'Tools to Save Our Home Planet'

by Katie Hill

This has earned Patagonia praise in some corners of the ideologically diverse outdoors community and disdain in others. But the brand’s stances are predicated on an ideal that a broad spectrum of outdoorspeople agree with: “Protecting the home planet,” as they coin it. Research and polling show that climate change, wildlife conservation and public access to public lands and waters matter to people across the political spectrum. 

So why is it hard for people in rural communities to see eye-to-eye on some of these topics? In a place like the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, stakeholders include skiers, ranchers, climbers, hunters, hikers, tribal leaders, real estate developers, anglers, small business owners, and natural resource professionals, among others. Some were born and raised in these places, while others relocated from elsewhere. As western communities like those within the GYE see more inflows of people from various walks of life, securing lasting protections for fragile environments will likely become more complicated.

But according to Nick Mucha, it doesn’t have to be. Mucha is one of the three editors of Tools, as well as Patagonia’s director of environmental capacity building. He attended the company’s Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference in 2013 and six years later took a job with Patagonia to breathe new life into its grantmaking program. Patagonia has long distributed grants to environmental organizations around the world, organizations that are then invited to the Tools Conference each year. The book is a byproduct of the conference, making some of the lessons and takeaways from the limited-entry program available to the masses.

“A book seemed like a really great place for us to impart upon the greater community some of the core lessons we have accumulated over 30-ish years of conferences,” Mucha told Mountain Journal. “We wanted to take these lessons and boil them down so that people, regardless of where they’re working — the Yukon or Yellowstone or in the Mojave Desert — can benefit from these skills.”

Chapters cover everything from identifying a mission and building a team to communicating wins and securing funding. The book also features a foreword by Yvon Chouinard and, in relatable fashion, an introduction by Mucha titled “Dude, F*** This, I’m Done,” a callback to his early frustrations with the grassroots activism space before he took the job at Patagonia.

So how applicable is a book about environmental activism to a more sociopolitically diverse place like Greater Yellowstone? A region where Pinedale, Cody and Idaho Falls — more conservative towns — and Bozeman, Jackson and Red Lodge — more liberal towns — coexist amid the same woods, waters and wildlife habitat? According to contributor Rick Johnson of the Idaho Conservation League, the answer is “extremely applicable.”

“To state the obvious, Idaho is not exactly known as a center for progressive politics,” Johnson says. “The successes I had were built on developing enduring, inspirational and impactful bridges across diverse interests.”

Johnson began volunteering with environmental conservation organizations while running a construction business in central Idaho. He then transitioned into a role with the Sierra Club to work on spotted owl conservation before returning to more state-based work as the executive director of ICL. In 2015, he secured wilderness designations for the Boulder and White Cloud Mountains in partnership with Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID). He discusses this win in his case study for the “Working Together” chapter.

“I’m a very strong believer that conservation can complement conservative values, as long as we don’t appear that we’re trying to overthrow them,” Johnson said. “If you walk into a room and immediately turn people off, you now have a steeper hill to climb. You walk into a room and start asking people what they love about where they live, what their kids are doing this weekend, are they worried about their kids’ futures, you start building bridges.”

Contributor Shoren Brown agrees. In 2016, he launched the Bristol Bay Defense Fund, a global campaign dedicated to battling against the decades-long hotly contested Pebble Mine proposal — a copper and gold mine slated for the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed — that required relationship-building across a diverse coalition of stakeholders.

“Tribes, commercial fishermen and sportfishermen had been fighting about fish allocation in Bristol Bay forever,” he said. “And yet, they put those differences aside because there was an opportunity to do something extraordinary and say together that Pebble Mine did not belong in that watershed.” 

In the case of the Pebble Mine, the broad unity of opposition ended up being a de facto nail in the coffin for the proposal. That opposition included Donald Trump, Jr. and former FOX News host Tucker Carlson — both men who had the ear of President Trump during his first administration. Under the Trump administration, the Army Corps of Engineers ended up denying necessary permits for the mine, Brown points out in his essay.

“We may not agree on everything, but we see the opportunity to build political power together to shape our community into something we want it to be,” Brown said. “The overlap between what we did in Bristol Bay and the political moment right now could not be stronger. But it’s only going to work if we’re willing to recognize the overlap in our values and can put our differences aside to get something done. If we don’t do that, we’re going to miss some tremendous opportunities.”

With eyes toward everything from grizzly bear conservation to natural resource extraction permitting to federal public land management, and if the first two months of President Trump’s second term are any indication, the next four years will certainly be ripe with sources of controversy for those who call Greater Yellowstone home. But with Tools to Save the Home Planet on bookshelves and desks, Mucha feels optimistic.

“We really do hope that this book is a small offering to those who have the courage to keep showing up with the odds getting longer and the threats all the more sinister,” Mucha says. “The rules of the game have changed. That makes it all the more important that we aren’t just a bunch of people who shout when we see something wrong with the world, but that we truly organize and work together. I hope that this book helps give a springboard for that type of thinking.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Patagonia is a financial supporter of Mountain Journal. Mountain Journal donors do not have input into editorial coverage.