have no doubt we will win. As they say, the environmental movement is over and we won. Poll after poll shows that regardless of political affiliation, income level, religious beliefs, hometown, color, or creed, we all want clean air and clean water for ourselves and our children. That's the good news. The harder part is converting these beliefs into actions, convincing people that their vote matters, that what they buy -- or refuse to buy -- makes a difference, that when corporations try to take away the things that are precious to us we need to hold them accountable. As Edward Abbey once said, "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."

After four straight days of meetings, late nights and early mornings, planning for the future and healing the wounds we have all experienced in the past, it's time for a rest. So I'm going for a walk in the woods. For me, that's what it always comes back to -- the sun streaming through the trees, soft earth beneath my feet, the scent of cedar in the air, the cry of a hawk in the distance, and the future playing out before me, lush and vibrant.