We all live in watersheds – the area that drains to a common waterway, such as creeks, streams, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, aquifers, or even the ocean – and our individual actions can directly affect the health of all who live there including forests, fish, and wildlife. With simple awareness of the living system we share, we can all help protect our environment and our planet.
In the late 1970s, some residents of the remote Mattole River Valley on the coast of Northern California discovered that the native salmon in their river were almost extinct. Rather than accepting this, they decided to take action. Now the salmon have made a comeback. See how this citizen-based restoration project has taught these people that “salmon don’t just live in streams, they live in the watersheds.”
This entertaining and educational documentary shows how any group of citizens can restore the ecological health of their watershed and, in the process, improve the quality of their community. Never has this been more relevant than now with diminishing salmon populations all over the world.
Today, hundreds of communities, schools, and restoration teams are using the valuable knowledge gained by the dedicated volunteers in the Mattole River Valley, to transform their own watersheds so the salmon can return.
Watch the video here:
It is safe to say that almost everyone lives in a habitat that has been damaged by modern industrial life. The extent of that damage varies greatly – urban areas are mostly developed for human living and working, while suburban areas often retain some of the characteristics of the pristine landscape. Rural communities usually look the most like the original landscape, and can still support the plants and animals that were part of the original ecosystem, unless the land and rivers have been damaged by careless logging, mining, agriculture, or other human activities.
As awareness of environmental issues grows, more people are becoming aware of the extent of the damage done to their local environment. As they start asking questions about why the natural landscape around where they live is the way it is and how it got that way, the question eventually arises: What can be done about it?
When a wave of “new settlers” – part of the back-to-the-land movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – moved to the Mattole valley, they noticed that the native salmon were rapidly dwindling. They started asking government officials, local old-timers, biologists, and other experts what was going on.
They found out that the careless logging of the steep hills, combined with the area’s high rainfall, resulted in major floods that washed large amounts of debris into the creeks and the river. Fine sediment choked the spawning gravels where the salmon lay their eggs, and the large amounts of excess soil and garvel made the water too shallow and warm for the fish to survive.
These new settlers were mostly activists from the cities looking for a quiet, clean place to build a small cabin and raise vegetables and kids. They applied their activist skills to trying to save the salmon.
First, they built innovative streamside hatchboxes to raise baby salmon to supplement the dwindling wild stocks. But the salmon populations continued to decline. The new settlers became aware that salmon don’t just live in water, that they need certain types of places, known as habitat. And they found out that what the earlier settlers called the valley was called a watershed by scientists. The plant and animal communities live together in an area of land, all of which drains into one river and affects the salmon habitat.
Their growing understanding of the ecological systems of their watershed led them down a path of discovery that has enriched their lives and motivated them to undertake the long process of restoring their entire watershed.
Ecological restoration is a growing movement worldwide. More and more people are taking responsibility for the care and stewardship of their natural environment and learning how to “think like a watershed.”
International Wildlife
Film Festival 1998:
Finalist Award
Merit Award for Educational Value
Merit Award for Inspirational Value
Canadian International Film
& Video Festival:
2nd Best Independent Documentary Overall
EarthVision International Environmental Film Festival 1998:
Winner: Water Quality/Watersheds
KPFA Radio Crafts Fair
1998 Featured Documentary
Society for Ecological Restoration,
Annual Conference 1998,
San Francisco
Featured Documentary
Johan Carlisle is an independent filmmaker living on the Central Coast of California. His first film, “Thinking Like A Watershed,” was made in 1998 and distributed by The Video Project. He is currently writing an original screenplay which he plans to produce as a narrative feature film about how our civilization has evolved to the point of global ecological and social crisis and how we can change our culture and avoid total ecological collapse.
He studied filmmaking at the Film Arts Foundation and the Bay Area Video Coalition in San Francisco. Johan’s interest in making films about ecological issues grew out of his work from 1983-1994 as an investigative journalist working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His initial focus on civil liberties and intelligence issues while working with Pacifica Radio led to a life-long focus on propaganda and the environment.
JOHAN’S JOURNALISTIC CAREER & ACHIEVEMENTS
Johan was a contributing editor with Propaganda Review Magazine from 1986-1994 and publisher and managing editor from 1991-1994. He won three Project Censored awards for articles about President Reagan’s Attorney General Ed Meese in 1984; the LaPenca bombing cover-up in 1990; and the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton’s devious role misleading Congress and the American public leading up to the first Gulf War in 1993. This journalistic work eventually lead to investigation of governmental and corporate attacks on radical ecology groups like Earth First!.
In addition to writing about this subject, Johan worked as an investigator with Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney on their lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland Police. On June 11, 2002, a federal jury returned a stunning verdict in favor of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in their landmark civil rights lawsuit against four FBI agents and three Oakland Police officers. The jury unanimously found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants tried to frame Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer. That was evident in the fact that 80% of the $4.4 million total damage award was for violation of their First Amendment rights to speak out and organize politically in defense of the forests.
EDUCATION & TRAINING
Johan received a BA in Religion and Philosophy from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and was accepted, but did not attend, the Star King School of Theology in Berkeley, California. Johan grew up in Clearwater, Florida, attended Georgetown University for two years before transferring to Antioch in 1970. His two years in Washington D.C. allowed him to become deeply involved in the Anti-War movement and later to become a Conscientious Objector
AVOCATION & LEISURE
Johan spent years building and repairing wooden boats. He lived aboard and sailed wooden sailboats in the San Francisco Bay Area, Maine, the Chesapeake, Florida, New Zealand, and the Caribbean. He was a charter boat captain in St. Lucia in the late Seventies. From 1980-1981 he served as Dean of Students and Boatyard Manager at the Bay Area Marine Institute in San Francisco. An avid musician, Johan has augmented his love of sailing with his lifelong pursuit of sublime musical tone on both acoustic and electric guitars.
REFERENCES:
http://www.judibari.org/#History
http://www.ringnebula.com/project-censored/1994/1994-story14.htm
http://www.ringnebula.com/project-censored/1976-1992/1990/1990-story23.htm
http://www.ringnebula.com/project-censored/1976-1992/1984/1984-story9.htm
http://www.tayvaughan.com/writings/marine/whaleboat.html
http://www.brontaylor.com/environmental_books/dgr/green_religion_ch_7.html
