It’s quiet. The sun is warm on her back as she pushes off from the shore. Soon all she hears are the ripples against the boat’s edge as she floats through an almost forgotten corner of the universe. This is Joy DeClerk’s happy place.
“Some of the most peaceful, healing moments I’ve ever had in my life were in outdoor settings,” she says. “Those are the moments when life feels so naturally good.”
When she’s at the office, her mind is still on nature: DeClerk is the River Conservation Program Director for the Arkansas chapter of the Nature Conservancy, a science-based, non-confrontational environmental group dedicated to reducing the humanity’s impact on the planet.
The conservancy, a nonprofit organization, has chapters in all 50 states and in 69 countries. Established in 1982, the Arkansas division has acquired 35,000 acres of land preserves and has conserved 325,000 acres in the state, everything from forests and woodlands to caves and swamps, and miles of rivers in between.
That’s where DeClerk’s team comes in. Her crew consists of Ouachita Rivers Project Specialist Melissa Jenks and Stream Restoration Technician Bonnie Earleywine. Their jobs, essentially, are to repair botched waterways.
“Rivers in Arkansas like to curve, and some humans think that they need to be straight,” DeClerk says, describing some environmentally irresponsible projects of the past. “Sooner or later it starts to make its curve again. We help to retrain it back to its natural state with minimal disruption to surrounding natives, human and otherwise.”
Many times, towns and farms suffer from rivers that too often flood because of poorly reshaped waterways, or have become increasingly shallow, filled with sediment from unpaved roads.
“That’s where we come in with practical, on-the-ground solutions that help the landowners so they’re not losing their land,” Jenks says. “Usually they’re in a desperate situation, so we can accomplish our goal and teach and help them in turn.”
The method is called natural channel design, and it begins with an assessment. After traveling a river corridor, the team studies and surveys the area with an eye on biodiversity, the range and number of species in a given area. Being part of a small organization, the team must prioritize its projects, basing those priorities on conserving species and habitats.
“In the southeast region of the nation, our diversity is just incredible,” Earleywine says. “We have so many species of plants, fish, mammals. For just about anything you can think of, this is the sweet spot.”
Once the data is collected, the women return to the office to draw up plans. With a design in hand and grant money to back them, they begin the on-the-ground phase of the project, or as they like to call it, “the fun part.” Excavators, dump trucks and bulldozers roll in and begin digging out and reshaping the banks.
Rock structures are then built to mimic natural elements in the system to keep the fresh earth from eroding. Next comes protecting ing the banks with hearty and “disturbance-loving” vegetation, transplanting species like willows and sycamores by cutting off the limbs and replanting the roots, where the trees’ energy resides.
In a few years, the river, its banks and the surrounding species of plants and animals will return to their original state with little trace of disruption.
“It’s a basic concept and message, even though our work sounds complex,” Jenks says.
Though the endgame may be elementary, the work requires passion and skills that these three women have accumulated in a combined 23 years at the conservancy. But that doesn’t stop the eyebrows from rising when they show up on a site.
“Oh yeah,” DeClerk says, “we get a lot of weird looks.”
Their work falls into the STEM category (science, technology, engineering and math), one that is largely dominated by men. Even though the conservancy’s Arkansas office has more than an average number of women on its staff, an absence of women is particularly noteworthy in the emerging fields of environmental science and biology, which DeClerk, Jenks and Earleywine specialize in. This has presented obstacles in some of their projects.
Local residents are often already skeptical of the conservancy’s work. They complain when the stream gets muddy during construction and annoyed when outsiders offer answers to town problems — and that goes double when the outsiders are women.
“It’s difficult because the overall concept is trying to break traditions in nontraditional ways,” Earleywine says. “We have different approaches and we’re women. We’re coming in to change what’s always been.”
As part of the conservancy’s nonconfrontational nature of working for the best overall outcome, the team isn’t interested in mounting a soapbox and telling landowners what’s best. But they’re still faced with the task of explaining methods of improvement to sometimes prickly audiences. The trick is in the women’s rural upbringings and determination to make a cconnection.
