Fall at Otsego Marsh, one of Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance’s properties. Photo by Mandy Martin
As a teenager, I was charged with speaking on the virtue of faith at a Catholic retreat for some schoolmates. I read my draft to the group organizing the gathering, which included a kind, elderly priest. He spoke after I finished saying, "Topf, that was not a good presentation on faith but quite excellent on hope." That about sums up my spirituality and outlook on life then and now, short on faith but long on hope.
Hope is an essential virtue to just about every aspect of life. No hope is despair and that ruins the chances of one undertaking any positive action. One requirement for hope and focused, positive action is a reasonable expectation of some success.
If you're reading this you probably follow conservation issues. The biggest in Wisconsin for several years is the future of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. And you've been bombarded by requests, pleas, begging, and cajoling to contact legislators to ask that they support a viable Stewardship. For years, not much has happened. You can reasonably ask: does Stewardship really have a chance? Why should I send one more letter or email or make one more phone call or look for one more great example of Stewardship at work?
Gathering Waters shared the latest report on Stewardship — check it out and click on READ ALL TESTIMONY... Stay with me, now read the first testimony by the Republican authors of one of the Stewardship bills. Persist until you reach the 6th paragraph. There might be the basis for hope because these legislators indicate they are willing to keep working with other legislators and advocates of Stewardship and expect more changes to the bill.
That, and the one positive change they made to the bill already, signify that we could still convince legislators of both parties to re-create a helpful Stewardship program. It might not feel like much but that's a lot of progress from a month ago. And a genuine reason for hope.
So, yep, we could still be disappointed but we should not despair and not give up. Please, pick up the pen or phone or turn on the computer one more time and ask any legislator you know to support a Stewardship program with money for acquisitions by conservation organizations, the DNR, and local governments and a transparent, effective approval process for Stewardship grants.
By the way, Happy Thanksgiving. A couple, among many, reasons for thanksgiving: the staff, volunteers, and members of the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance who are always looking out for and caring for our birds and the conservation organizations which are working hard every day to conserve the best of Wisconsin, often under difficult circumstances.
And of course, how in the world could I write a blog on hope for bird lovers without mentioning Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers—"? That's probably the most quoted American poem in Audubon Society publications, as well it should be. I think that one meaning of the poem might be that the seemingly small Bird of Hope is brave, undaunted and lives deep within us. Our birds need us to nourish that Bird.
Take care,
Topf Wells, Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance advocacy committee
