Progressive thought is pervasive in Mendocino County. For example, in the last election, Ralph Nader received more votes per capita here than in any county in California. Activists of national status live here. Residents respond to local issues of concern by organizing, publicizing, demonstrating, and generally insisting that business be responsible and public officials be accountable. Direct action and civil disobedience are viable and often applied methods of public input. None of this comes easy. It requires tremendous energy and commitment to the long haul by many people. Mendocino County is indeed unique in the degree of activism we practice, and the Mendocino Environmental Center is the vital core, the hub from which the activity flows.
Betty and Gary Ball are the heart and soul of the MEC. They rank at the top of special, best-loved Mendocino County people. Gary is always willing to interrupt his work to assist with computer operation or to lend his knowledge and astute perspective to a strategy session. His fierce dedication to environmental issues is juxtaposed by his gentle, soft-spoken nature, making him a real joy to work with. Betty is the essence of the MEC. With her wisdom and sensitivity, she guides the daily MEC activities in a non-directive style. In the model of a true organizer, she creates the space for people to empower themselves.
Betty and Gary have touched Mendocino County in a profound way, and we all are better for the part of their lives they have given to us.
Q: What brought you to Mendocino County?
Gary: We were bobbing like corks on the ocean, traveling all over California doing an environmental booth on week-ends any place we could. We thought we could do more environmental work if we had a place to be during the week. At a fair, someone said "You should go to Ukiah. Some folks are planning to open a store-front there that might be interested in having an environmental component." So we came here, met the people, and opened Between the Worlds and the Green Mac with them. Worlds didn't work out to be a going environmental center, but while we were there, we got to meet the local activists, and eventually we were asked by John McCowen if we would help run an environmental center if he made the building available to do so. We ended up in the right place at the right time, somehow.
Betty: We were camping at Usal with some friends in the summer of 1984, and while we were there, Gary and I both were inspired to say "Why don't we move to California!" We'd been coming here for years on vacation and thought maybe if we moved here, we'd go somewhere else for vacation. Once we decided to move to California, both of us started having strong fantasies about having an environmental center. We saw all these groups working on environmental issues, but rather than pooling resources and working together, they seemed to be competing with each other or vying for the same pool of resources instead pulling together and sharing. So it was my vision to have a center where all those groups could come together, share resources, work together, brainstorm with one another, build on each other's efforts, and make more of an impact.
Upon arriving in California, we did the environmental booth that Gary mentioned at fairs and festivals all over the state. We realized we needed a more permanent base of operation. We were working at a fair in Santa Rosa before Christmas in 1985, and met Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa who do the newspaper The Nuclear Resister. They were living in Ukiah at the time. We told them what we were doing and that we were looking for a place to be on a permanent basis, and they said "Oh, you've got to come to Ukiah! Some friends of ours are opening a store that sounds exactly like what you're talking about." We were coming to Ukiah to visit friends, anyway, so we did indeed meet the people at Between the Worlds and Green Mac, and got involved with them. Then we got involved with Earth First! and other environmental groups in the area. Activist groups and individuals were working out of their kitchens, their garages, whatever. Then John McCowen came and said that he had this building he wanted to be an environmental center, and we asked if Gary and I could come play, too. So here we are.
Now I feel just as compelled to return to the mountains as I felt compelled to come here.
Q: You already mentioned one issue about people working together and pooling rather than competing, but what were some of the other important issues when you started, and how have they changed, if they have?
Betty: Forestry, ocean protection, herbicides.
Gary: Toxins, water quality, land use. All the issues were there ten years ago that are still here now. With some, we're better off, ocean protection being one of them. The ocean was more endangered by off- shore oil drilling when we came ten years ago than it is presently. That's not a permanent solution. Unfortunately, I expect as oil supplies get lower, as they are bound to do, the pressure to drill off the Northern California coast will be back. It may be back again and again and again, so there's never a permanent solution it seems like.
Forestry - we came here just after the battle for the Sally Bell Grove and the beginning of the Hurwitz take-over of Pacific Lumber and the whole Headwaters campaign. Relatively little attention was being paid to what L-P and G-P were doing on their private lands, but there was a lot of interest in the Mendocino National Forest. We've seen some shifts. Now there's a lot more concern and interest in what's happening on private lands, and unfortunately, less attention is being paid to the Mendocino National Forest. I think we're worse off now in forestry because, in spite of our best efforts, the forests have basically continued to be depleted during the ten years we've been here, and we've arrived at the point that L-P is finally willing to admit that its inland holdings are so depleted they can no longer manage them for timber production at all. That's a very sad thing that everybody is going to have to live with, forever.