“It’s all about building relationships,” DeClerk says. “Every step along the way, they get surprised and we get a little more traction. We can speak the language; we just have to get in the door. Sometimes that’s harder for females, sometimes it’s easier. I might be able to get someone’s ear more quickly, but they might not think I’m credible.”
After residents see the finished project, however, doubts vanish. Still, the women admit that their methods don’t always match up with their male counterparts’ ways. They’ve seen projects hit snags that men would fix by muscling through. Instead, the women employ their work motto of thinking smarter instead of working harder — to discover a more efficient route.
“Yes, we use our lady brains really hard,” Earleywine says with a laugh.
But working efficiently doesn’t mean they don’t get their hands dirty. In her first days, Earleywine (the smallest of the group) ran chainsaws for 10 hours a day, proving what her team now calls her “circus strength.”
In recent years, a public push has encouraged girls to follow interests in STEM from an early age. Two prominent Arkansas programs doing just that are the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas’ Girls of Promise and the University of Central Arkansas’ Girl Power in STEM. Both programs offer learning and hands-on experiences to eighth-grade girls to open them up to the possibility of being physicians, engineers, coders and or other professionals in STEM fields. DeClerk, Jenks and Earleywine have all participated as speakers and leaders at these programs — muddy boots and all — in hopes of changing the workforce forecast.
“We speak to a mix-match of girls from rural areas and cities,” Jenks says, “and for some of them, our workshop is their first introduction to getting in a river at all. Even that can spark a small something in them.”
It’s the same small spark these three women experienced as children exposed to nature, one that ignited a lifelong devotion to the outdoors. They say that the same spark needs to catch flame in order for the Natural State to remain natural.
The growth of cities and suburbs detaches people from nature, they say, even in a rural state like Arkansas. And as that gap widens, our surroundings are suffering visible damage.
“We have to try and connect people in urban areas to the natural environment,” DeClerk says. “If we want people to support conservation in the future, they have to have a connection to it.”
Ranch North Woods is one way the Nature Conservancy is working to forge that connection. The preserve is adjacent to Pinnacle Mountain and just a short 10-minute drive from Little Rock. Like all conservancy preserves, Ranch North Woods is open to the public, but unlike the other preserves it has no notable biological significance or restoration projects in the works.
The conservancy acquired the property with the sole purpose of giving it to the people. With plans for more trails, float trips and leave-no-trace camping sites, its 234 acres of rivers, mountains, fields and forests serve as a connection to a natural landscape and a respite for asphalt-weary Arkansans.
DeClerk, Jenks and Earleywine get it. When they’re not gone for weeks at a time on assignments, they lead busy lives away from work — DeClerk as a yoga instructor and Jenks and Earleywine as musicians. Yet still they keep a steady grasp on the past and the future of the natural world around them.
“When people talk about big, broad issues like climate change, what that means to me is not doom and gloom, but that our habitats need to be resilient,” DeClerk says. “If history shows us anything it’s that if the environment is resilient, it will change, but it won’t be doomsday. It can adapt, but not if it has virtually no species left because of human impact. So if we’re going to be resilient to climate change, we can still do the things humans need to do to survive, but we can be smarter. We can be so much smarter.”
And so, like the trees protecting the banks of a restored river, these women and the Nature Conservancy serve as a line of defense for the heritage of The Natural State, and the energy is in the roots.
Conservancy Quick Facts
• Leaf-off conditions: Winter is the best time of year to survey because the lack of foliage means equipment can see farther and more accurately.
• 52: Arkansas receives 52 inches of rain a year. Combined with the region’s naturally long growing season, this creates ideal conditions for new plants along the riverbanks to grow fast and strong.
• The yellowcheek darter: Less than a year after the Nature Conservancy’s restoration work at Archey Fork on the Little Red River near Clinton, the yellowcheek darter — an endangered fish species endemic to the area — returned following a three-decade absence.
Ways to get involved
• Follow projects on social media and blogs — Facebook: The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas; Instagram: @nature_arkansas.
• Volunteer — Become a member and enjoy six issues a year of Nature Conservancy magazine, field trips to preserves, and other events.
• Join the young professionals group, the Central Arkansas Advisory Council.
• Visit preserves
• Donate