Black Warrior Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke featured in Field & Stream

Screen Shot 2019 01 06 at 7.16.34 AM Black Warrior Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke featured in Field & Stream
Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper since 2004. Photo from Black Warrior Riverkeeper Facebook page.

This week, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Nelson Brooke, was featured in Field & Stream, one of the nation’s oldest and most respected popular publications on outdoor life.

Known for its in depth, long-form articles, for 124 years Field & Stream has been bringing national attention to important conservation and natural resource issues, while also offering advice on topics such as bass, birds, deer, trout, rifles, and shotguns.

Meet the Riverkeeper

The nearly 2000 word story by Field & Stream explores Brooke’s 15 year career as the Riverkeeper for the Black Warrior watershed,  his passion for nature and clean water, and the Alabama conservation community’s efforts to hold polluters accountable in the rough and tumble world of Alabama politics.

Titled – Meet the Riverkeeper: How One Outdoorsman and Conservationist is Working to Protect Alabama’s Black Warrior River – the Field and Stream feature opens  with a wonderful description about Brooke’s work and why he does it:

“Brooke is the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, and a native Alabaman, born and raised in Birmingham. He is an Eagle Scout and has fished and hunted central Alabama all of his life. Now 40 years old, he has been the Riverkeeper here since 2004, patrolling the watershed, collecting data, watching for trouble, making his living guarding his home country.

He and his wife are expecting their second child. “I expect my children to have a clean and healthy environment to hunt and fish in!” he said.”

Spotlight

Screen Shot 2019 01 06 at 7.23.24 AM Black Warrior Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke featured in Field & Stream
Photo from the Black Warrior Riverkeeper Facebook page

From abandoned coal mines to concentrated animal feed operations, Brooke is the person on the ground and in the water, watching, advocating and solving many of the Black Warrior River watersheds woes. It is good to see Field & Stream put a national spotlight on the Black Warrior River and its tributaries, the source for the majority of Birmingham’s drinking water, and the daily battle to keep our waters clean.

A must read article.

Pat Byington
Pat Byington

Longtime conservationist. Former Executive Director at the Alabama Environmental Council and Wild South. Publisher of the Bama Environmental News for more than 18 years. Career highlights include playing an active role in the creation of Alabama's Forever Wild program, Little River Canyon National Preserve, Dugger Mountain Wilderness, preservation of special places throughout the East through the Wilderness Society and the strengthening (making more stringent) the state of Alabama's cancer risk and mercury standards.

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