There are those for whom the joy of science is in its ability to observe the smallest details of a problem; some who delight in its ability to untangle knotted threads of variables; some who use it to chase cures for something that threatens; some who use it to uncover patterns; some who use it to organize the world.  And then there are some who use science to make the earth that they love a more beautiful place, and to help others to do the same. Robert P. Brooks was one of the latter.

Rob’s professional love affair with the watery world began in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts with beavers, muskrats, and otters, those engineers and denizens of lakes, ponds, and streams (by his own account, he would have given the start date of 5 yrs of age, but we’ll consider that professional preparation).  It led him to combine wildlife biology and wetlands science, and he was invited to volunteer on a local conservation commission and be in charge of wetland permitting. Those three early interests and experiences of animal populations, their aquatic habitat, and the policy and management that was applied to them, would weave together and give rise to three defining characteristics of his entire career:  conservation, collaboration, and synthesis.

Rob had a deep understanding of the difference between conservation and preservation: while preservation means protecting nature from human use, conservation is the care and protection of these resources so that they can persist for future generations.  The highest form of conservation requires two foundational elements: the appreciation for, and willingness to participate in, multiple fronts from research to policy, and an ethical foundation in the belief that future generations deserve to have access to the same beauty and wonder that current generations do.  The multiple fronts that Rob dove into included transformative research, environmental education, community outreach, legislation, and policy. That resulted in efforts that ranged from invasive species removal (mostly plants), native species reintroduction (otters), development of ecological indicators across all organism types, and rapid assessment approaches. Participation on multiple fronts required a trait that Rob had an abundance of: a natural openness and delight in engaging any kind of person into conversation and exploration.  Whether agency regulator or undergraduate intern, he listened, he weighed, he truly tried to imagine what would make your task easier.  That was an approach that was remarkable in an academic setting at the time, and Rob succeeded in blending his missions of conservationist and educator.  Thus, tools that were ready made for managers and policy makers emerged continuously, and he taught a generation of students how to do the same. He had the foresight to know what would have to serve as the basis of those tools.  Riparia’s Reference Wetland Collection, composed of 222 wetland sites across Pennsylvania, was presciently begun in 1993 as an unfunded venture, and grown into a remarkable research resource that served as a platform for dozens of assessment tools, theses, and dissertations. Rob had begun with a paired watershed study in his early career, and had seen what could be learned from observation of landscapes impacted to varying degrees; he never forgot the power of comparison.  He embraced the concept of sustainability long before it was in vogue, and was the perfect ancestor, with a long term view and a genuine hope for a better future for those he loved.  And that love was obvious; you could have predicted his success as a grandfather by the way he viewed his students.

The transdisciplinary approach that conservation required had another necessary element; the ability to gather people around a common goal that required collaboration, and there were few better than Rob at planting a flag and gathering a new tribe.  Rob was an abundantly decent man, the kind of decency that is defined by treating all people with dignity and respect. The respect reached deep into personas, to your values and what you held dear in the world.  As such, the tribes he gathered were composed of similarly decent people, and almost every group I watched him gather had a genuine affection, commitment, and regard for both one another and the cause that was being pursued.  One great example was the research center that he founded in 1993, the Penn State Cooperative Wetlands Center (where science informs policy and practice in wetlands ecology, landscape hydrology, and watershed management), later given the new moniker of Riparia.  The name change alone gives you insight into Rob’s desire to engage an ever-widening web of people understanding the connection between the health of the environment and their own; much to the chagrin of the Center’s staff at the time, Rob’s defense of the new name was that it was a “conversation starter”, versus a simple name that stated where we resided and what we did.  It turned out to be exactly that.  His success at obtaining research funds (he was senior principal investigator on over 116 grants funded between 1981-2018, over $31 million) was a reflection of his ability to identify an important obstacle to wise use of natural resources, to gather a group of people to characterize and dissolve the obstacle, and to charm us all into creating an atmosphere of that same sort of decency where we could do our best work.  That charm arose from Rob’s compassion, ever-present sense of wonder, and love of fun.  And did we have it.  There were Wetlands and Wildlife Olympics, project meetings in beautiful places, poems dedicated to silly things, beautiful photographs, music everywhere, hijinks and laughter in the field.  Rob knew that the best work arose out of love, wonder, and respect; the productivity of those collaborations is a testament to that.

Last, but not least, Rob loved synthesis, the weaving and interplay of things, and showed a deep appreciation for it in all of its forms, whether in art, literature, or science.  He often pointed to the E.O. Wilson quote, “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” A wonderful example of that kind of synthesis was the stunning quilted landscapes that his wife, Becky, created out of pieces of fabric that seemed inconsequential on their own, but when artfully integrated provided a new and stunning picture of a part of the world.  Rob loved those quiltings and what they accomplished, to see things in a new light, to create new beauty in the world.  Professionally, that drive for synthesis showed up in the type of projects that he led, ones which required a wide and open view of factors and possibilities, such as the reintroduction of the river otter in Pennsylvania or the development of a suite of ecological indicators for the Mid-Atlantic.  He continually advocated for the integration of wetlands, streams, and floodplains, which were typically treated as discrete entities.   Rob saw the sometimes crisp and sometimes blurry boundaries, and pushed for a dialogue that would understand them as interacting parts of an integrated system.  Personally, it showed up in his photographs, which were always uncovering some fantastic detail that others might have missed, or in his musings and writings.  During my time as his grad student, he once gave me a small book in which to record “grass clippings”, those small ideas and insights that come along.  He always had such a book on his person, looking for new ways to make those grass clippings into a picture that was bigger than the sum of its parts. He succeeded very, very often.

Rob once said in an interview, “I believe the dynamics of water fascinates most people —the flow of a river, the concentric rings of a water drop on a pond’s surface, or the patterns formed by water and aquatic plants— think Monet.” Rob realized that intrinsic beauty and would gently lead many people to that fascination, and then leverage that fascination into appreciation, and then regard, and then curiosity, and finally into action that mattered, using science to stitch together those pieces, much like Becky’s quilted landscapes.  He shared that fascination widely and generously, in a number of community capacities such as planning commissions, nature centers, and professional workgroups.  The world is truly a different place for his presence here: he taught so many of us to see things in a new light, to create new beauty in the world.  May we continue in that spirit.

 

Denice Wardrop