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Book Review
| Natural States: The Environmental Imagination in Maine, Oregon, and the Nation. By Richard W. Judd and Christopher S. Beach. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 2003, xv + 320 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. Cloth $32.95, paper $19.95.
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| By examining public activism in environmental issues in the "natural states" of Maine and Oregon in the three decades following 1945, Judd and Beach arrived at a construct they call the "environmental imagination" that fueled that activism. Proponents were searching for "a sense of freedom, authenticity, and permanence gained through communion with nature and folk in a natural setting" (p. 247). The authors suggest that today's environmentalists need to return to place-centered state and regional politics to develop leadership at the grassroots level in order to create a common vision of shared goals for the environment. |
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Judd and Beach present a series of case studies to illustrate their thesis. Local clean water campaigns in both states developed public constituencies for the common good in the 1950s. The Willamette River in Oregon and the Androscoggin River in Maine were sewers for paper mills until a citizen-led outcry against corporate control of the rivers forced cleanups. Governor Edmund Muskie's experience in the Maine campaign led him as a U.S. senator to garner necessary support for the Water Quality Act (1965) and Clean Water Restoration Act (1966). Coalition building saved Maine's St. John River and the wild Allagash River from being dammed in the 1960s and 1970s to satisfy a modern recreational desire for "freedom through redemptive play" (p. 93). Public protests led to the state of Oregon's designation of the coastal sand beaches below the green vegetation line as public space, a decision upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court. Even the commodification of nature by the Maine outfitter L.L. Bean and the Oregon sport-centered resort Sunriver attracts a kind of supporter of environmental issues. |
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Judd and Beach draw some class distinctions among nature enthusiasts when they describe the growing sport of riding snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles on extended backcountry trails. They briefly refer to the tensions between those who are seen as elite preservers of nature and the backcountry explorers caused by efforts to ban motorized vehicles from some public lands. These tensions, however, suggest opportunities for new coalitions. Preservation of the environment has produced unexpected partners in the past, the most well known being duck hunters and bird lovers, each anxious to preserve species habitat. New coalitions need to be developed if environmentalism is to be successful in an era in which incomes are declining because of the loss of manufacturing jobs. Contemporary environmental issues on the local and state level can be extremely contentious and divisive. An example is the national debate, centered on both the east and west coasts, including Maine, about industrializing scenic shorelines and disturbing marine habitat by establishing terminals for receiving and processing liquefied natural gas from overseas. In Maine an ad hoc coalition opposing LNG terminals includes nature lovers and wealthy land owners paired with small–boat sportsmen and commercial lobstermen. |
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Natural States is a creative, insightful, and positive look at three decades of environmentalism in action in Maine and Oregon with a plan for the future. It is recommended for students, scholars, and the general public. |
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Polly Welts Kaufman teaches history at the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of National Parks and the Woman's Voice (New Mexico, 1996) and co-editor of Her Past Around Us: Interpreting Sites for Women's History (Krieger, 2003). She recently worked on a campaign to oppose a proposed LNG terminal in Harpswell, Maine, where she lives. |
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