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Sunday, January 24, 2010

Eric Hansen: Citizen action for conservation can make a difference

By Michele Bourdieu

MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukeean Eric Hansen, an award-winning conservation and environment essayist, and author of Hiking Wisconsin and Hiking Michigan's Upper Peninsula -- A Guide to the Greatest Hiking Adventures in the U.P., was interviewed by WUWM, Milwaukee Public Radio, in December 2009, at the time of the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change.

Eric Hansen, award-winning author, hiker and conservationist. (Photo © 2009 Susan Ruggles. Reprinted with permission.)

In this interview, titled "Copenhagen, climate change and common sense conservation," Hansen spoke of several recent conservation and environmental victories by Wisconsin citizens, including their 27-year campaign, finally successful, against a metallic sulfide mine (the Crandon Mine).

Michigan opponents of Kennecott/Rio Tinto's proposed sulfide mine on the Yellow Dog Plains, recently given approval by the (now former) Michigan Department of Environmental Quality would do well to listen to Hansen's encouraging words: "When citizens organize and demand meaningful conservation action, governments move into motion."

Click here to listen to the interview with Eric Hansen on Milwaukee Public Radio's "Lake Effect" program.

The transcript of this interview can be found on the Madison Capital Times Web site.

Editor's Note: Eric Hansen spoke with Keweenaw Now's editor last August during the Protect the Earth Walk to Eagle Rock. Hansen has written articles pointing out the dangers that metallic sulfide mining poses to groundwater, streams and lakes in both Michigan and Wisconsin. See "Protect the Earth: Part 1" for his comments.

Hansen has a deep spiritual attachment to the Upper Peninsula. See Keweenaw Now's videoclip of Hansen reading his poem, "A Place Where Water Sparkles," at Eagle Rock in "Protect the Earth: Part 2, Walk to Eagle Rock."

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