Celebrating Karsten Heuer: A Wildlands Conservation Hero
In this heartfelt piece, our President Emerita, Wendy Francis, celebrates the life of her friend, Karsten Heuer, and pays tribute to his passion, dedication, and the countless contributions he has made to protect the wild. For Wildlands Network, Karsten has been a constant source of inspiration over the years, and his tireless work in conservation has left an indelible mark on large landscape conservation across the U.S.
“It’s good to hear from you, Wendy.” Karsten’s voice was weaker than I remembered and slightly slurred in a way that I hadn’t heard before. I had called him soon after reading a heart-wrenching article about his impending death from an incurable neurological condition. We reminisced together about shared experiences and a professional and personal relationship that spanned three decades.
I remember the first time I met Karsten Heuer in the mid-1990s. It was at a meeting of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative’s (Y2Y) Coordinating Committee, a binational group of conservation leaders. They were guiding the evolution of an audacious vision, inspired by Wildlands Network, for connecting wildlife populations the length and breadth of the Rocky Mountains. Karsten had heard about the plan and was skeptical that ecological connectivity still existed down the mountain chain. The young Canadian national park biologist proposed to travel from Canada’s Yukon Territory to Yellowstone National Park to see first-hand whether a biologically contiguous landscape was still possible.
Over the ensuing 18 months, Karsten walked, skied, and paddled 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone to Watson Lake on the BC/Yukon boundary. Along the way he met ranchers, indigenous land managers, foresters, and others charged with caring for the land. Karsten spoke at dozens of community events. And he became convinced that the Y2Y vision of protecting and restoring connectivity for all species of large mammals up and down the mountain chain was achievable. His resulting book, Walking the Big Wild, and its accompanying international speaking tour, helped to bring the idea of large landscape connectivity to the public consciousness.
Karsten’s next adventure, shared with his wife, filmmaker Leanne Allison, was to experience the longest migration of wild mammals on Earth, that of the Porcupine caribou herd. For three months, Karsten and Leanne lived with and followed the caribou, wanting to understand the threats to their existence posed by proposed fossil fuel exploration and extraction in their calving grounds on the north slope of Alaska. Immersing themselves in the remote wild lands of Alaska and Yukon, Karsten and Leanne discovered a different way of being human. I happened to be in Whitehorse the day after they returned from living in the wild and met them for breakfast. They appeared ghostly and stunned by the shock of returning to civilization. Karsten’s book about their journey, Being Caribou, and Leanne’s film of the same name, gives us a glimpse into what it was like to share the landscape with the vast yet threatened caribou herd.
For these and other contributions to conservation, Karsten was conferred the Wilburforce (Foundation) Conservation Award in 2004. His books and Leanne’s films also have garnered dozens of prizes and accolades.
Karsten believed so much in the Y2Y vision that, in 2014, he became its Executive Director for two years, a time during which I also worked there as Program Director. During his time at the helm, Karsten did much to raise the profile of Y2Y and improved many organizational systems. He also accompanied John Davis on the last few days of his Trek West project. John was raising awareness about the Wildlands Network and the need for landscape connectivity by hiking up the Spine of the Rockies from Mexico to Canada, much as Karsten had done from the north a dozen years earlier. Karsten joined John for the last several days of the hike to its terminus in Fernie, B.C., where they both gave presentations about landscape connectivity and the Wildlands Network.
Following his leadership of Y2Y, Karsten returned to Parks Canada, where he steered the successful effort to restore bison to Canada’s Banff National Park. After releasing 31 bison into a reintroduction zone in Banff’s backcountry, hundreds of bison have rewilded this landscape, restoring their role in the ecosystem as a keystone species that benefits not only their habitat but also bugs, birds, and a variety of other mammals. This project required delicate negotiations with provincial and indigenous governments and its success is a huge tribute to Karsten’s diplomacy and tenacity.
Karsten will leave an incredible legacy of conservation achievements, deep and lasting relationships, and a body of work that will endure. We’re grateful for his inspiring and soulful spirit and will honor his legacy by continuing to rewild this beautiful planet.
