At the Conservation Alliance Breakfast yesterday, Dr. John Francis taught the standing-room crowd an important sign language gesture. He put both hands to his waist and mimed emptying his pockets.
"I have no money," he said. The gesture was one he used often as he walked across the country after committing to a vow of silence. John Sterling, director of the Conservation Alliance, uses the gesture all too often, he joked. "I didn't have any money. All I had was right now. That's all we have," he said.
But the breakfast was proof that the Conservation Alliance does indeed have money donated by a passionate membership of profitable outdoor industry companies. In October, the nonprofit sent checks totaling $400,000 to 17 local grassroots conservation organizations committed to preserving wild places.
The organizations ranged from the high-profile Alaska Wilderness League, which has been battling to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other Arctic wild lands, to the Friends of the Allegheny Wilderness in Pennsylvania.
Francis, however, reminded the crowd that it was possible to make a difference without money, without even speaking. The author of "Planetwalker" spent 22 years eschewing motorized transport. He also spent 17 years not speaking. Both were the best personal statements he thought he could make after witnessing an oil spill and wanting to do something about it.
Along the way, he earned a Ph.D. in land resources, was hired by the Coast Guard to write oil-spill regulations and became a United Nations goodwill ambassador.
Francis stressed that to save the environment, it's important to listen to people, and above all, exercise compassion. "How we treat others is our first line in how we treat the environment," he said, strumming his banjo and describing the events that started him on his long voyage.
"It takes two to have an argument," he said, explaining what 17 years of silence taught him. "Sometimes we have to let go of who we think we are in order to become the new thing we are becoming," he added.