Betty: As someone so aptly put it, - with the environment, no victory is permanent and every loss is final. A great example of that is Trout Creek. Trout Creek was one of the first issues we dealt with. PGandE was proposing to log their holdings on Trout Creek. Through a multi-faceted approach, we were able to save Trout Creek - then. But just last week, a new Timber Harvest Plan (THP) was filed to log the property just above PG and E's holdings on Trout Creek. So, as we entered, we were fighting for Trout Creek, and as we leave, we are fighting for Trout Creek.
Q: You talked a little about your original concept for the center and why you came here. In setting up the Environmental Center, have your original concepts changed or evolved?
Gary: Well, they've evolved certainly, but the concept hasn't changed. We watched for many years and were sort of part-time activists with environmental issues for many years, but the urge became overwhelming to get out there and fight to stop this death of a million cuts, or death of a billion cuts, that the Earth is going through. We got to the point we wanted to do that full time. We didn't want any longer to get a magazine that said write a letter to somebody, and then write a letter, and try to feel like we did something. But the next magazine would come and have all these horror stories about another part of the Earth that just got slaughtered, and another part of the Earth that will never be a normally functioning ecosystem again. One big question was - why doesn't somebody stop this? How is this madness able to persist? So now, after ten years of fighting it full time, I at least have a better understanding of why that madness continues, why it doesn't stop. Of course, there is no simple answer to that, but at least I have a better understanding of what's going on, and it makes me just want to get in there and fight all the harder.
Q: What is that understanding of what's going on?
Gary: I now understand the pressure from big money, especially big corporations, but I now also understand that the public in general is basically ignorant about what's happening on a global scale, and even if they're not ignorant, they're fairly apathetic in terms of wanting to dedicate large portions of their time and energy to do something about it. I think what we have altogether is the perfect recipe for global disaster. I think even if the public were mobilized, we'd still be looking at a corporate dominated system which shows very little sign of being able to change fast enough, even if it wanted to, to actually prevent global catastrophe at this point. But we have the compounded issues that there are really very few of us making that push to try to change what's going on in the first place, so we have a big problem.
Q: How has the level of environmental consciousness in Mendocino County and in this region changed in the last decade?
Betty: Mendocino County is a phenomenal place, and the level and effectiveness of activism here is unique. Actually, it's awesome. The people who are involved here ought to feel really good about what they have been able to accomplish over the last decade. When the MEC opened, there were lots of activist efforts going on, but they were scattered all over the county, and had little opportunity to connect and pull together.
Judi Bari arrived on the scene at almost the exact same time as the MEC opened. She really breathed life into the movement with her dynamic personality, her strategic brilliance, and her multitude of abilities. Her in-depth knowledge of movement and labor history enabled her to know exactly what move(s) or actions were needed at any given time in a campaign to move it forward. She truly inspired and mobilized people and helped the movement activists see how they were erring by alienating the workers. Judi was a phenomenal being who achieved so much. I think probably none of us realize the extent of what we learned from Judi over the last decade. I am just so glad that the MEC was here to be, as Judi put it, the glue that holds the movement together. She was able to mobilize people, and the MEC provided a place for people to connect, plug in, work out of, get messages, network from. I think it's been a dynamic combination that has assisted everybody's efforts.
Gary: I think the consciousness of the movement community here has just evolved naturally and hasn't had that dramatic of a change. The Center has provided a nice vortex for people to come together, but I don't think that consciousness has changed. I see the change here in the timber industry people, the big corporate money, the old guard power structure now has not only learned that we're here, but in spite of themselves they've learned why, at least some of the why, we are concerned about what they are doing to the Earth, and changing it to a more Earth friendly practice and procedure. I see that as the major change as we've gone from - you are just outsiders coming in here trying to tell us how to make our living as we've done for generations and you don't know anything about it, to - oh my God! Yes. There aren't a lot of trees left and where are we going to work when the trees are gone? Seeing that we weren't altogether ignorant about what was going on out there. I think there is still a lot of resentment and polarity, but I don't feel like just because you walk down the street and you're known as an environmentalist that you're in danger anymore. You might not be all that popular, but it doesn't feel like you're just targets for isolation or worse at this point.
Betty: The industry's no longer able to rally the troops like they were, even in 1990. Now where there's a demonstration or there's another event where the industry says they're going to pack the place with opposition, they can't do it.
Gary: That's the industry's own doing, not so much our doing. The lay- offs and shipping the mills away had a very dramatic effect on the work force here and they just can't command the kind of worker loyalty that they were commanding, and continue the depletion and lay-offs and shipping the mills away - basically looking like they're in a cut-and-run mode. They can't do that and maintain that solid, loyal worker base that they had when we first got here. We probably owe that part of the consciousness change to the industry's own practices.
Q: What are some of your most vivid memories of the last ten years? What achievements stand out as you look back?
