The chick that was Nature on the Board has fledged the nest… in Portal, Arizona.
When we launched Nature on the Board out into the world, we had no idea where it would land. We open sourced it precisely because we wanted it to spread as far, and as freely, as possible.
But I was overjoyed when I heard that one of the first places it landed was 8,000 miles away in Cave Creek Canyon, Arizona — a place I’ve never visited, but heard so much about over the last few years. I got chills the first time I saw the journey the idea had taken between Faith In Nature’s base in Manchester, England and the Arizonan desert. The speed at which ideas can travel is breathtaking. That the same idea can resonate in places so different speaks volumes about how, beneath all apparent differences, we’re all facing the same challenge to live in harmony with the natural world. So, first, a little context…
Anne and I were lucky enough to meet Rene and Tony Donaldson in Costa Rica’s Osa peninsula back in 2018. They were stood on the same platform we were — captivated by the jungle before us. Rene was dressed just as colourfully as the birds she was watching, and Tony was wielding a camera with a lens longer than a Resplendent Quetzal’s tail feather. Some people, I’m sure, you’re just meant to meet. We got to talking. We talked about birds and animals (of course). Then books. And films. And rock art. And art not on rocks. And travel. And, and, and… we just never stopped talking. Even when we went our separate ways — us back to our then London home and them back to Arizona. We just kept writing, and sharing — as they opened up their incredible world to us, and we did ours to them. They are, simply, wonderful.
And the whole while we were figuring out whether Nature on the Board would work, I was itching to tell Rene. I just wanted to get to that bit already where I could write to say “Here’s a thing I think you’ll really like”. When that time finally came, she did like it. She liked it so much that she asked to see much more than the headlines I’d sent through. So I sent through all the legal detail created by Lawyers for Nature together with further reading (plenty of homework!) on the Rights of Nature. Then I waited, knowing Rene would write again once she’d absorbed it all and, most likely, gone way beyond all I’d sent and researched the entire subject.
But the next email I received blew me away. When Rene wrote in November 2022, it was to say that she’d tabled the proposal of appointing Nature to board of Friends of Cave Creek Canyon (FOCCC). Attached was her amended framework for making it work within her organisations’ structure, together with her hopes for what it might become. In the following months, the motion was passed and in August 2023 I received the news of the process in action. In her own words:
Friends of Cave Creek Canyon inadvertently split our small close-knit community into two camps over a proposed picnic area in the Coronado National Forest. While the outcome was decided against it by the US Forest Service in October 2022, the division within the community festered.
Not long after this occurred, Simeon introduced me to the idea of Nature on the Board. I had never thought of it before, but it is brilliant! After researching it, I decided to introduce a motion to put Nature on our board of directors. But first I had to work out the mechanics because I was unable to find a model for a charitable organization.
I read The Rights of Nature by David R. Boyd and researched the idea online. I talked to our board president, Reed Peters, who whole heartedly supported the idea. We thought it might be a means to involve younger people in Friends of Cave Creek Canyon since the forest is their legacy. The proposal hatched with three proxies who will speak for Nature yet Nature only has one vote like other board members. I would have preferred to give Nature veto power, but I knew if I included it in the proposal that the motion would not pass. No other board member holds that power. The proxies decide among themselves who will attend a board meeting, and proxy names are not announced publicly. Nature alone is the board member. Three proxy positions are required in order to ensure one in attendance at every monthly meeting, especially since younger people work or attend classes.
Finding the candidates for the proxy positions was difficult. Portal, Arizona, located in the Chiricahua Mountains, is 60 miles from the nearest store with no cellphone reception in the canyon. With effort, however, two of the three proxy positions were filled with interested, younger people. The third proxy position was filled by a retiree who is most excited to speak on Nature’s behalf. We discussed as a board that this will be an experiment, and we will work through problems as they arise. My motion was approved at our February 2023 board meeting.
I’ve always loved that Rene and Tony live in a place called Portal. Because that’s exactly what it so often seems. Rene sends through Tony’s pictures and I’m transported to a world far away from my often wet, muted Welsh surrounds. I’ve peppered this article with some of them to illustrate exactly what I mean. I trust you’ll also see in them exactly why the work of FOCCC matters.
