Native Forest Council: About Us

Native Forest Council has been made possible by our members and supporting organizations, whose generous, tax-deductible donations fund Council programs. Membership in the Native Forest Council supports Council programs such as this site, and includes a subscription to our quarterly publication, Forest Voice.

Featured Member:

We periodically highlight members of the Native Forest Council for their activism and dedication to the defense of our publicly owned lands. We are pleased to highlight Carl Nelson.

At 85, Native Forest Council member Carl Nelson is still traveling the country with his wife, working on his fourth book of poetry and fighting to save America's public lands.

The road that eventually brought Carl Nelson to the Native Forest Council started with a shiny, rumbling Harley Davidson in 1937. Nelson grew up on a farm near the small town of Medford, Wisconsin, and moved into town after graduating from high school.

"In a couple of years I had saved up enough money to buy that Harley - the first one they ever made with an overhead cam." During the summers of 1937 and 1938, Nelson rode cross-country, through Louisiana, the Sierras of California and as far south as Mexico City. During these trips, Nelson was moved by the magnitude of the American wilderness, an expansiveness captured in the poems of Yeats and Byron: works that had moved him to write his own poetry.

By the time he returned from his travels, the country was gearing up for World War II. In 1940, Nelson says he "did what many young men were doing. I enlisted because I knew I would be drafted eventually." Nelson achieved the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and became an instructor at Quantico, VA for two years. He also earned his wings, "which I received the day after the war ended," he says. Nelson counts himself lucky to never have been involved in combat.

Soon after leaving the Marine Corps, Nelson married Janet, his wife now for 57 years, and entered the University of Minnesota, but then entered the Chicago Theological Seminary. During this time, he also bought 200 acres near his boyhood home in Wisconsin. Nelson graduated from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1949, having focused his graduate thesis on the nature of divinity and its relationship to democracy.

"The Creative Power, whatever you want to call it, is within the whole of creation, is within everything," he said, "All human beings have this creative power in them. Thus, democracy is the logical political development from this concept," he recalled.

It was during his first job as a minister in Wellesley, MA, that he began to work for human rights. "There was a lot of discrimination in housing, against the black and Jewish people there, so we rallied our entire congregation to help make fair practices."

They formed a grassroots group called the Wellesley Fair-Housing Practices Committee, which eventually did succeed in helping eliminate some of the housing discrimination. "I actually ended up with a wonderful black woman for my next-door neighbor, which never would have happened before."

Over the years, Nelson continued to travel, published three books of poetry and fought more battles: for human rights, democratic practices and the environment. He marched with Dr. King in Selma, Alabama, and protested capital punishment, nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War while living in Eugene, Oregon and later, in Wausau, Wisconsin.

After he retired, Nelson and Janet began to travel, forgoing the Harley for a tiny trailer called a "Scamp," which became their second home while exploring the beauty of the southwestern deserts and the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest, among other places. "It was amazing to see how these places had changed [since my trips on the Harley]," he says. "The sprawl. The houses. They had just eaten up everything."

So Nelson became increasingly involved with public lands issues, which he believes are intrinsically connected to human rights issues. "You work on human rights and have a sense of democracy and equality. The whole universe is intertwined and interdependent, and you can't have your human rights apart from your animal rights or your [environment] or anything, it's all interrelated," he explained.

By 1976, the 200 acres that he had bought decades ago in Wisconsin for $1,300 had become so valuable (thanks to the same urban sprawl he fought), that he could no longer afford the taxes. This land was more than just a treasured family retreat; it was also a watershed important to the nearby community. So Nelson struck a deal with the Forest Service, who would buy the land and preserve the ecosystem. He founded the South Twin Lakes Conservation Society to help make sure that the Forest Service preserved the land as he intended.

Fighting for what is right takes a lot of energy, and Nelson has learned that "It's awfully easy to have burnout." Staying inspired is one of the reasons he has enjoyed working now with Tim Hermach, president of the Native Forest Council. "You get a charge out of talking with Tim - and that's what we all need."

At 85, Nelson is still fighting for the preservation of America's lands. The South Twin Lakes Conservation Society is working to keep a high-voltage power line from cutting through quite near the very piece of land that Nelson sold to the Forest Service. And he is still traveling with his wife Janet, visiting their grandchildren, and working on his fourth book of poetry.