Mark Green | Santa Rosa, CA

Mark Green is the Executive Director of CalWild and is based in Santa Rosa, California.

Why does wilderness matter to you?

Since I was a small child, the magnificent beauty and fascinating complexity of the natural world have spoken to me. In the course of my life I have hiked, backpacked, camped, and rafted rivers throughout the US, resulting in the happiest and most memorable moments of my life.

Wilderness matters because it is where humans are most naturally suited. There is a *rightness* to being in nature that brings calm, centeredness, and wisdom, while the urbanized human world is characterized by the opposite of those things.

The unique jewels of American wilderness are not replaceable, nor can they be recreated once destroyed. They are places that are and should be viewed as sacred: as trusts to be handed down to future generations intact and thriving.

Why does wilderness matter to your community?

My community is made up of people who hold the natural systems and places of the Earth as sacred. We would be lost without wilderness.

Share a story about a special experience you have had in wilderness.

I nearly drowned after being thrown out of a raft I was paddling in Crystal Rapid—the most dangerous rapid in Grand Canyon. I was swept downstream through the wave train below the rapid for a half-mile in 48-degree water, growing hypothermic and so hypoxic that my peripheral vision faded so it seemed I was looking down a narrowing tunnel. Every wave pounded me down before I could get a full breath; when I bobbed up I was coughing.

But I did survive. I was hauled into a boat at the bottom of the rapid, freezing cold and scared. That evening after we made camp I hiked up into Blacktail Canyon, where a tiny trickle of water fed angelhair fern and moss. I felt a part of everything, grateful the river had given me back.

What are your hopes for the future of wilderness?

My hopes for the future of wilderness are that the universal benefits of the existence of wilderness are understood by more and more people as time passes.