Local Washington Environmentalist Named Hero for the Planet
12/7/98
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Title: Local Washington Environmentalist Named Hero for the Planet
Source: The Seattle Times
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 12/7/98
Byline: Eric Pryne
LAKE STEVENS--"Sometimes," Bonnie Phillips says, "crises in your life
provide opportunities for something." A dedicated hiker, climber and
runner, she had to give them all up in her early 40s when she was
diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a painful muscle disorder that often forces
her to rely on a wheelchair to get around.
"I remember sitting in my living room and thinking, 'Nothing exciting in
my life will ever happen to me again,' " says Phillips, 56.
Instead, she channeled her considerable energies into the campaign to
preserve the last of the Northwest's old-growth forests, wild places she
had enjoyed for years but recognized she would rarely venture into again.
She quickly emerged as a leading strategist among environmentalists in the
spotted-owl wars. Largely as a result of the efforts of Phillips and
others, logging in the region's national forests has dropped dramatically.
And this week Time magazine recognized Phillips as one of its first five
"Heroes for the Planet," people the weekly news magazine says "are making
a difference in the fight to save our natural heritage."
Her influence has been acknowledged before. In his 1992 book "The Final
Forest," William Dietrich described Phillips as "a quintessential example
of the citizen activist who has bit into the vulnerable heel of the timber
industry, and like some determined terrier, won't be shaken off."
Melanie Rowland, formerly of the Wilderness Society and Washington
Environmental Council, says Phillips personifies what one prominent
national environmentalist says is the secret to any successful
environmental campaign: "Endless pressure, endlessly applied."
Phillips expresses a mixture of pride and embarrassment at the recognition
from Time: "I hope it's not one of these `woman in a wheelchair' stories."
But if it shows others with disabilities that they can do anything, the
attention will be worthwhile, she says.
A Wisconsin native, Phillips moved to Seattle in the 1960s and to rural
Snohomish County in the 1970s. She'd been involved in environmental
organizations before her medical condition was diagnosed, but hadn't been
a leader.
"I've always been a high-energy person," Phillips says. "I couldn't use my
energy physically any more, so I realized I'd have to channel it in a
different way. I've been enormously blessed to find something I cared so
much about."
In a way, she says, her activism saved her life. It taught her to deal
with pain, Phillips says, while remaining productive.
Like most environmentalists, she started as a volunteer in her own back
yard. In 1987, when Phillips was president, the Everett-based Pilchuck
Audubon Society "adopted" the Darrington Ranger District of the Mount
Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Members plotted the remaining old
growth, reviewed proposed logging operations, questioned many, appealed
some.
By the time environmentalists began mapping a legal and political campaign
to block further logging in older forests, Phillips had earned a seat at
the table.
That campaign led to President Clinton's 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which
reduced the amount of timber cut annually on federal forests in Western
Washington, Western Oregon and Northern California to one-fifth what it
was in the 1980s.
For the past two years, Phillips has served as campaign coordinator for
the ForestWater Alliance, a coalition of regional environmental groups
that monitors U.S. Forest Service compliance with the Clinton plan. The
plan frequently is ignored in the field, Phillips says, and top
administration officials have begun only recently to recognize that.
She works out of an office in the two-bedroom Lake Stevens condominium
where she has lived for the past three years. She still misses the birds
that frequented the house in the woods near Stanwood that she called home
for the preceding two decades.
Phillips' stint with the ForestWater Alliance ends Dec. 31. Next, she's
looking at forming a nonprofit organization to strengthen the internal
structure of the environmental community.
Among the issues she'd like it to address: diversity, long hours, low pay,
burnout, leadership opportunities for women and the continual crisis mode
in which most groups usually operate.
"We've got to slow down and really take a look and grow a movement for the
times," Phillips says. "It's time we looked at cleaning house a little
bit."