Gary: Boy, that's a big one. Just keeping the Center going for ten years is our major achievement. We really can't take credit for any issue. We're too thinly spread to have done much on any issue, but there are a number of things that stand out. Off-shore oil hearings were a major landmark in Mendocino County history, and we really have been playing ever since then off the momentum that those hearings generated. People looked around and said - Yeah, we really did it and we can do it again, and that spirit has never been lost.
Betty: And we will, and the oil industry knows it.
Gary: And all the other industries know it too. They saw this county rise up in mass. It was a wonderful thing, and I don't think anybody who was around has forgotten that experience. Nobody's lost the knowledge that we can do it again. We can have an issue that gels people together like that, that power is always at our beck and call. That was a wonderful thing.
Betty: That was in Ft. Bragg in 1988, and then, in the summer of 1990, in Ft. Bragg once again, we had Redwood Summer with 3000 people. Those were two massive events, both of which occurred in Ft. Bragg. I think that's done a lot for the consciousness of Ft. Bragg, and I think it will never be the same again, because of those two events.
Q: What about the frustrations you've had to deal with?
Gary: Those are very many. For one thing, the in-fighting amongst the movement people. I think it's something that's unavoidable. We have to learn to embrace our diversity, and that's part of the process, as painful and ugly as it might be, we have to go through that. But the real frustrating thing, for both of us, is just seeing that we have a whole world culture right now, practicing the perfect recipe for global catastrophe, and that's not changing. People aren't getting it, and we don't seem to be able to make changes anywhere near fast enough to prevent the catastrophe. We have a human population that is simply growing by exponential leaps and bounds, requiring more and more resources, more and more of the Earth being put to uses which are to the benefit of humans at the detriment of every other living thing, and at the same time we need all those other living things to maintain the viable ecosystems that we are depending on to get our basic resources. We can't keep going that direction. Something has to give. There has to be a break in the population growth. We have to reduce the demands we're putting on the Earth. There's got to be a break in the ecosystem destruction we're carrying out, or sooner or later, and I think at this point sooner, we're going to get to the point where we see system collapse, where we see ecosystems quit functioning, and resulting in major portions of the population displaced and essentially doubled up in some other area where you will see another system collapse just that much faster.
That's the real frustrating thing right now. How do we speed up our work? Right now we're fighting THP by THP, bill by bill in the legislature, and we're fighting each of the billion cuts that will kill the Earth one by one. We really need to change the things we do. We really need to take this to a much greater level if we have any chance right now of staving off the inevitable. We need to work on a much bigger scale to stop a million cuts at once instead of trying to stop them one at a time.
Betty: Judi addresses this very well, and I'd like to refer people to the article that was in the last edition of the newsletter - Judi's Revolutionary Ecology article. It's so right on in pointing out that Marx didn't go far enough and we have to be more radical than that because it's not a matter of redistributing the wealth and the resources. We have to stop the demand on the resources. That means that as we try to bring democracy and a better life to other people in our culture and in other cultures as well, it doesn't mean that they get to have two refrigerators and a hair dryer and a toaster and two cars and a boat and three TVS and two computers, just as we shouldn't. We also have to embrace other people with whom we're not familiar. We live in a very classist society and we're all products of whatever class we were raised in. We've got to break through that and unite. Judi points out that the toxics organizing is largest in the cities because the toxics issue effects low income neighborhoods, minority neighborhoods and Indian reservations mostly. However, in spite of the fact that these would be natural people to ally with, we do not. It is the same situation with workers. It's going to take the workers being truly involved and us involved with them to turn this around, because they are the ones with their hands on the machinery, they are the ones producing the chemicals, they are the ones running the chain saws. And while they're in no way to blame, we've got to be with them and understand we are all together in this, or it ain't gonna change.
Q: What in the past decade would you do differently, if anything?
Gary: I'd like to have a chance to go back and do it all better. I'd probably do everything different, knowing what I know now. We sort of bungled and staggered our way through the whole ten years and probably will continue on that same pattern the rest of our lives. If there was a chance to go back and try things again, knowing what I know now, I would relish the opportunity to try to do better the second time around.
Q: I heard someone say recently that Headwaters is the next big thing that everybody wants to get involved with. What influence do you think Headwaters has had, and will have, on Mendocino County residents who are not necessarily environmentalists?
Betty: In both Mendocino and Humboldt counties, it's having a big impact. Little by little we're witnessing change. There's now a group called Taxpayers for Headwaters, people who were never before involved. They had concerns, but now they are actively involved. There are numerous other groups like that which are surfacing and organizing themselves: clergy, religious communities, Jewish rabbis. It's just happening by leaps and bounds. I think that we're very soon going to see Headwaters saved. I really believe that's going to happen, we're going to be victorious, albeit with very damaged, hurt lands. EPIC's law suits and Earth First!'s holding patterns have gone a long way in keeping the forest standing, but MAXXAM has sure nibbled around the edges and done a lot of damage that was not able to be prevented. So the time is now. People need to remember September 14th and start organizing where ever you are now, in your own community. Bring your affinity group along and come on September 14th ready to stay for however long it takes to realize this victory.
