Defender of the Backwoods: The Good Life of Andy Mahler |
Andy Mahler in the Hoosier National Forest. Photo: Steven Higgs.
Surrounded by his friends and his wife Linda Lee, Andy Mahler, my friend of 42 years, died at the Lazy Black Bear, his home deep in the deciduous forest of southern Indiana, which he spent much of his life fighting to protect. We fought many battles together, some seemingly hopeless that ended in unexpected triumph, hiked many trails, floated rivers, explored caves, hunted the elusive chanterelle, feasted, danced, told tall tales and sang the folksongs of the hill people by firelight, accompanied by fiddles and dulcimers.
Andy’s activism, which was innovative, unflinching and humane, was not distinct from his life. It was all part of one, fully integrated, beautiful and vibrant whole. It was his way of living. I’ve never met a more genuine person. He was a huge presence with an infectious personality, but he always met you on equal terms. He was as curious about you as you were about him. This feature of his personality made Andy a brilliant friend and one of the most gifted organizers of his time. He was as comfortable talking to a governor or US Senator as he was to a taxidermist or county road worker.
We spoke together in many unusual venues for environmental activists: Elks Lodges, VFW Halls, county granges, rifle clubs. Our rule was we’d accept any invitation, talk to anyone willing to listen. Andy was much better at this than I was. He was never dogmatic or condescending and rarely, if ever, lost his cool, even in rooms where the air sizzled with hostility. He almost certainly saved my ass a few times, when my sharper and more impertinent tongue got me into trouble. But it was almost impossible to be mad at Andy, even when he’d gotten the better of you in an argument or on the field battle.
Andy Mahler, the valiant defender of America’s backwoods, lived in and learned from the forests he spent much of his life fighting to protect from senseless destruction and corporate exploitation. When much of the mainstream environmental movement wrote off rural people, Mahler built a powerful movement among them: decentralized, democratic and rooted in place. Mahler was a visionary, whose capacity for empathy, for both humans and the natural world, was matched only by his steely refusal to compromise on vital matters of ecological principle. Mahler’s life, lived to the max, is a testament for a new kind of environmental movement: local, radical and charged with the joyful spirit of the life force itself.
I’ll miss you deeply, brother.
Andy Mahler at home at the Lazy Black Bear in southern Indiana. Photo: Steven Higgs.
I wrote this tribute to Andy last year on the occasion of him being named the Grassroots Activist of the year by the Fund for Wild Nature,
A few miles outside the town of Paoli, in the unglaciated hill country of southern Indiana, there’s a 90-acre grove of old-growth hardwood forest called Pioneer Mothers. From 1816 to 1940, the land had been owned by the Cox family, who refused to log even a tree from the grove of titanic oaks, hickories, beech and tulip poplars. However, after the last of the Cox family died, the forest was sold to a local timber company, which planned to clearcut it. A local uprising ensued, led by some of the community’s most prominent women, who raised money to buy the property and donate it to the US Forest Service on the condition the forest would never be logged. The grove, which was named Pioneer Mothers in their honor, is now a Research Natural Area on the Hoosier National Forest and is one of only a handful of remaining old-growth groves in the Ohio Valley.
Forty-five years later another local revolt would take place in the same rural county over plans to clearcut the Hoosier........