A Conservationist's Long Road
by Lori Shine
Nathaniel
Reed grew up with three brothers, and when it was time to think about their
schooling, his parents dutifully toured several options. When they came to
Deerfield, his mother didn’t ask then-Head master Frank Boyden about the
curriculum or facilities-with four lively sons, she wanted to know the reasons
a boy could get himself expelled. As Reed tells the story now, Mr. Boyden
responded, "Mrs. Reed, do you have dogs in your house?"
She replied, "Yes, a great
many."
He asked, "Do they
occasionally make errors?" "All too often," she said.
''Well," Boyden responded, "my
feeling is that boys make errors and I correct them.”
And so the family's decision was
made, and their years at Deerfield began. When Nathaniel speaks of Deerfield
now, his voice glows with gratitude. "My Deerfield days were among the
happiest of my life," he says. The love of the outdoors he'd had since
early childhood was nurtured fishing and swimming in the Deerfield River, and
the school held just the right balance of discipline and wiggle room."
Dr. Boyden was simply wonderful
handling this gawky fourteenyear-old who needed a great deal of sleep and
food," Reed confides. "My father was concerned about my grades, but
Dr. Boyden turned to him and said, 'At the moment we feed him hard, exercise
him hard, and give him ample amounts of sleep. He's coming along fine.' God
knows it was true!"
In his long career as an
environmental activist and public servant, Reed seems to have fully absorbed
those lessons of perseverance and flexibility.
Following Trinity College and
three years in the Air Force Intelligence Service, working from Norway to the
Middle East, Reed returned to his family's home and business on Jupiter Island
in Florida. He was sufficiently free from business obligations during the
summer months to travel the state, and he saw the land he loved being
devastated in the name of "progress" and "development."
Foreseeing ecological disaster, he "joined every environmental group known
to man" and was soon speaking at meetings of the Nature Conservancy, the
Sierra Club, and the Audubon Society.
"Up until then," he
says, "I had been on Jupiter Island only during Christmas and spring
vacations, so I was unaware of what was going on in the rest of Florida during
a period of extraordinary growth."
In fact, the population of the
state was exploding. And in this perfect storm, Reed found his calling.
Reed's new memoir, Travels on the Green Highway: An
Environmentalist's Journey (Reed Publishing Company LLC, 2016), unfolds
like a play-by play account of a high-stakes baseball game in extra innings,
full of unexpected strategies, long-shot plays, setbacks, and outsized
personalities. 'The book records the key part of my life working on Florida's
environmental problems and then going on to become Assistant Secretary of the
Interior," he says. It documents a remarkable era in which "we were
able to lay the groundwork of our nation's environmental foundation."
From his appointment by Florida
Governor Claude Kirk to implement conservation policies across the state, to
laying the groundwork for the Clean Water Act in the Department of the Interior
under Nixon and Ford, to pressing for land protection in Alaska, defending
redwoods in California, passing the Endangered Species Act, and nearly
countless other conservation wins, Travels shows Reed's ability to marshal all
comers. In the course of his years serving
six Florida governors
and two presidents, his reputation started to precede him-a reader gets
the clear sense that once Nathaniel Reed had placed an issue in his sights,
people knew he was not going away.
For example, when Reed was
appointed chairman of the Commission on the Future of Florida's Environment, it
required all of his energy to arrive at a recommendation and persuade deeply
divided "power groups" within the commission itself, the governor,
and the legislature to agree on a tax on the buying and selling of land to
finance the Florida Forever program.
Under Reed's guidance the commission recommended a $300 million yearly
land purchasing program "to acquire the very best of what was left"
in Florida. The state legislature funded the program for at least 20 years,
resulting in the purchase of 2.7 million acres. When the present governor
canceled the program, Reed continued undaunted. He just needed a new tactic.
This time he became one of the leaders of the movement to amend Florida's constitution and provide
about $800 million a year for watersheds, Everglades restoration, and key land
acquisitions up and down the state. The amendment passed overwhelmingly,
securing the program's continuation. "The pressures of development are so
great, I look to that as one of my most important efforts," he says.
Deerfield has also been the
beneficiary of Reed's ethic of service and persistence. He served as "a
loving trustee," he says, during memorable times including the vote for
the school to become coeducational. How can students in today's climate use
that strong Deerfield foundation to make a difference in the world? "Be
ready to seize an opportunity," advises Reed. As an example from his own
experience, he recounts, "A small group of very dedicated trained people
arrived in the Nixon administration. Perhaps unknowingly he had placed us at
levels where, working with a dedicated bipartisan Congress and staff, we were
able to pass the foundation of American environmental laws in less than four
years." When the right partners and opportunities presented them selves
to Reed, he jumped in.
Don't count him out yet, either.
"I'm not in my dotters by any means," he laughs, citing a letter he
wrote just the night before, pressing yet another important conservation
measure. The recipient would be wise to consider with whom they're dealing. //
