Ecology Center

Ruin & Recovery. Michigan’s Rise As A Conservation Leader. By Dave Dempsey. Foreword by Willian G. Milliken. (2001) University of Michigan Press. Available in hardcover and paperback. Reviewed by Gregory Button.

As difficult as it is to recall, or imagine, during these days of the Engler administration, Michigan has a history of being a national leader in conservation. As former Governor Milliken points out in his foreword, our nation’s second national park was established in Michigan. Michigan was also a leader in banning PCBs and DDT and in protecting the resources of the Great Lakes. Many national leaders in the fight to preserve forests, fish and wildlife emerged from the ranks of Michigan citizens.

The author, Dave Dempsey, Policy Advisor to the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC) and former environmental advisor to Governor James Blanchard, chronicles this history from its early days of the nineteenth century up to the present. Dempsey’s intimate experience with environmental struggles in Michigan and his scholarly research combine to provide the reader with a compelling and incisive history that informs both professional and lay readers alike.

The "ruin" phase began in the mid-nineteenth century with the unregulated resource extraction of our state’s timber, copper, and iron along with the over fishing of the Great Lakes. It soon became obvious to some citizens and government officials that these industries would not likely voluntarily practice principles of conservation.

Over the years various heroes and activists groups emerged from the fray and helped create the era of recovery. People like Robert Kedzie, who in the period after the Civil War warned of the deadly poisons in both our watersheds and homes; best selling author and sportsman James Oliver Curwood who became a conservation leader in the 1920s; Genevieve Gillette who tenaciously fought for the expansion of our public parks.

Dempsey also examines early pioneers of the modern era like Joan Wolfe, the founder of the West Michigan Environmental Council and Tom Washington of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs and many other activists up to the present.

"If Michigan environmental history is to mean anything it must illuminate the future by holding up a lamp to the past," argues Dempsey. If this is true than the alarm sounded in 1868 by the North American Review eerily resonates in the present day readers’ mind.

The Review’s warnings about the timber industry hold true today for our predicament in general. From out of the past comes the warning that rather than practice conservation, industry will be opportunistic and let the "future take care of itself." It will not "voluntarily curtail a profitable business," predicts the magazine. Furthermore, they advise, these practices will "forecast a bitter future…[and]…the lament will come from the next generation."

A lesson the Engler administration seems to have ignored with its current recommendation that industry regulate itself and conduct its own unsupervised clean-ups. According to MEC’s James Clift, "The proposed [DEQ] rules let polluters decide when to cleanup contamination, how to monitor toxic chemicals left in the soil, and when to tell neighboring property owners about contamination in their area."

The primary lesson of this book is that our own history has proven that environmental protection cannot be left in the hands of the polluters, but rather is dependent, in large part, on the people of Michigan actively having a voice and a role in the preservation of the environment.

The author will be doing a reading in Ann Arbor later this month. Please see our list of upcoming events.

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