Bill Burch is revered for his humility and kindness as well as groundbreaking work in urban forestry.
Above: Bill Burch, Blanchard, Maine. Right: Burch and friends. “The dogs reflect the story of how black and white – well, grey — can survive in the wilderness.”
How do we use our potential for better survival and opportunity? Bill Burch is thrilled by questions like this.
A groundbreaker in the community forestry movement and in particular the field of urban ecology, Burch has revitalized communities and empowered vulnerable populations. His keen focus on the human dimension of forestry has earned him a reputation as a consummate community builder as well as a humble and beloved teacher and colleague.
As Frederick C. Hixon Professor Emeritus of Natural Resource Management and Senior Research Scientist at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Burch was the first director of Yale’s Tropical Resources Institute and Urban Resource Initiative. He has held numerous social science and research management appointments with the US Forest Service, National Park Service and Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and has been a grantee on projects in Asia and Latin America sponsored by US AID, The Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund. His innovative work on community forestry systems includes projects throughout Southeast Asia as well as the parks and open spaces of Baltimore, Maryland; New Haven, Connecticut; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A HEART AS BIG AS THE WORLD
Burch grew up walking in the woods near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with a “homesteader grandfather who was nutty for horses.” His father, employed only part time through the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, introduced him to the West’s national parks on extended fishing and camping adventures through Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. “This became a significant part of my identity,” says Burch. So much so that he would devote his doctoral thesis at the University of Minnesota to the subject. For Burch, the study of wilderness, recreation and family togetherness was a way to reveal the united States’ ongoing political and historical dance with our environment and to foster a sense of humility and cooperation with the natural world.
His appreciation for the “other side of the American story” was sharpened during his years as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon during the late 1950s. Working as a janitor and window cleaner to supplement his student loans, Burch was unable to resist taking up the cause of his fellow workers, whom he felt were badly underpaid. He became president of a Building Services Local union, organizing local union groups and urging employees to get involved. “You recognize the stress and the difficulty of their situation. There are a lot of folks worse off than you, and you have responsibilities because you are a university student. You have to step up.” Burch and his wife Judith befriended many other student couples in their Eugene neighborhood, including an African American man married to a white woman. When the couple had a stillbirth and were not allowed to bury the child in Oregon, the Burches became surrogate parents so that the child could be buried there. As in life, Burch’s work would be distinguished by a powerful sense of empathy and service.
In the decades to come, themes generated by the civil rights and environmental movements would resonate for Burch, sharpening his understanding of people’s dependence upon their communities as safe havens and spaces for work, recreation and gathering. In the wake of the race riots of the 1960s,
communities were struggling, suddenly dispossessed of their neighborhoods. My interests moved closer to issues of equity in access to public services.
Burch’s extensive work throughout Southeast Asia and other developing regions followed, as he felt there was much to learn from communities who depended so deeply upon their environments. As a grantee on projects sponsored by such organizations as the World Wildlife Fund, USAID, and the Ford and MacArthur Foundations, Burch worked with governments, schools, and local populations, to provide residents with the ability to tend and sustain the resources they needed for survival. Devoted to supporting those whose lives depended on the forest, Burch says, “I was like Willie Loman in Southeast Asia, trying to market community-based natural resources management.”
In 1983, Burch was named Founding Director of Yale’s new Tropical Resources Institute (TRI), an enterprise that would provide generations of students with opportunities to promote environmental stewardship through research, outreach, and conservation management. Today, TRI continues to flourish, facilitating hundreds of in-country collaborations and partnerships with organizations working throughout tropical regions.
“YOU’VE GOT TO DO THAT HERE!”
Burch enthusiastically shared all that he was learning overseas about the potential for parks and green space to support and energize local communities—and it was during one such discussion that a colleague handed him his aha moment. As a member of a conference panel on US national parks, Burch was describing the work he was doing with the Institute of Forestry in Nepal, training government staff to work with the community.
A fellow panel member named Ralph Jones, who had just been appointed Director of Baltimore Recreation and Parks, turned to me and shouted, “Why aren’t you doing that with my parks department?”
So Burch, who had never been to Baltimore, did just that, working with Jones and Yale School of Forestry Dean John Gordon to establish the Yale Urban Resource Initiative (URI).
Ralph Jones’ unexpected death shortly after this meeting compelled Burch to see the effort through. “We worked from the script of the community forestry work and launched a partnership with the city of Baltimore,” Burch says. At a time when there had been little faith in urban vitality, Burch adjusted the lens, viewing cities as ecosystems composed of multiple watersheds, and viewing maintenance crews as community foresters who would have the skills to map, organize, and work with individual neighborhoods.
The Baltimore URI, and soon after that initiatives in New Haven and Philadelphia, would give rise to a new kind of ecology that recognized the distinctive features, challenges, and promises found in the urban setting. In 1997, the National Science Foundation would acknowledge this movement by funding the nation’s first urban long-term research sites, one of which would be the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. Today there are 26 urban long-term sites in the United States.
