PUP at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference

The Public Interest Environmental Law Conference was a great venue for PUP. My only wish is for more time!  We could have used half a day for the panel and then more time for hours of discussion, and hours-long question and answer sessions. 

The Public Interest Environmental Law Conference was a great venue for PUP. My only wish is for more time!  We could have used half a day for the panel and then more time for hours of discussion, and hours-long question and answer sessions.  My happy role with PUP is to engage the public, the Public United for Parks, about their hopes, dreams, and concerns about the National Park System in general and, specifically, about new National Parks.  Maybe next year we can have our own all day conference!
 
Almost as important as meeting the public, however, the meeting was an opportunity for Erica and me to talk face to face with two of our board members:  Michael Kellett from Restore the North Woods in Maine; and Tom Ribe from Caldera Action in New Mexico.  Our board comes from across the country, so these rare times for personal conversation produce great results.
 
Tom and I are going to kick off PUP’s first listening tour in a few weeks, meeting with the public at two REI presentations, March 16 and 17, in Santa Fe, then Albuquerque. He will talk about Valles Caldera, a fabulous place in the Jemez Mountains we in New Mexico have loved and are most interested in having added to the National Park System.
 
Erica and I also spent valuable time with Michael Painter from the California Wilderness, had two hours of Andy Stahl’s valuable time away from ASFEE.  I stayed with a law student, not to recall my law school days, but because I believe that the twenty-somethings are going to be the enlightened responders to the world’s needs.  I was no disappointed.  Sophia Muo Tiang and I sat up and talked until after midnight the first night, and spent the entire evening with other law students in creative, imaginative discussion about, among other things, a recent case brought to protect elephants in a circus that was thrown out on standing issues.
 
Whenever I am asked about my business, I am met with smiles and encouragement.  The mutual friend and his wife we stayed with in Portland spent our entire dinner hour asking questions and making valid recommendations.  Erica Nagel and his wife Darby Smith will be key to PUP’s northwest listening tour scheduled next fall.