071520

The Commons of Public Trust and Climate
By Vijaya Nagarajan






Just this past Sunday, on July 12, Huey Johnson passed away. Huey Johnson was one of the greatest environmental activists and defenders of the commons in California during the past 50 years. He saved land for perpetual use, taking it out of the market economy and putting it back into the gift economy for the use of the public, land to be hiked on, land to be celebrated on, land to not be priced. If any life can be instructive for our current climate chaos, it is Huey’s. Perhaps we can even imagine a way that air can be not marketed, that it can be put back into the gift economy.

As I researched Huey, I was surprised to discover some aspects about an old friend that I had not known before. Soon after his college education, because he needed to pay off his college loan debts, and he needed to make a lot of money quickly, he chose to work as an executive for Union Carbide. After working for them for a few years, he realized that was not what he wanted to do. Then, he decided to invest in an around the world airline ticket to travel, to learn from the world. He said that he learned as much from that travel adventure as he did from his education. He visited many places, but one place made a deep impression on him–––the Saharan desert in Africa. Seeing it, he was deeply startled to realize that it had once been wineries and now there was no trace of its earlier wealth and richness. This enabled him to realize that that was true of all the natural places he loved. That without due care, all the places that humans have touched could wither under a lack of concern for the long term health of natural places.

He had grown up in rural Michigan and he was raised with a deep honoring of the natural world. Witnessing the desertification of the Sahara made him realize that that is what he really wanted to dedicate his life to–––to prevent future desertifications. He went to graduate school and received a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management from University of Michigan, which he was so humble about he never mentioned it in any of dozens of conversations we had had over the years. He became the western regional director of the Nature Conservancy and later on, the national Director in the 60s. He founded a phenomenal organization, The Trust for Public Land, in 1973 and became its President until 1976. We need something similar right now–––The Trust for Public Air? Or The Trust for Public Atmosphere?

He was Secretary of Resources for Governor Jerry Brown from 1978-1982. He seemed like one of those dear friends who would be perennial, would be forever, in the same way that he protected the lands of the SF Bay Area forever. Without Huey’s laser-sharp focus, without his brilliant, genius-like strategies, and long-range planning, the SF Bay Area would look entirely different. If you have ever gone to Muir Beach, the Zen Center, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and other special places in the Bay Area and all around the United States, your pleasure is partly due to the focused energy and will of Huey Johnson, who organized coalitions and who strategized for private land to go into public use.

He was a dear friend over the past decades. We had many friends in common in the environmental movement in the Bay Area and beyond. One moment that was one of my personal highlights was sometime in the early 90s. Huey invited a small number of us to a 6-8 person intimate gathering at Fort Cronkite, for a lunch around a picnic table facing the sea within the embrace of the beautiful, rounded hills of the Golden Gate Recreation Area to meet a special friend of his.










The guest of honor, Dr. Wangari Matthai (1940-2011), from Kenya, was organizing the planting of millions of trees all over Kenya. When she explained her project and what she was doing, I felt I was in the presence of one of the great human beings of the world. Her energy, her spirit, her delight in life were all unique to her. It was Huey’s beginning of the international branch of the Green Belt Movement, which Wangari had founded in Kenya. I was deeply honored to be included.

In 2004, she was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.

This was the circle of people he supported for decades.

The glint in his eyes of amusement, joy, and laughter will always be with me. Thank you, Huey, for all that you have done and all the friends and action you brought together in your one life. We could not even begin to map it out. May we gain strength and courage and energy from your life as an example of how hard we need to push and how hard we need to keep on going with the goal in front of us––––The Green New Deal. This is the kind of project that Huey and one of his dearest friends, Wangaari Mathai, had planned out all along! May we follow in the trails you both have carved out for us. And succeed as you both did!

[See this article for more details: https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Huey-Johnson-longtime-environmental-savior-from-15405475.php