written by Christopher Ryan Disario

BRUCE CAMPBELL and his wife Ida Gearon have taken up a cause. They’ve been working on “A Community Speaks,” a full-length documentary analyzing land stewardship issues from all sides. I thought that writing an article about someone who is normally associated with B-movies and chainsaws making an environmentally conscious documentary would make for great journalism.

I’m not going to lie to you. When I decided to write this article, I was playing an angle to get an interview. I didn’t know much about land stewardship. I thought it was just tree-hugging hippies complaining about the plight of some random salamander threatened by urban development. The concept didn’t seem that hard to grasp.

It wasn’t until I did more research than I ever saw myself doing that I realized I was in trouble. When it took me nearly three hours to come up with my own definition of what land stewardship is, that’s when I knew I was pretty well fucked.

When asked about what he would like to see come out of “A Community Speaks,” Campbell said, “More than anything, I’d be tickled if it kicked off a reasonable discussion about what the very best way to care for these millions of publicly owned acres is.”

I’d like to start that discussion. Problem is, I’m an irresponsible human being. I don’t protest. I don’t get involved. I don’t rock the vote. So what right do I have starting a discussion?

A few weeks ago I would have copped to that and said that I had no right discussing this in a bar, much less to thousands of people via the press. But that’s not my take on it now. Since I started educating myself on land stewardship and how it literally affects every human being on the planet, my views have changed.

And I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you that I’m no expert on this subject. I’m not going to use a bunch of slick terms and confusing jargon to make myself seem smarter than I am. I’m not going to preach. From someone who thought he knew everything and then found out he didn’t know anything, I’m just going to start a discussion.

WHAT IS LAND STEWARDSHIP?

A simple enough question. The problem with trying to answer it neatly is that land stewardship encompasses a lot of different areas. From public lands being used for mining, logging and grazing to using more environmentally responsible products in your backyard garden, everything falls under the same umbrella. Granted, it’s a huge umbrella, but it all boils down to the same thing — accountability. On the one hand, there is a need for individuals to be accountable for their actions, but on the other hand, that doesn’t completely define the issue.

There are millions of acres of public land that are owned by the government. Some of this land is set aside for business, some is set aside for recreation, but all of it is owned by the tax-paying American. The question then becomes: How is this land being taken care of? What, specifically, is it being used for? How is it being conserved for the future?
This is where I start to get a headache.

The amount of informational resources are huge, and depending on what you read, they often contradict themselves because there are a million sides to this coin. The lumber industry says one thing, the conservationists say another, the government says something else and what ends up surfacing after you’ve seen so many sides is that no one is necessarily wrong or right. What needs to come from all these sides is some sort of balance to maintain the integrity of the land itself, the nature within that land, the businesses and the weekend campers. It’s a delicate balance where everyone needs to win.

TWO VOICES RISE UP

The name Bruce Campbell doesn’t conjure images of environmental responsibility. Best known as Ash in the “Evil Dead” trilogy, he’s appeared in over 60 films, television shows and videogames. To his fans, he’s the king of low-budget horror. To the rest of the world, he’s the king “that” guy.

“Hey, who was that guy who played Ed on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’?”

“Remember that guy who was the ring announcer in ‘Spider-Man’?”

“Who was that guy in ‘The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.’?”

That guy decided that land stewardship was something that people need to be aware of. According to Campbell, the reason is simple. “I live in Oregon. The land surrounding my property and about 95 percent of my view is government land. It got me to thinking about what do they do with all that land?”

When asked why people should care about land stewardship, Campbell answered, “Well, the only thing in this world that there will be less of is land, and even less of that remaining land will be undeveloped. We get our drinking water not from the tap, but from the water taken off of mostly publicly owned lands and watersheds. The quality of our water — you know, that thing that sustains us — depends on the quality of that land.”
“What else do trees do? Oh yeah, they give us that other silly little thing called oxygen. I guess that’s why you should give a rat’s ass.”

SOMETHING FUNNY HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO MY DEADLINE

I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I was an irresponsible human being — I’m not going to take it back and say that I’ve been saved. But I have been enlightened. What is the real expense of our consumptive lifestyles? Is it the three bucks for a beer? Is it the $20 we’ll drop for that new coffee table at Ikea? Or is it the extinction of a species of bird? Or the loss of our rivers and streams forever?

Before you go chastising me for taking something so far to the extreme, ask yourself: How extreme is it? How will you put a beer on your coffee table if the people that need to be accountable for taking care of the planet for us do so irresponsibly? It won’t happen in our lifetime, but eventually a generation is going to suffer for our sins if we don’t start getting involved now.

Maybe it’s time we take our blinders off and start looking at the world as an ownership situation instead of as just a rental.

Land Stewardship Resources:
http://www.landstewardship.org/frameset.htm
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs.html#new_vision_for_ag
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_factoryfarms.html
http://www.nrdc.org/land/use/depth.asp
http://www.woodcom.com/woodcom/woodcom/fbf.html

To find out more about Bruce Campbell and “A Community Speaks” http://www.bruce-campbell.com.

I got a chance to ask Mr. Campbell some questions of my own about “A Community Speaks.”

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve found out during the course of the project?
That land management is extremely complex, so much so that we had to shoot an additional fifteen hours — on top of forty already — just to “fill in the gaps.” My wife Ida and I also learned that there are no good guys or bad guys — we’re all in the same boat. You’ve been elected president; what do you do about the use of public lands? How do you change the face of the issue?

I would simplify the federal land agencies. I would pull the forests out of the Department of Agriculture, since we are no longer treating forests like crops. I would also come up with more solutions where active harvesting and restoration are allowed to help with fires issues, etc. — yet it would be done in such a way that the quality of the land improves rather than degrades.

Are there any areas in particular that you’ve found need more attention than others do or is everything equal?
Yeah, density management should be put into effect immediately, across every acre of federal land, simply to make up for the density overstocking as a result of decades of fire suppression. It’s a far lighter touch on the land, employs lots of local folks, and pays for the sin of fire suppression.

You’ve said, “I just want to let folks know the ramifications of their consumptive behavior.” What do you do in your own life to cut down that sort of behavior?
We’ve gone from a 3,500-square-foot home in Los Angeles to a 1,100-square-foot home in Oregon. Our house is partially underground, so it can be heated with a wood burning stove and cooled by simply leaving windows closed in the summer — stuff like that.

What’s been the most difficult part of the project?
Sorting through 55 hours of footage, yet still paying attention enough to pull the best stuff.

For all the projects that you’ve been associated with as producer, actor, etc., this seems to be the most intimate. What were your biggest challenges stepping behind the camera, interviewing people, creating the whole process from scratch?
The challenges weren’t that big, aside from trying to be informed enough to ask the right questions to the right people in the right circumstances, so that we have a truly balanced approach to our story.

How has it been working so closely with your wife Ida on such a personal project?
Honestly, we’re pretty casual about the whole thing. One of us will get a whim to do something and drag the other one along. Either way, Ida’s a great partner.

Back to top