FOCCC is a non-profit volunteer organisation that exists to inspire appreciation and understanding of the beauty, biodiversity and legacy of Cave Creek Canyon in south-east Arizona. It operates the Cave Creek Canyon Visitor Information Center in the Coronado National Forest as well as managing Willow Tank, the only reliable source of water for birds and animals on the east side of the Chiricahua Mountains. Situated at the convergence of four ecozones — the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre Occidental — the Chiricahua Mountains constitute the largest biodiverse land area in North America with half of North American birds and bats, more than three-quarters of the lizards, and a large proportion of the ants.
And so to Willow Tank, described again by Rene:
Friends of Cave Creek Canyon manages and cares for this 1-acre refuge for birds and wildlife on the east side of the Chiricahua Mountains. The tank itself, owned by a local rancher, is located in the San Simon Valley at 3963 feet close to the state boundary with New Mexico. From it one can view not only the Chiricahua Mountains in the Coronado National Forest but also the Peloncillo Mountains in New Mexico, both “Sky Island” ranges. These mountain ranges emerge from a sea of grasslands in the arid Southwest and Mexico, giving rise to the label.
Willow Tank is an oasis in the desert. It is a man-made reservoir built in the 1950s as a holding tank to flood the surrounding cotton fields. Its name comes from a large weeping willow tree (Salix babylonica) on its banks. Animals and birds use the water in the tank but when migration seasons occur, the number of birds swell and birders flock to see what has arrived. The ebird.org site is used to alert birders to species at the tank and in the area.
The pump to keep water in the tank is operated from donated solar panels. In the summer months the water is available to the US Forest Service to use in fighting fires in the national forest.
And it’s at Willow Tank where a tangible example of Nature on the Board in action emerges. As Rene again describes:
Cattails (Typha latifolia) have overrun Willow Tank with heavy rainfall last fall. Our president introduced the idea to import muskrats, native to Arizona. They occupy marshes, streams, ponds, and lakes with fresh and brackish water. They live in dens with tunnels built into riverbanks. They also eat cattails which is why the idea appealed. After this board meeting, Nature got on the stick and researched the problem, deciding that the rodents would undermine the integrity of the tank sides by burrowing into them for dry den sites. At the next meeting, Nature reported the research and the board immediately dropped the idea which never made it to a motion.
I’m sure you can see why I love receiving Rene’s emails so much. But this one, with this update, nearly brought me to tears. If Nature on the Board was a chick, receiving this update was like seeing it fledge the nest. Because Nature on the Board was never about Faith In Nature. It wasn’t even (just) about the decisions it impacts at Faith In Nature. And it certainly wasn’t about me either — despite this blog and the speaker circuit treadmill I now find myself on. It is, obviously, about Nature. It’s about changing the way we all make decisions, so that we take Nature into account long before it’s too late. And it’s about the Rights of Nature. Nature has the right to thrive, the right to freedom and the right to abundance. And at the heart of those rights is a love for all life. Nature on the Board is precisely about the fact that at a tank, in a desert 8000 miles away from me, birds and animals might continue to drink, to bathe and to seek watery refuge.
Sometimes I can see the disappointment, or scepticism, when I tell others about the noticeable, but small, changes Nature on the Board has made so far at Faith In Nature. Reared on a diet of Hollywood drama, the gradual and subtle shifts sometimes fail to satisfy. Likewise, the decision made at Willow Tank may not seem seismic — but it will be to those who rely on it. Effectively, it was a decision to leave well alone. Now, imagine how different the world might be today if, decades ago, we’d all collectively adopted a Nature on the Board approach to decision making. If we’d all left alone what wasn’t ours to interfere with. At its simplest and humblest, Nature on the Board is just an invitation to slow down and think twice about our impact upon all beings who also call this planet home.
To have been first to implement the Nature on the Board method was a privilege. To many, I’m sure it also marked us out as weird, or eccentric, or theatrical. But to see others adopt it too is an even greater privilege. And it’s every organisation that follows that turns the weird into the normal — which is precisely what’s needed.
To the Friends of Cave Creek Canyon (and, of course to Rene and Tony), Thank You.