School of Forestry students with their bags packed for Far East locales were persuaded in the generous and good-natured way that only Burch could persuade them, to stay local and work with URI. On both sides of the world, people were dispossessed of the land, he told them. In both places people needed to be empowered to take ownership of their environments. Moreover, much of what we learn from US cities can reveal meaningful lessons about how we investigate rural villages. Burch promised one graduate student, “Everything you wanted to do in Laos or Thailand you can do in Baltimore.” Morgan Grove would join Burch as Co-Principal Investigator of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. Twenty-five years later, he is still overseeing the project.
In places like Nepal and Northern Philippines, communities are naturally bound to their environments, says Burch. “In Nepal, you’re trying to farm on cliffs. The terrace is a critical part of the mountain ecology.” Communities are driven together by the seasons, by religion, by shared challenges, and this helps them to whether the calamities, he says. “They get through by working with each other and getting an answer.” For Burch, the landscape of the city would likewise hold the potential to unify and support its communities.
SITTING ON THE STOOP
Baltimore’s neighborhoods blossomed under the URI. The discovery of more effective water systems would lead to a reduction in polluted runoff and more productive tree planting. Over time, sidewalks were canopied in shade and native songbirds settled in. Still, says Burch, gardens and parks were not the end, but “critical tools for bringing people together who didn’t usually talk to each other.” The most vibrant renewal would be shaped by the hands of community members as they worked with each other to address challenges.
Burch sent his students to Baltimore’s front stoops, where they would be encouraged to sit by people’s sides and listen. “You’re not there to tell people what to do,” says Burch. “You’re there to ask questions and provide facilitation and skills. And in chatting with people you’ll find that other things come up.”
Residents were asked to identify their most pressing challenges and brainstorm solutions. Students worked to connect them to government agencies, local businesses and with each other. In this way, neighborhood residents transformed a trash-strewn lot into a community garden both sustaining and colorful—a social gathering place and also a long-term a project requiring many hands to maintain it.
Student interns also were required to teach nature education to children—to build a base of kids who would then educate their parents about things like littering and conserving water. (“Kids are great for changing their parents.”)
As people reclaimed their neighborhoods, social isolation diminished. “You knew who lived in the house next door,” says Burch. “And it’s where people know and look after each other that they have a greater chance of surviving.”
TEACHING COMPASSION
Adopting the role of community forester would require many of Burch’s students to leave their comfort zones. “To get people out of the academic mix and into situations they would not normally enter into – that was a major part of their education – learning how to adapt,” says Burch. “That is what you had to do if you were going to try to rebuild communities from the ground up.” An advocate of healthy skepticism (though never cynicism) he encouraged his students to question authority, “especially their own,” and open their minds to options they might not have considered. Always he listened and supported them, with characteristic kindness, enthusiasm, and compassion.
Remembering one student who seemed reluctant to venture out of the office and into the neighborhood Burch says,
I told her she had to dip her foot into the dark waters if she was going to learn anything. So we went out together to talk with the local people. We found her a partner in the local community. And she learned that these were people who shared her principals and were just trying to maintain a life. The next time I saw her she was dancing in the streets—just enjoying the fact that she had such a contribution to make.
Self-proclaimed “Burch-o-philes,” many of whom would become his colleagues, refer to Burch as the ultimate teacher, humble, generous, and possessing a profound understanding of the human condition. In the truest spirit of public health, Bill Burch is guided by the people he hopes to serve, taught by his students, and energized by unexpected turns in the road.
He would shepherd his students not for months but for years—so wanting you to be successful. He is very humble. He would tell his students, “You need to recognize this as a mutual path of learning. You need to learn from the community about their priorities. They have a lot to teach you about how things work in their community.” He brought this richness of observing a place—such a broad, encompassing way of looking at the landscape. Hundreds of students have learned from him how to rethink how we work in this field. –Colleen Murphy Dunning, Director, Urban Resources Initiative, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Bill more than anything helped me to see the beauty in urban areas. We’d walk through New York City or Philadelphia and he would express the wonder of a child alongside the understanding of a great master. He continuously marvels at the way in which human and natural systems interact. I can’t enter a new place without seeing the patterns that Bill has taught me to look for. –Marc Stern, Associate Professor, Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech
He is empathic and inspirational and fiery. He has stuck with me through time as a friend and a mentor. I have a great deal of gratitude. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without him. –Morgan Grove, US Forest Service Research Scientist, Co-Principal Investigator, Baltimore Ecosystem Study
Bill Burch has taught us that from the get go it’s always about the people. In the end, our actions can improve the environment–engaging conservation and restoration activities are so critical—but only as they improve the lives of people. He sees people as agents of positive change, with the ability to organize and improve things. –Erika Svendson, US Forest Service Research Social Scientist and Co-Director of the NYC Urban Field Station
His work on awareness of people and especially vulnerable populations when it comes to greening the city resonates with those of us seeking to improve population health and well-being. He is also a humble and brilliant colleague, who is unfailingly kind and respectful to those of us he mentors and guides. –Mary E. Northridge, Editor in Chief, American Journal of Public Health
Bill is first and foremost not cynical. He believes in what he is doing and he believes there are answers to things. I’ve worked with him in underdeveloped and troubled areas. His engaging lectures are not at the expense of realism—he insists on a certain level of academic rigor. But you also have to believe, and things can be done. –Russell Barbour, Associate Director for Statistics and Data Management at the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aids