“If we care a great deal, we call it love. So it is love - love of the land, love of people and love for those who will come after us - that should guide our actions. Let it be love.” - Ken Smith “The Buffalo River Country” Two men from Bentonville, who were friends, neighbors and close in age, made changes to the world that probably neither had any notion or ambition to accomplish when they began what became their legacies.
Most people know the name Sam Walton, and the changes in global commerce and marketing that began with his little store in a small Northwest Arkansas town.
Few people outside Arkansas, however, know the name Neil Compton; yet to those of us who shared his values, his foresight had an impact on our world that might last far longer than Walton’s, although in a totally diff erent way.
What value, what measure, what diff erence does saving a river make? People across the planet have long fought unrelenting battles to save our natural world. Here in Arkansas, Dr. Neil Comptonbegan in the early 1960s to protect and preserve the free-fl owing Buff alo.
The fi rst chapter in his book “Battle for the Buffalo River” is titled “The Coming of Concrete,” which leads readers through the historical progression of river damming across the nation. Concrete was coming to the Buff alo, too, in the form of two proposed dams, justified as fl oodcontrol solutions and touted by the state’s congressional representatives as necessary public works projects.
What began as a small grassroots effort to prevent the damming of the state’s most beautiful river eventually wound up in the halls of Congress. It took a decade from Compton’s founding of The Ozarks Society to Save the Buff alo River (later shortened to simply The Ozarks Society) in May 1962 to its dedication as the nation’s fi rst national river in March 1972.
It was probably in the fall of 1962 when I, a sophomore, was walking through the University of Arkansas student union,then in the building on the corner of West Maple and Campus Drive. I always took the shortcut through the basement, where the bookstore and cafeteria were, and the area was usually buzzing with students playing cards or socializing.
One day I saw a table set up with informational material and a poster that read, “Save the Buff alo.” I had never heard of the river, certainly had no idea at first whether the Ozarks Society’s mission involved hairy bison or not, but the plea for the preservation of what I saw in the pictures immediately struck me as justified, urgent and extremely serious.
I paid my dues, probably all of a dollar, and joined my very fi rst environmental group right there on the spot. Life took a turn that day when it became apparent what could go wrong if enough people did not stand up for what was right, an awareness that has never worn off .
On Saturday in Bentonville, the Ozarks Society held a celebration of its 50 years as an organization, the 40 years since the national river designation and the 100 years since Neil Compton’sbirth. The celebration was held at the Compton Gardens and Conference Center located in the family home and the surrounding grounds, which belonged to his wife (and fellow canoeist and naturalist), Laurene, and her mother.
Neil purchased the adjoining 40 acres, but eventually Sam Walton convinced him to sell it, and now art lovers from around the world are visiting Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the middle of those woods Compton first protected before the Buffalo River consumed his time and eff orts.
Compton, guided by a deep respect and love for the Ozarks’ many fascinating, and often hidden, nooks and crannies, knew the Buffalo must not be dammed and dedicated himself, a mere mortal, to the saving of a place where geologic time can be read on canyon walls.
He wrote, “We now exercise the power to change and mutilate (the earth) in ways undreamed of a generation ago. With that power we now course the skies like angels and live like gods on terra firma. If we have at last become as gods, it is now past time to extend tothe earth and all of its creatures the compassion and understanding that we have hitherto assigned to the gods.”
Thank you, Neil.
FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONGSTANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE.
Opinion, Pages 15 on 08/19/2012