Report from 2011 Triennial

By Sallie Greenwood (edited for the website from the original version)

Sixty-nine members and guests came to an unusually rainy Boulder, Colorado for SWG’s 2011 Triennial meeting. We met at the Millennium Harvest House, located on Boulder Creek, Thursday, May 19 through Sunday, May 22. We had a grand time in spite of rain, and the epic flight delays getting to Denver experienced by some members.

Jan and Dave Robertson treated early arrivals to a gathering at their home on Wednesday evening, May 18. On Thursday, there was a tour of the campus of the National Renewable Energy’s National Wind Technology Center with its towering wind turbines.

Outgoing SWG President Marty Talbot welcomed us at dinner Thursday night, and Patricia Limerick, Faculty Director and Chair of the Board, Center of the American West, University of Colorado, spoke on “Taking Posterity to Lunch: The American West as Training Ground for Long-Term Thought.” Her wide-ranging talk included references to the absence of women in history of the west.

Friday we bused to Rocky Mountain National Park’s Visitors Center where Superintendent Vaughn Baker gave us a warm welcome and introduced a film about the park. Bureau of Reclamation staffer Carly Jerla gave a concise summary of Colorado River issues. Jan Robertson spoke to us about the late Bette Willard, a botanist and SWG member from Colorado, who served on the Council of Environmental Quality in the 1970s and who researched tundra plants in the park.

We took a short drive into the park amid patches of sun, a little snow, some rain, and magnificent scenery obscured by coming and going clouds, to sample a typical spring day in the Rockies and to take a short hike and admire the elk.

Once back in Boulder, SWG authors sat in for an Author! Author! session at Base Camp: Joanna Biggar, That Paris Year, Arlene Blum, Breaking Trail, A Climbing Life, Cecelia Hurwich, Vitality in Aging, and Edith Mirante, Down the Rat Hole: Adventures Underground on Burma’s Frontiers, spoke about their books. Jan Robertson, Ben Booz, and others displayed recent publications.

Rain relented Saturday morning so a dozen or so of us enjoyed a warm and sunny stroll along Boulder Creek to bird while others walked to the Saturday Farmers Market before program sessions began.

Program chair Kim Crews recruited members to speak on subjects related to the Triennial’s theme of sustainability. Alice Le Blanc led off the Saturday morning session with “Transforming the Socialist Countryside: Sustainable Agricultural Reform in Sichuan and Xinjiang, China,” followed by Elizabeth White’s slides of her work in Asia and told about rescuing a fellow climber on Makalu in 1980. Edith Mirante related how the Ate people of Luzon have struggled to preserve their culture following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991. Arlene Blum enlightened us about her recent research on fire-retardants. Helen Kennedy shared her enthusiasm and research for plants of the Marantaceae family, commonly known as prayer plants. Student member Ingrid Nelson closed the morning session with an animated description of her ongoing research in Mozambique’s Miombo woodlands involving gender, deforestation and politics. (We’ll never think of rats in quite the same way!)

Table Topic discussions following lunch ranged from membership issues,Corresponding Member issues, governance, sustainability, and oral history. Highlights of the discussions were shared during the business meeting. One proposal was that Corresponding Members should no longer be a separate group but should be considered At-Large members.

In the afternoon we saw a film by Mary Crowley about sailing expeditions to the North Pacific Gyre, which has become a collection point for a massive accumulation of flotsam and jetsam, mostly plastics. Student member Sya Buryn Kedzior reported on her research on water pollution and civil society politics in India’s Ganges River Basin and Roberta Hawkins spoke about her project to track money ostensibly designated for donation to a non-profit program, and marketing concepts related to buying branded bottled water.

Marty Talbot recognized outgoing Council members at the business meeting. Donita Enright read a prayer written by Grace Hayes and then reported members who have died since the 2008 Triennial. Committee reports from Sandra Shaw (Oral History), Ann Schneider (Library and Archives) and Ruth Shirey (Fellowship) followed, plus a brief membership report from Kim Crews.

Meritorious Service Awards were presented to Elizabeth Brownstein, Joanna Biggar, Donita Enright, Sallie Greenwood, Betty Guyot, Sandra Shaw, Trudy Suchan, Karen Tupek, and (in absentia) Alice Hudson, Marguerite Hunsiker, Elizabeth Kaynor, Joan Koven, Ellen Steinberg, and Elizabeth Welles.

Marty Talbot chaired the Awards Banquet and headed the receiving line which included Gold Medal winner Susan Shaw, Outstanding Achievement winners Mary Crowley, Helen Kennedy, and Betsy White, as well as Polly Penhale, the first recipient of the Edith (Jackie) Ronne Award for Antarctic Research.

A marine toxicologist, Susan Shaw presented aspects of her research, from sea lions to dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico following the last year’s oil spill.

Sunday morning Surjit Mansingh described her trip around Central Asia’s Taklamakan Desert, and Ruth Kark, the only corresponding member to attend the Triennial, told us about the Palestinian Environment at the End of the Ottoman Era. Debra Denker presented her documentary on community gardens in South Africa and at her home in New Mexico.

Incoming President Kim Crews officially ended the Triennial.

Jodi Mills-Cerny organized a post-Triennial tour of Celestial Seasonings, while others dispersed for hikes or a drive to Estes Park. And early, very early (6 a.m.), groups set off for Denver and an Amtrak trip to Glenwood Springs with geologists Lon Abbott and Teri Cook, and others explored the short grass prairie on the Pawnee Grasslands with naturalist Carol Kampert.

Submitted July, 2011.