The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com. 

MADISON, Wis. – In a contentious era for public policy across the board, conservation of natural resources ranks among the most divisive. 

One side is led by those who blindly deny anything is amiss when it comes to protecting land, water and wildlife; the other is ruled by those who put all trust in bureaucracies that can punish innovators and communities for daring to act on their own. 

Brent M. Haglund, who died June 12 at 78, was a Wisconsin champion of a third way: Harnessing the power of people to safeguard the natural world, one victory at a time. 

I came to know Haglund when he was president of the Sand County Foundation, which traces its roots to the land ethic of Wisconsin’s Aldo Leopold, author of “A Sand County Almanac.” Leopold believed people – acting individually or collectively, and given the right incentives – were the best stewards of the land. 

That belief was shared by ecologist Haglund. It inspired him to push for the undamming of the main-stem Baraboo River 30 years ago, when removing dams was questioned by many and outright opposed by others. 

Today, dam removal is a standard of care that enhances safety, improves fisheries, benefits nearby landowners, boosts water oxygen levels while reducing nitrogen, and generally allows a river to be a river. 

Well into the 20th century in Wisconsin and elsewhere, dams were ribbons of commerce and transportation, powering grist mills and, later, small electric plants. They outlived their usefulness, but that didn’t make them any easier to remove. Sometimes, simple nostalgia got in the way. 

The Baraboo River project succeeded because there was cooperation among private citizens, conservation foundations such as Sand County and the River Alliance of Wisconsin, and governments at local and state levels. 

“Today, a leaf that wafts into the water at the Baraboo River’s headwaters near Elroy may meander all the way down the 160-mile river to where it meets the Wisconsin River near Portage,” read a passage from “Hands-On Environmentalism,” which Haglund and I co-authored in 2005. “That makes it the longest mainstem of a river to be undammed in the United States – and an environmental precedent that will be closely studied for years to come.” 

There are far longer undammed rivers today, but a precedent was set by that successful experiment in south-central Wisconsin. Removal of outmoded dams is now more commonplace across the United States and around the world. 

The book defined hands-on environmentalism by first explaining what it is not. It is neither “command-and-environmentalism” on one end of the spectrum nor “free-market environmentalism” on the other. 

Rather, it’s a participatory movement that goes beyond segmented stakeholder conversations to emphasizing community partnerships with private, public and non-profit interests at the table. It can involve a lot of people willing to get their hands dirty, literally or figuratively. 

“Because it’s based on values such as local control, government accountability and economic opportunity, this new vision of environmental activism is challenging the command-and-control model that has dominated thought … for the past three decades,” we wrote. 

The book drew on other close-to-home examples as well as practices in Arizona, Louisiana and several African nations. 

It’s no surprise that today’s debates about conservation and environmental challenges take place over a wide divide. The same is true about many other issues facing society. 

There are people who predict humankind will procreate and pollute itself into oblivion, much as Thomas Malthus wrongly predicted 300 years ago. Others take laissez-faire thinking to a point where global climate change is nothing but “fake news,” despite scientific proof to the contrary.

Haglund opted to follow the middle road: Trust settled science but also trust people to act in the best interests of themselves and their communities.

Still is past president of the Wisconsin Technology Council and an adviser to Competitive Wisconsin Inc., a non-profit policy group.