Ross Freeman, American Rivers

Ross Freeman is staff scientist at the Northwest regional office of American Rivers, a conservation organization that restores and protects river systems nationwide.

There's nothing like getting out of the country to provide some perspective on your work and life. Travel abroad has a marvelous power to reconcile the necessary with the inordinate. So often we are reminded that whatever the predicament we confront at home, it will fade into obscurity compared to those faced by others on a daily basis.

I frequently encourage friends with time on their hands to go look at the United States from outside its expansive borders. While I spend time studying the best ways to dismantle dams, the largest of these structures ever known to humanity are under construction in other countries. I study the best ways to cope with polluted stormwater, while taking my clean, safe drinking water supply completely for granted.

A recent journey across Southeast Asia replenished my appreciation of the mundane and my respect for the unflappable power of the human spirit. Thanks to a fortuitous convergence of events, I managed to spend four months traversing land and sea from Indonesia to Tibet. Sure, I saw some environmental disasters, but I also witnessed numerous local efforts to improve stewardship on shoestring budgets.

Half of the countries I visited have a greater proportion of their terrain under protection than we do. The U.S. has a sound history of environmental protection; after all, we supposedly invented the idea of national parks. But now we won't spend the money to maintain them. Congress refuses to allocate money to the Superfund program, and our country -- the largest emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet -- refuses to ratify the international Kyoto Protocol. We are losing ground.

That's why we need community more than ever: We could do with some encouragement. This past May, most of my office headed to southern Washington en masse to participate in the annual River Rally, organized by another national conservation group, River Network. The event migrates around the country and draws close to 500 participants, from backyard activists to national staffers. We attended workshops, caught up with old friends, solicited feedback on our programs, and conducted educational outreach at our booth.

Meeting people who share my fascination with flowing water and conversing with others seeking sustainable river management renewed my hope for a healthy future. After hearing so many stories about overcoming the odds, I was reminded of just how much the river movement has to be thankful for. And of course, the river trip halfway through the five-day conference didn't hurt either! We heard a memorable lunchtime plenary by Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970 and the first international version 20 years later. He figures that these are the most dire times the Earth has ever faced because of the potential worldwide effects of environmental mismanagement by developed nations. The assessment could have landed like a lead balloon in the midst of a rapt crowd, but instead Hayes galvanized listeners into redoubling their efforts to fight for what they believe in. It was heady stuff.

I've enjoyed this week of forced writing. I spent the winter of 1994 interning at High Country News, a subscription journal that covers environmental news across the Western U.S. It was a turning point for me, not only because I learned so much about good writing, but also because I saw the inner workings of the federal government. I began to realize why any positive action for the landscape took so long to bear fruit. The red tape and backdoor deals were truly impressive.

Several years later, I resolved to explore the government from the inside when I became a climbing ranger at Mt. Rainier National Park. My job was to help run the mountaineering program by issuing permits, staffing the high camps at 10,000 feet, conducting patrols to the glacier-covered summit, and running frequent search-and-rescue operations. As one of only a handful of citizens in the country getting paid by our federal government to climb mountains every day, I felt unspeakably lucky! I learned volumes about the power of human endurance and resolve. But I also saw how much inertia exists in any large federal land agency against change, large or small. Now I confront that inertia from the other side.

Today will be an abbreviated one because most of us are heading up to my coworker's wedding in the San Juan Islands north of here. We can thank her for the half-day off, and no doubt a fun weekend ahead. It's interesting that so many conservationists are unmarried: Of the nine staff in the Northwest office, only three have taken the plunge. This parallels what I've noticed at previous jobs. Perhaps the sheer intensity we throw at our careers becomes a relationship in itself? Almost by default in the Northwest, salmon will be served at the reception. But this will be wild salmon, not hatchery-raised nor farm-bred. This issue can raise hackles around here, but there are some unavoidable facts.

If we direct our energy toward rebuilding the wild fish populations that evolved here, we will also be doing the right thing for the river ecosystems that are required to support them. That's good for everybody. Dumping truckloads of hatchery-raised fish into our Northwest rivers every year masks the decline in the wild populations and their -- our -- environment. It's a bit like putting a fresh coat of paint over a rotting house: It looks good for a while, but the wood is still decaying underneath. Consumer dollars spent on wild fish make an economic statement that we value more than just the fish.

Similarly, fish farmed in floating net pens are cheap, but it comes at a steep environmental price: They produce an amazing amount of toxic waste (including antibiotics) that accumulates in the nearshore, to the detriment of other organisms. Pens in the Pacific Ocean often contain Atlantic salmon, and several hundred thousand escape every year to compete with the fish that belong here. Not to mention the fact that farmed fish are actually dyed pink so that they look like their wild cousins. Don't worry, we won't debate this at the wedding!

I have to admit that I've been arriving early every day in order to complete these diary entries, and I look forward to a slightly less crazed schedule next week. I have firm plans to excavate my desk and vigorously attack my inbox. In these challenging times, I find encouragement in the words of the conservation masters, and I leave you with a quote from Aldo Leopold: "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."