Noah Alliance, National
A version of this article by Dorothy Boorse originally appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Creation Care magazine.
“Speaking Truth to Power”
Noah Alliance helps keep endangered species afloat
“Well,” said an insistent congressman. “Well, which is it, artificially help prairie chickens breed in my state or lose jobs” He didn’t wait for a response. “Chickens or jobs? Which? Which?”
Gathering her thoughts as quickly as she could, Dorothy Boorse answered, “Well, congressman, I’ve lost track of my options. Are we artificially inseminating these prairie chickens?” A moment of laughter pulled the group back from the edginess of discord. Then she turned to answer the larger question. “Why should we make sacrifices to protect non-human creatures?”
Dorothy was in a hearing for a House Resources subcommittee, where she was in danger of becoming confused by a volley of disconnected questions, interruptions, and statements from a group of people who largely did not want to hear what she had to say. And what she had to say was pretty simple: As a scientist she new that endangered species need habitat protection. The committee was convening to hear about the Wildlands Project, and environmental proposal to connect core habitat areas with corridors through which plants could disperse and animals could travel. These corridors are currently highly studied in ecology and protection of habitat is widely understood among ecologists to be the cornerstone of protection of endangered species. Both the Endangered Species Act and the Wildlands Project stress the need for habitat protection. Both are under pressure from groups that are not supportive of environmental laws.
Dorothy was also wearing a second hat, that of an environmentally concerned Christian. Suellen Lowry had recruited her to represent the Noah Alliance, a new coalition of faith based environmental groups advocating for protection of endangered species. As an evangelical Christian Dorothy believes it is part of her God-given responsibility to protect the environment and other species from negative results of human activities. She feels that by polarizing discussion to be the environment versus jobs is inappropriate. Just as we need to protect both justice and jobs or care of people and jobs, we should be protecting both jobs and species. 
By the time of her exchange about the prairie chicken, Dorothy had given her expert witness testimony already. She had sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and while in the middle of the question period when the questions were coming from all directions, she had a sense of peace. She explained that while humans have been given dominion, it is not the right to destroy. Neither is it our prerogative to cause extinction of species, even if God has done so during extinction events in the past. She argued that short-sighted destruction of the environment will harm people as well as other species, as unintended consequences result in loss of ecosystem services on which we depend. And the protection of corridors as endangered species habitat is essential to prevent such losses.
Dorothy was grateful for the mass of people who had prepared her for this event; she was representing those supporters and their voices with her testimony for the congressional record. Suellen advised Dorothy before her trip to Washington, D.C.: “Speak truth to power.” That was our goal—to speak the truth about our responsibilities to care for creation to those in power.
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