Friend of the Earth, Karen Fant Passes Away

Our memories of her span decades, continents and issues. To her many friends, Karen will be remembered for her passion, dedication and selflessness as she strove to leave the world better than she found it.

Karen Fant, age 57, passed away this summer. To say that she was a dedicated Sierra Club volunteer would be a vast understatement. She often laughed at such associations, when asked to introduce herself at meetings. She belonged to all the conservation groups, and none of them. Her work was above those distinctions, she was simply advocating in every venue possible to protect wilderness, salmon, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a million unnamed places throughout the world.Karen was one of the founders in 1979 of the Washington Wilderness Coalition and was credited with a major part of the grass-roots work in which Congress enacted the one million-acre 1984 Washington State Wilderness Act. She helped organize the biannual Northwest Wilderness Conference at the Mountaineers. Her passionate affinity for Alaska’s wilderness drove her to help protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and befriend renowned photographer and activist Subankher Banerjee, with whom she organized many events to aid the Arctic fight. She was also dedicated to helping improve the environment in Asia and was a board member of the Seattle-Chongqing Sister City Association.For more than 30 years, Karen’s laugh, energy, love of nature, and hard-tack strategizing have taught us over and over again how important it is to organize, organize, organize to make change.

Here are some thoughts from a few of her friends:

Karen's untimely death is such a loss to those of us who care about our wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately she shared so much of her knowledge, expertise, and wisdom that we as a community are immensely stronger than had Karen not been among us. Every time I help put together a hearing or letter-writing campaign or organize local activists, I will consider how I can apply the many lessons that Karen taught and how I can help inspire other people the way that Karen inspired me.--Mark Lawler, Seattle, WA

 

The first big wilderness hearing I was heavily involved with was in 1982 in Spokane for the 1984 WA Wilderness bill. Karen was providing her usual excellent advice and coaching role. For the next 20 plus years I can't count the number of hearings, phone banks, strategy sessions, and miles we spent crossing the Northwest to fight for public lands. One of the many remarkable attributes of Karen was her ability and willingness to see the potential and opportunity in everyone to be involved, play important roles, and make a difference.

--Bill Arthur, Shoreline, WA

 

I think about Karen and keep coming back to how selfless she was, how dedicated to the cause and not in it for money, not in it for glory, or for recognition, or to hobnob with celebrities. She just wanted two things: to organize, and to protect the land. And that's what she did, incredibly well.

--Barbara Boyle, Sacramento, CA

 

I began volunteering at the Sierra Club office in 1971, and when I walked in, there was Karen! She must have been 22 at the time, but she already knew so many things about being an effective activist. Right away, she helped me get started - as she was to do with thousands of others. But Karen also led a rich and varied life in her community and the world. We always saw Karen at Folklife in May. One could not imagine a more constructive, helpful colleague.

--Dick Fiddler, Shoreline, WA

 

Karen was one of the first conservationists I met in Washington, and I liked her from the start. In 1980-81 one of my academic law projects was writing testimony against a bill from Secty. Watt's buddy Rep.Lujan to slant-drill under Wilderness. Congressman Lowry was holding a field hearing of his US House Subcommittee in Seattle on that very bill, so I somehow got connected with WWC and Ken Gersten and Karen, and we all testified and then celebrated at the Rapunzels pub in the U. District.

--Karl Forsgaard, Mercer Island, WA

 

I met Karen as a student activist in the late 1970s. At a time when the environmental leadership had little time for student activists, Karen was the opposite. She recruited me to be on the board of the Federation of Western Outdoors Clubs, where she was outgoing president. The, I went to Eugene, Oregon for a wilderness conference. Who do I run in to when I arrive: Karen, of course? We both felt a great need for grassroots organizing for wilderness protection in Washington State. The Washington Wilderness Coalition was born that weekend, and I started learning about grassroots organizing from the master. In my belief, Karen was one of the most influential people in the wilderness movement over the last 30 years.

--Ken Gersten, Washington

 

Years ago when I arrived in Seattle to work for the Sierra Club Karen was an inspiring and welcoming colleague who both drew me into the conservation community and helped point the way. Two images are particularly memorable: Christmas cookies delivered to the office and a meeting she pointedly set up to tell me about the Three Gorges Dam in China. The first was her annual gesture of connection she made to you feel part of a family; the second was also a gesture of connection, representing the very best of what conservation work is, where she reminded me that even globally we are family.

--Rick Johnson, Boise, Idaho

 

I met Karen during the Alaska lands campaign in the late 1970's. I was impressed with her knowledge of multiple places in Alaska, including the North Slope and Southeast (Tongass NF). Her Alaska knowledge about what was at stake reinforced my commitment to help. Karen was at forefront of the RARE II campaign and what eventually became the Washington Wilderness Act of 1984. A number of the Wilderness units designated were the direct result of Karen's founding and nurturing of local groups that advocated for the protection their local area. Lake Chelan-Sawtooth has Karen's imprint on it. Karen was an outstanding editor on many documents for Wild Sky, making a silent but critical contribution. It is a real shame that Karen did not live to see the potential for the passage of strong legislation.

--Don Parks, Redmond, WA

 

Karen and I attended countless meetings while pursuing the protection of our wild places. The conversations we had outside of those meetings, over a meal or in transit, let me see some small part of her that I might not otherwise have seen. Her energy and enthusiasm for whatever it took to accomplish our goals was inspiring. Her cheery voice on my answering machine asking me to do yet another phone bank made Karen’s one of the few phone calls I would actually return. Even before I knew who she was, I remember seeing Karen organizing busses for a rally; I think it was on Endangered Species Act hearings. Little did I know then who she was or what she had already accomplished or what she would come to mean to me as an activist, a mentor and a friend.

--Harry Romberg, Seattle

 

When I dial our Sierra Club office number in Boise, I often think of Karen. In 1994 we needed to get the "Save the Owyhees" message out to our neighborhoods, so the Northwest Office sent us their great outreach organizer, Karen. She organized a fantastic outreach event and trained us so we could do the next one. Karen lived with John and me for the weeks she was in Boise. She never was a guest -- in her friendly way she just fit herself into our home immediately. Sometimes I would come home to a great meal Karen had just put together from this and that in the refrigerator and cupboard. That was a real treat for a working woman like me.

--Edwina Allen, Boise, Idaho

 

Although my time was short with Karen (we met in 2001), she took me under her wing and showed me how to organize. Karen was amazing at bringing people together for a cause and spent many a night and weekend at the Club office recruiting volunteers, managing phonebanks and entering data. What stays with me most is her infectious smile and her boundless dedication. She lived her dream of making the world a better place for all of us.

--Angela Silva, Tacoma, WA

 

Karen’s enthusiasm, deeply held environmentalism, and humor, enabled her to mobilize thousands of people in the 'fight for good.' I marveled at the depth of her experience -- how many millions of acres of wilderness can be attributed to her work? Would Senator Maria Cantwell have won in 2000 without Karen getting the troops going on the recount? Would Pres Clinton have decided to protect the roadless areas? I thought of Karen often during the last election cycle - how could we be in a close race without her? I missed her! Mostly because she never gave up, she never said "that's good enough", and she always brought Nutter Butters cookies to phonebank nights. Her work was magnified a million times because of the people she inspired to get involved.

--Kathleen Ridihalgh, Seattle, WA