Some environmentalists make their mark by sitting in air-conditioned
offices and writing brilliant position papers. Not Eloise Charet of New
Denver, British Columbia. She's one of those activists who operates on
emotion, who puts her body on the line, who stops at nothing to draw
attention to her cause. In 1997 she was one of seven people arrested for
blockading a logging road near her home--part of a larger campaign against
the cutting of Canada's ancient western forests. All the others, including
Charet's 12-year-old daughter Emma, won release by signing a promise not to
renew their demonstration in the same place. But Charet refused to sign. "I
thought no," she recalls. "I will always protest this." Only after she sat
in jail for seven weeks, went on a highly publicized hunger strike and lost
two teeth from malnutrition was Charet let go--without further punishment.
Charet was trying to save trees from loggers, but her ultimate goal was to
protect British Columbia's clear streams, which nurture wildlife and
provide drinking water for nearby towns. She knew that rain running down
denuded hillsides washes silt into the streams, choking the life out of
them. Moreover, she knew that Canada's famously pure water is threatened
not only by logging, but also by industrial wastes, agricultural
fertilizers and pesticides and even persistent chemical toxins blown in
from other countries.
But Charet had little opportunity to get out that message or influence
policymakers. Now 48, and the divorced mother of five (Emma, the youngest,
has turned 14), Charet has no steady job and earns occasional income
teaching canning and preserving techniques in villages around New Denver.
So there was nothing to keep her from plotting her most dramatic gesture
yet: a 1998 "WaterWalk" across Canada to learn about water problems and
share her growing knowledge. It took her seven months to trek more than
2500 miles from Victoria, B.C., to Ottawa. She learned about perils to
water supplies from herbicide spraying in Alberta, uranimum mining in
Saskatchewan and mercury contamination in Ontario. Local newspapers
heralded her arrival in one town after another and a website
(www.watertalk.org) chronicled her progress. But when she reached the steps
of the Parliament in Ottawa, no lawmakers came out to listen to her. "All I
did was sit down and cry," she says.
Was it all for naught? Not according to Joan Russow, national leader of
Canada's Green Party. The WaterWalk inspired the Greens to begin raising
money for a water-protection fund to support research and action across
Canada. "Charet's legacy," says Russow, "is her impact on small
communities. Who knows how many people were moved to do something because
of her walk?"
