For 35 years, the Turtle Island Restoration Network has been working to mitigate human impacts on the environment. Our mission is to mobilize people in local communities around the world to protect marine wildlife, the oceans and the inland watersheds that sustain them. As it says on our website, seaturtles.org, we accomplish this through grassroots empowerment, consumer action, strategic litigation, hands-on restoration, environmental education and promoting sustainable local, national and international environmental policies.
It would be space-prohibitive to list the entirety of this organization’s worldwide impact. As a sampling, TIRN has shut down a turtle slaughterhouse, created a National Wildlife Refuge in Nicaragua, led the way for turtle exclusion devices, blazed the trail for the mitigation of the impacts of longline and driftnet fisheries, thwarted the hunting of Hawaii’s iconic green sea turtle, realized federal caps on incidental take and closed illegal and unsustainable turtle parts trades. We organize beach cleanups and nest surveys and establish wildlife hotlines. We’re at protests. We send out action alerts. We create documentaries. We publish reports. We do direct research, outreach and advocacy that leads to positive change. We get things done.
For 27 of our 35 years, TIRN has run a program called the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, known locally as SPAWN. This program has taken as its focus the endangered central California coast coho salmon, which have declined more than 95 percent from historic levels. The Lagunitas watershed supports 10 percent to 20 percent of surviving coho. Like TIRN, SPAWN has a very long list of accomplishments. It has rescued more than 15,000 coho salmon, by hand, from certain death. It spearheaded Marin County’s long overdue streamside conservation ordinance. It has removed fish barriers and restored scores of acres of streamside habitat. SPAWN has created community gardens, including pollinator-gardens, school gardens and rain gardens. SPAWN’s native plant nursery has grown and donated, sold or hand-planted in our own projects tens of thousands of native plants. SPAWN has also taught innumerable students and volunteers about watersheds, anadromous fish, stewardship and other aspects of the environment. SPAWN put Marin coho on the map and continues to fight for their survival.
I say “we,” but it was only in June that I became TIRN’s executive director, taking over from the group’s founder, Todd Steiner. I have never, ever known anyone more devoted to the environment and social justice than Todd. And I am extremely proud to face the challenge of carrying on this work. At my first board meeting, when I was unsure of myself on some issue, one of the board directors said, “Don’t forget—no one is doing more important work than us.” I don’t expect to be unsure of myself again in the same way anytime soon.
In this day and age, I think most people accept the fact that we are facing extinction and climate crises. In 2019, the United Nations published its Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which found that around 1 million plants and animals are now threatened with extinction, many within the next few decades, due to human activity. NASA is plain-spoken about global warming, saying on its website that “there is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.”
There are, of course, people who, for some reason or other, do not care to look seriously at the human-caused state of our planet. They’re skeptical, checked-out, or oblivious. I’m sure such people have not read this far.
But if you are inclined to take such things seriously, to feel some sense of responsibility to future generations and the other creatures with whom we share the earth, don’t forget what Edmund Burke said: “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
TIRN and SPAWN have myriad opportunities to become part of the solution. Take collective action to make positive change in policy; become a volunteer, and provide in-kind contributions of labor, skills and expertise; become a financial supporter; intern with us and learn new skills and generate college credit. Pull out invasives, plant natives, harvest seeds, collect trash, adopt a sea turtle nest or coho salmon redd. Take a creek walk. Tour a restoration site. Take advantage of our landowner conservation consulting service. Reach out to us with an idea we’ve never heard of. And of course, TIRN is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, so your donation is tax-deductible. We regularly receive the highest four-star rating from Charity Navigator, the world’s largest and most trusted nonprofit evaluator.
Please join us! If you’d like to learn more, visit seaturtles.org or email me at [email protected]. Help us fight for a blue-green planet.
Ken Bouley is an environment activist who lives in Mill Valley and Inverness. In his spare time, he’s an amateur wildlife photographer and hobbyist woodworker.