Wildlands Network Researcher John Davis embarking on a 5 year, 4500 mile trek up and down the East Coast so as to call attention for the need for interconnected Maine to Florida Open Space

Dear Wildlands Network Supporters,

How lucky we are to have a network of individuals dedicating their lives to protecting Nature, which the science community further defines as biodiversity. One person has decided to commit the next five years to making an extraordinary attempt to inspire a greater number of people to be aware and act on behalf of wild places and wildlife. On February 3, he will embark upon TrekEast, a 4500-mile journey for nature in the East.

I am sending this correspondence from Key Largo, Florida, the launch site of TrekEast, and the meeting site where our dedicated Wildands staff is planning continuing support of TrekEast and our other critical programs throughout North America.

We have already found that this journey has sparked the interest of many media and individuals. We invite you to follow John's progress on our website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In anticipation of this epic journey, we share with you words from our friend and conservation mentor, John Davis, before he begins:

Dear Supporters, An ambitious journey like TrekEast can take on a sense of inevitability, as the many strands in one's life point in one direction and past experiences seem in hindsight to be part of a grand plan. Lest a pilgrim (a Wildways rambler, in this case) grow too proud, however, he should remember that most of the great journey has been and will be guided by others. We are embarking on a great exploration of the East's wildest places in order to build networks of people protecting networks of wildlands (to borrow Michael Soulé's great phrase). We are here in the Florida Keys, at the southern beginning of eastern opportunities, because a community of conservation friends is coming together to help realize a dream of wildlife and freedom and health: an Eastern Wildway, linking wildlife habitats and people who care about them, from the Everglades to the Gaspé Peninsula. The core of that community, that network of friends and neighbors speaking up for Nature, includes you folks; and I thank all of you for giving me the chance to say a few words for wildlife, here in the electronic world, and even more important, out there in the real world of trees and rocks and wild beasts and people and water and soil. I especially thank the Wildlands Network staff, which has worked double and triple time to plan the journey and the associated outreach efforts. Executive Director Margo McKnight deserves extra special thanks for hearing in my tentative description of the envisioned Wildways trek not just a good story but also a call to action, an opportunity to use a challenging adventure to raise awareness about the needs of our wild neighbors and to show caring people how they can help preserve and restore wildlife far and wide. I am also especially thankful to the good friends and close colleagues and beloved family members who have supported my difficult decision to leave a great job with a great group, the Adirondack Council, to pursue a wild dream. I am deeply indebted to the staffs and board members of groups guiding or informing TrekEast, so far including: Wildlands Network, The Rewilding Institute, Adirondack Council, Northeast Wilderness Trust, Champlain Valley Conservation Partnership, Eddy Foundation, Heron Dance, Adirondack Wild, Protect the Adirondacks, Adirondack Explorer, RESTORE: The North Woods, Alabama Rivers Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Wild South, WildLaw, Lighthawk, Wild Farm Alliance, Earth Island Institute, 350.org, Wildlife Conservation Society, Nature Conservancy, and Sierra Club. (All these groups deserve your support; none of them should be held responsible for any foolish comments I make along the way.) Friends whose support has humbled and inspired me are too numerous to mention here, but they should not count on being spared. I'll be talking about and with them as they join me on the trek. Businesses that have generously offered sponsorship include: Leep-Off Cycles of Keene Valley, NY; SCAT (Supremely Complete Adirondack Treat) energy bars of Essex, NY; Emmet Carter LLC, Margaux Europe Group LTD; Ascent Wellness, Intuition Engineering, Strava, The MacLeod Group LLC, Edgley Farms and Gear for Good. We invite other businesses to join in supporting TrekEast. All my family members have been supportive and helpful, especially Joan Byrd & George Rector, Denise & Justin Wilson, and Robert and Mary Davis. Which brings me to the one sad aspect at the beginning of TrekEast: My mother, Mary Byrd Davis, whom many of you know as a conservation colleague, has cancer and is not expected to live much longer. (No way to prove this, but it seems likely her cancer -- in a family until now virtually free of cancer -- was triggered by environmental contamination she suffered three decades ago, and perhaps also by exposure to radioactivity in the course of her research on the nuclear industry.) I hastened my departure for this trek in part to do it while she and my father could enjoy the journey vicariously. This is important for me, not just because of the good natural values they instilled in me and the access they gave me to experiences and education in Nature, but also because my mother did much of the research and writing that is informing this trek. She helped start, and wrote for, WILD EARTH magazine, and she did the most comprehensive inventory yet of remaining Eastern Old-Growth Forest. I have begun a long letter to my mother roughly outlining what I expect to see along this trek. If readers will indulge me in a bit of personal writing, I'd like to include here an excerpt from the first page. Before closing with such an addendum, I wish to assure friends that Mary has family and friends with her and has achieved a peace of mind that surely must come with knowing your life and work have made the world a better place. My mother strongly supports TrekEast and the actions for wild Nature it represents, and has urged me to proceed apace, despite her illness. "This letter is preliminary and will come in stages, Mother. I wish I had much more time to research -- using your survey OLD GROWTH IN THE EAST and Dave' Foreman's books BIG OUTSIDE and REWILDING NORTH AMERICA and Reed Noss's ENDANGERED ECOSYSTEMS report, especially -- but I'll do what I can, as the trek begins. I'll later compare these prior expectations with actual observations. Needless to say, I wish you could be even more a part of all of this; but please know that my route and the very idea of a wildways trek have been inspired largely by the great work you've done for Eastern forests and for world peace (for wildlife as well as people, of course). I could not be here without you. FLORIDA - Starting in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park on Key Largo will be fun and fitting--fun since I'll get to kayak and snorkel above a big coral reef for the first time in my life, fitting for the immense biological importance of coral reefs.  This state park is said to be the oldest underwater protected area in the US. It dates back to when you were growing up in central Florida and precedes the now popular and important term from conservation biology, 'marine protected area'. As you know, coral reefs are among the biologically richest but most threatened ecosystems on Earth. To call them "rainforests of the sea" is only half fair, for they are also vital to the health of the nearby coastal lands. While here in the Upper Keys, I also hope to visit the old-growth hardwood hammocks your research identified on North Key Largo and Lignumvitae Key. I cycled yesterday to Dagny Johnson Key Largo Botanical State Park, named for the environmental activist who saved that couple thousand acres of remnant hardwood hammock from being converted to a housing development. This forest type, while modest in stature, is bewilderingly diverse in species yet uniform in appearance to my northern eyes. I don't think I'll have time to travel to the Lower Keys to look for the old-growth pine rockland that Florida biologists described to you…." Once more for now, my sincere thanks and humble request for your supportive thoughts and efforts to help create the Eastern Wildway. Let us now carry this dream of wildlife abundance and habitat connectivity into reality. Gratefully, John Davis

On behalf of Wildlands Network, we thank you John, and we thank you our supporters, for your incredible and critical commitment to making North America a land where nature is respected, admired and protected by its people.

For the Wild,

Margo McKnight