STATE WE’RE IN: Conservation trailblazer: Mark Becker

The swan is a fitting mascot for the Bergen Save the Watershed Action Network, otherwise known as Bergen SWAN, a grassroots organization that’s achieved huge gains in water protection.
   ”Swans are a graceful, but very tough bird,” pointed out Lori Charkey, co-founder of the group. “If you mess with them, they’ll bite you.”
   Bergen SWAN’s combination of grace and toughness can be traced to Charkey and her partner of 30 years, Mark Becker, who died tragically in a highway crash in February.
   For 26 years, they served together as co-directors of Bergen SWAN. Mark and Lori were a team, but Mark was often the group’s public face. He fought tenaciously — but always with a gentle, respectful demeanor — against those who would destroy forest buffers around northern New Jersey’s drinking water supply reservoirs.
   ”He was involved in very, very contentious situations, but everyone from the other side liked him — you couldn’t help liking him,” recalled David Epstein, executive director of the Land Conservancy of New Jersey and a longtime friend.
   ”He didn’t make enemies, but he was very persistent” added another longtime friend, Greg Remaud, deputy director of the New York-New Jersey Baykeeper Network. “He had a lot of intensity and a lot of dedication, but he was kind and thoughtful — never aggressive.”
   Mark’s calm manner and refusal to give up helped Bergen SWAN with a major victory after a local water company wanted to develop land around the Oradell Reservoir, Lake Tappan and Woodcliff Lake in the late 1980s.
   Mark and Lori joined with Ramapo College students to form Bergen SWAN. In its first year, the group succeeded in convincing the New Jersey Legislature to pass the landmark Watershed Protection Act of 1988 — a law that’s still on the books today.
   ”It says there needs to be a compelling need for the transfer (of land to another party),” Lori explained. “It says there has to be consideration for open space and water quality needs.”
   Much of the watershed land transferred to a real estate subsidiary was returned to water company ownership and was not developed. Later, Mark and Lori were instrumental in establishing Bergen County’s Open Space Trust fund, which allowed the county and municipalities to buy threatened watershed lands.
   Mark’s environmental activism may have begun with Bergen SWAN, but it grew far beyond. His environmental activities expanded to fill every waking moment.
   A high school dropout, Mark not only earned his GED, but went on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees when he was in his 30s. He became an earth scientist and teacher.
   He joined the staff at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, dividing his time between the Lamont-Doherty Observatory in Palisades, New York, and the Manhattan campus. He specialized in Geographic Information Systems and traveled all over the world teaching people how to implement this mapping and data-management tool.
   Mark also was an adjunct instructor at Bard College’s Center for Environmental Policy. School officials said his class inspired dozens of senior projects and master’s theses and was the basis for much student work after graduation.
   After Mark’s death, Lori received messages from friends, colleagues and students all over the globe.
   ”It’s a huge loss to thousands of people whose lives he touched,” Lori said. “He was so much everyone’s right-hand man.”
   New Jersey’s conservation community will miss Mark along with his toughness, persistence, kindness, intelligence and dedication.
    Michele Byers is executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. For more information, contact her at [email protected] or visit NJCF’s website at www.njconservation.org.