Charles Jordan, Chairman of the Conservation Fund

Charles Jordan greets me with a bear hug before walking down a ramp that leads to his houseboat on a channel of the Columbia River in Portland, Ore. The urban outdoor setting is a natural fit for the 69-year-old chairman of the Conservation Fund, one of the country’s leading advocates for urban parks and recreation. Jordan has built a career promoting accessible urban green space and the conservation of public lands. In 1974, he became the first African-American commissioner on Portland’s city council, a position he held for ten years before going to Austin, Texas, to be the director of parks there. In 1989, he returned to Oregon to become Portland’s parks and recreation director. He has served in many national leadership roles, including co-chair of the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund Review Commission. Jordan talks about the importance of connecting urban youth to the outdoors, the gap between the environmental movement and minorities, and how his three-year-old granddaughter will help save the world.

TNAC: High-density urban development has become a dominant motif in American city planning. How will urbanization influence the role of parks and recreation in cities?

CJ: Urbanization increases the challenges—and the ideas. Given that over 85 percent of all Americans now live in or around cities, cities must have good leadership and plan for growth. Society is facing crises of obesity and of conservation, and we, as professionals, need to go where the kids are. That’s in the cities. That’s in urban parks and recreation.

Along with other groups like the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund has protected millions of acres of public land for our children to enjoy. But tell kids they own some of America’s great landscapes, and they won’t know what you mean.

TNAC: The Conservation Fund recently launched the National Forum on Children and Nature to connect kids with the natural world. Are local and state park bureaus taking the lead on this issue?

CJ: No, not at this time. I would love to gather the top professional organizations, like the City Parks Alliance, the National Recreation and Park Association, and say: We’ve got to make sure that every kid will have access to affordable leisure opportunities with specific benefits. We have to develop a parks strategy that is more than fun and games. We need to plan our programs with intentionality.

The California Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights (adopted by the California Roundtable on Recreation, Parks, and Tourism in April) is a great example. It says that by the completion of their fourteenth year, all children should have these experiences: discover the state’s past, splash in the water and learn to swim, play in a safe place, camp under the stars, explore nature, play on a team, follow a trail, catch a fish, and celebrate their heritage. We can make sure every child in the country goes through this program, just as every child goes to school.

TNAC: In 1984, you were the lone minority on the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors, established by President Reagan. Has the conservation movement become more inclusive of minorities?

CJ: One of my favorite sayings on conservation is this: “Everybody lives upstream, and everybody lives downstream.” If that is the case, how can we leave over 100 million people out of a movement? We have more than 100 million people of color in this country, and they are nowhere near being represented. The language is exclusive. Biodiversity, ecological survey, sustainability: These are not words that all people use. If we are going to make a difference, we have to color-coordinate conservation. We need all hands on deck. It’s not an option of whether one is an environmentalist or not. We all are. There is no room for spectators.

TNAC: How do we move forward?

CJ: I was surprised to read that black people give a higher percentage of their income to charity. The challenge is that most of it goes to the church and local programs. The faith communities are critical to this movement.

We need to take advantage of the small moments, the moments close to home. We need to sit under a tree with our kids and tell them to take a deep breath. And then explain to them: When you took that breath, you breathed clean air. When you let it go, that was poisonous air. The tree took that poisonous air and cleaned it up for you.

Kids often pretend they are not listening, but what we say will stay with them. The next time they see someone cut down a tree, they are going to say: “How are we going to breathe?” That’s the buzz I want to hear.

TNAC: How do you motivate urbanites to advocate for public space?

CJ: As the chairman of the Conservation Fund, I’m in the business of

community building: that is, connecting people to people, connecting them to the land, and connecting them to the neighborhood.

In this country, we have a habit of coming out of the gate like gangbusters, but we are sprinters. Soon we drop out and start another program du jour. Case in point: the War on Poverty—did we win that one? No. What about No Child Left Behind? So when I start a speech about conservation, I start with Mia, my three-year-old granddaughter. I put her picture up on the overhead and let it sit there. I tell my audience: “I made a commitment to this young lady that I was going to make the world a better place. But I can’t keep it unless you make a commitment to your Mias. Make a commitment to someone and then work to keep that commitment. Then we will have reason to know that God didn’t make a mistake by keeping us around.”