Natural-resource biologist, Phadrea Ponds is finishing her graduate studies in Corvalis, Oregon, at Oregon State University. She has chosen a career in which there are very few people of color. This career move is a deliberate action on her part. Environmental studies has long been thought of as strictly for European-Americans, many of whom became interested in the field in the 1960's when people were communing with nature. Her decision to work with natural things would seem ludicrous to most that knew her when she was younger.

"I didn't grow up wanting to be a wildlife biologist," says Phadrea. "I can't even be outside that much because I'm allergic to everything. I didn't even like sitting on the grass! In fact, I hated being outside. Yet somehow the environment has turned into a really big concern for me.

"I don't consider myself an environmentalist--I don't think I would chain myself to a tree to save an owl. But if they were to take property away from a needy family in my community, then I would chain myself to that house. I wouldn't chain myself to an old broken tree to keep someone from chopping it down, because I think the tree's resources are just as important as the tree itself.

"I was a premed major when I started. I decided I couldn't bear seeing people sick," she says, her move into her current field was purely by chance. "I wondered what else I could do with all the biology knowledge I had. Schools were recruiting very heavily for wildlife biologists, and they wanted minorities. I figured I'm pretty analytical, so I'll try it out. And I really enjoyed it."

While she found the work interesting and challenging, Phadrea began to question its value. Much of her time involved research that seemed irrelevant to her world. "In undergraduate school I was studying mice and their homing abilities, how they were able to go from one place to the next, and then I tried to think, what in the hell does that mean to me? I'm not saying I don't care, but there are more important issues concerning my community.

Phadrea started looking into environmental issues that had an impact on people at home, with a particular emphasis on the Black community. There were things happening she felt no one was addressing directly, and the educating of the community about those things became her issue. "I confronted companies about toxic waste in the Black community. 'Do you realize you're dumping waste on the Black community?' 'Well we do,' they'd tell me, 'but we have to dump it somewhere.'"

It became more and more evident to her that someone had to be the voice for the Black community "because I didn't see any other Black people doing it. In my department I was the only female, and there were five other Black males. We felt very strongly about getting some type of message out, since we knew no one else would."

That message, she says, is that blacks are just as concerned about the environment as whites are. Phadrea knows, that as with anything, there are always voices of dissension: "There's an attitude of, 'Well, we didn't screw everything up. So why should we care?' There is a need for us to get the message to the community that the environment is here for everyone. We have to keep it clean. If we don't do our share to keep it clean, when it goes--it's gone for good. It doesn't matter who's responsible.

There can certainly be a balance between the needs of business and industry, and the needs of the earth to have its resources protected. All too often, Phadrea explains, the disparate interests of the opposing groups win out, there is no compromise. "It's hard enough to get people to get out and vote for a president. If you can get them to get out and vote for environmental changes, that's definitely a step in the right direction. When they do vote, I hope they think to vote for the kind of person who will make changes."

Phadrea is employed as a technical writer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "I translate all their technical literature into something the public can understand." A lot of her work in the community, with kids in schools and on field trips, is a direct off-shoot of that job. She has gone out of her way to make herself available to young people--particularly Black youngsters. "If I were just in a lab, looking at parasites all day long for eight hours a day, I don't think I could do it. I have to be out with people I can make a difference with. I don't think I make a difference with the children who go camping all the time. I really don't." Phadrea brings nature and how it relates to us into the classroom and into young people's lives. "I talk to them. I don't just stand at the board and lecture."

Phadrea, who is normally very easy-going, becomes impassioned when she speaks of her self- appointed mission. "Before people can take pride in the surrounding environment," she says, "they have to have pride in their own community. So I work to get them involved with their community first. Once we've done that, we can move out and concern ourselves with more global issues."

Comparing community and global issues helps bring the information home in the classroom. Phadrea used the L.A. riots as an example for the students: "All that looting, rioting and burning. What have they done? They've destroyed where they live. When someone goes into a forest and uses clear cutting, which is a forest management practice where foresters will clear up to 600 acres of woods to even the growth and age of trees in an area, they're destroying the homes of animals. The animals don't see them coming; this isn't a normal thing that happens in nature. Although they often replant areas with saplings, or leave the debris thinking it will support smaller animals, the foresters don't check to see how many animal's homes are going to be lost or what type of habitat is subsequently going to be gained.

"In L.A.," she asks, "what type of habitat is going to be gained? How many new businesses are going to come out of the old businesses that were burned to the ground? What are the benefits of this destruction, and what are the disadvantages? We make a comparison. Once can you make it real, then kids will say, 'Oh, that makes sense!' Environmental and social issues go hand-in-hand. There has to be someone to make the link, and that's what I try to do."

Phadrea works with beautification projects. These projects employ students, making them entrepreneurs, this gives their lessons a connection to the real world. "You're not just going out and raking leaves. Students first learn how to do landscape architecture, then they provide that service, for which they are well paid."

The Black community needs to become more aware of environmental concerns in their own homes. These can be simple things like lead poisoning from paint, how having plants in your home or even planting trees on your block, can be beneficial to your surroundings because plants clean the air by creating fresh oxygen.

"Blacks were solely involved in civil rights during the environmental movement in the 60's. Although the social issues are just as important as the environmental issues, we're so busy fighting the day-to-day things, the daily needs, that we don't really have time to care if an owl becomes extinct or not. Parents are more concerned about their kids coming home at night and whether drug dealers are selling drugs to them. They don't care about that nearly extinct spotted owl thirty miles away.

"I'm not trying to convince you to agree that the spotted owl should not become extinct, I'm trying to explain the importance of community development. That's part of natural resource--community upkeep, landscape architecture right around their own community."

"I had an experience with an outdoor school--which is basically camp that stresses nature activities. I'll never forget it. I was the only Black counselor at this school. They wanted me there especially, because they wanted these White kids to see a Black person in natural resources. The adults were just as amazed as the kids that I was there. Then, I took some Black kids out, and the experience was so different because these were students who had never been outside of Portland. I took them only 15 miles outside of Portland but they thought we had gone deep into the boondocks.

There aren't many blacks involved in environmental fields, Phadrea explains. "Because of my thesis I've met 30 over the last two months. And that's more than I ever expected to meet. If I were to look for another Black female wildlife biologist, I would go as far to say there's maybe five of us in the entire United States. I know four Black female marine biologists, and that's pretty rare as well."

The environmental field is huge. You don't have to work in a lab to get involved in it. If you have an interest in law, you can be an environmental lawyer. If your interest is in business or economics you can become an agricultural-economist. Journalists can write about environmental issues. Phadrea has tied her studies into sociology. Many colleges give large, often full scholarships to students who major in environmental studies. Phadrea feels it's an excellent way to get a jump on a career you may have always wanted if you simply tie it in to environmental studies.