Gary: That's a hard one. It's developing into a big issue as far as getting a lot of people to come up there in September every year for the big rally. Base camp is a fairly big thing with people helping get supplies up there to keep it going. But I don't know that it's been a real pivitol issue in Mendocino County, no more than Enchanted Meadow, or watching LP deplete its lands, or GP deplete its lands, or going through the Prop 130 campaign, or the FAC rules process. I guess Headwaters is one more educational tool that perhaps is appealing, if nothing else, to the younger people who maybe have missed all the history and are just now coming into the movement. Maybe Headwaters will help educate them and bring them into the movement. I think Mendocino County, in general, has a pretty large segment of the population with a very high environmental awareness. I don't know just how important Headwaters alone will be, but I think Mendocino County is a great place to grow up because you are exposed to environmental issues at a very early age, as soon as you're ready to start being interested in such things.
Q: What draws you back to Colorado?
Betty: About a year and a half ago, I started being pulled back home to the mountains. What the Universe wants us to do when we get back there isn't totally clear yet, but it wasn't totally clear when we came here either. I know it will be working with the environmental and social justice movement, but in what form or venue is not yet determined.
Q: Do you have other thoughts about what Colorado holds for you?
Betty: The Colorado mountains are home. And just like everywhere else on Earth, the mountains and the foothills, and the whole area along the front range of the Rockies is being decimated. We have learned so much in the time we've been here. I can't even comprehend how much we have learned. We will take that knowledge with us and apply it to try to stop the ravaging going on there. Again, what form that will take remains to be seen
Gary: It's just home with all kinds of fond memories that go with it. My family is there, I was born and raised there, my mountains are there, life-long friends are there. That's what it holds for me. In terms of what our plans and directions are, I don't know.
Q: What about you - a more personal side of you. What kind of things do you like to read?
Gary: I read a lot of environmental books and I also read a lot of what people might call spirituality books. I'm into Buddhism, so I read a lot of Buddhist things. I've read everything I can get my hands on by Farley Mowat, just an excellent writer. I just finished The Collapse of Culture; The Final Empire by William Kotzke. That was great - very interesting. I've read Ishmael and The Story of B by Daniel Quinn, The Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock, Game Wars - I can't remember who wrote that, but it was a wonderful book. Another book called Racks, about antlered species. I've read the all Milagro Beanfield War trilogy, which is semi-fantasy about New Mexico. I have to read all the subscription material the MEC receives, which is quite a bit. I read Toxic Sludge Is Good For You very recently. Excellent, excellent, excellent book. Everybody should read it; it should be standard faire and everybody sould be required to know what's in that book as a basis for continuing on in the world.
Betty: I read spirituality of various forms, books by Native people, political books, environmental books. At the moment I'm reading Daniel Quinn's Providence, and also The Final Empire which is about the devastation of the Earth in very graphic and specific details. I just recently finished Milagro Beanfield War. I just read Mother Jones.
Q: It has the same flavor as your work. No trashy novels it sounds like.
Betty: This is my life.
Q: What about music? What do you like?
Betty: I love environmental folk music and folk music of all kinds. Celtic music, bluegrass, some country.
Gary: I'm an old folkie, I like folk music. I play the guitar and I play a little banjo, and very little mandolin. I listen to a full range of music, from original old-timey folk to other folk music, which sometimes is even called rock-and-roll.
Q: What do you do for fun? What's your idea of a good time?
Betty: Listen to music, read, hang out with friends.
Gary: Before I became a full time environmentalist I had time to be a bird watcher and bird photographer which consumed endless hours. Just going out, finding a good spot, building a blind and sitting there with cameras ready for the birds to show up so I could take their pictures was something I could do from sun up to sun down without ever getting tired of it. I like camping, I like kayaking. Getting together with friends. I spend a lot of time reading.
Q: Is there anything else you want to say?
Betty: Just carry on, folks! There are truly incredible activists here in this community. Just continue what you're doing. Remember, our spirits are always with you, as yours are with us. We'll take your energy and effectiveness with us back to our mountains.
Gary: I would say in parting thoughts, I've watched how hard it is to change the overall destructive course that our culture is on. I'm very worried now that it cannot continue that much longer. That's another reason that I'm anxious to get home and be with family because I think hard times are coming. However, I will sorely miss the friends we have here and we're certainly going to stay in touch. We'll probably be back from time to time to check in on things too.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited