{"id":17016,"date":"2019-10-31T16:45:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=17016"},"modified":"2020-10-16T12:29:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T16:29:03","slug":"ten-most-jeanne-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/ten-most-jeanne-christie\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Most: Jeanne Christie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 450px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23d2d2d2&amp;backgroundColorFullscreen=%23d2d2d2&amp;d=nov19_flipbook_final&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=34&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nNovember 2019<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\" style=\"color: #333333;\"><b>1.\u00a0<\/b><\/span><span class=\"s1\"><b>First of all, tell me\u2014what\u00a0<\/b><i>is<\/i><b>\u00a0a\u00a0<\/b><\/span><span class=\"s1\"><b>Forest Bather?<\/b><\/span><\/h1>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe person leading the walk is the guide. The forest is the therapist.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>\u2014Jeanne Christie<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">By Laurie Gallardo<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16867\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/nov19_10Most-_1-Jeanne-247x300.jpg\" alt=\"nov19_10Most _1 Jeanne\" width=\"247\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/nov19_10Most-_1-Jeanne-247x300.jpg 247w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/nov19_10Most-_1-Jeanne-200x243.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/nov19_10Most-_1-Jeanne-288x350.jpg 288w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/nov19_10Most-_1-Jeanne.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 247px) 100vw, 247px\" \/>A<\/span><span class=\"s1\">s a young sports reporter working for\u00a0<em>The Ellsworth American<\/em>\u00a0in the late 1970s,\u00a0<strong>Jeanne Christie<\/strong>\u00a0never imagined she\u2019d get lost in the forest\u2014and love it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI moved to Maine during my second year at Indiana University Bloomington,\u201d she says. \u201cI came back to spend the summer with my grandmother. I\u2019d planned to return to school in the fall, but she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWhen I got the job with\u00a0<em>The Ellsworth American<\/em>, I had to cover the Ellsworth High School boys basketball, which was the premier event of the winter season,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about sports when I took it.\u201d In time, she became the weekly sports editor and chief photographer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Fast forward nearly 40 years. Christie has become an award-winning wetland preservationist\u2014and certified\u00a0<strong>forest therapy guide<\/strong>\u2014with assignments from the\u00a0<strong>United States Environmental Protection Agency<\/strong>\u00a0to the\u00a0<strong>U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/strong>\u00a0to the\u00a0<strong>Association of State Wetland Managers<\/strong>, where she worked as executive director for nearly two decades.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">How do you switch from sports to sensitively covering nature? \u201cI asked my editor what I should focus on. He said environmental journalism.\u201d So she transferred to the\u00a0<strong>University of Maine<\/strong>\u00a0at Presque Isle and graduated with a degree in environmental science and political science.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">C<\/span><span class=\"s1\">hristie landed a job in 1985 as a program and planning analyst at the\u00a0<strong>Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources<\/strong>. After three years, she got married, moved to Washington D.C., and began working for the EPA. The laws granting wetlands protection were minimal, but soon enough, things began to evolve. Christie was at the forefront.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe whole national arena changed. Suddenly, there were all kinds of new regulations that were embedded in the law to protect wetlands.\u201d Her career kicked off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Christie became a driving force in the development of state and national strategies for wetland protection, conservation, and restoration, including state and federal implementation of the\u00a0<strong>Clean Water Act<\/strong>, particularly Section 404, which deals with dredge and fill permits. \u201cOur success was possible only because of the contributions of many individuals, agencies, and organizations working together,\u201d she says. \u201cChanging environmental programs and policies is a big lift and always a group effort. That\u2019s what makes natural resources so fascinating\u2014you can never rest on your laurels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Though Christie continues to work as a consultant at\u00a0<strong>Christie Consulting Services<\/strong><b>,<\/b>\u00a0just over a year ago she started\u00a0<strong>Connect to Wilderness<\/strong>, where she takes individuals on nature walks as a certified forest therapy guide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWe have a relationship with nature that goes back millennia, but there\u2019s been a separation,\u201d Christie says. \u201cA couple of years ago, during my daily run in the woods with my dog, I stopped and heard what sounded like a shout\u2014with no sound\u2014making me pause and look at the forest around me. All of a sudden, I was just heavily falling into the natural world surrounding me. I couldn\u2019t figure out the context. Then I saw a newspaper article on guided forest therapy training.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">As a guide, Christie does just that\u2014leads those who are searching for oneness with nature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe guide is not a teacher or a leader, and I certainly don\u2019t know how to be a therapist,\u201d she says. \u201cThe person leading the walk is the guide, and the forest is the therapist. It\u2019s between you and the natural world. It\u2019s not my job to deliver the experience\u2014I just provide the invitation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>November 2019 1.\u00a0First of all, tell me\u2014what\u00a0is\u00a0a\u00a0Forest Bather? \u201cThe person leading the walk is the guide. The forest is the therapist.\u201d \u2014Jeanne Christie By Laurie Gallardo As a young sports reporter working for\u00a0The Ellsworth American\u00a0in the late 1970s,\u00a0Jeanne Christie\u00a0never imagined she\u2019d get lost in the forest\u2014and love it. \u201cI moved to Maine during my second [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,120],"tags":[583,528,582,581,527,526],"class_list":["post-17016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-extras","category-the-women-of-maine","tag-christie-consulting-services","tag-connect-to-wilderness","tag-epa","tag-forest-bather","tag-forest-therapy","tag-jeanne-christie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17016"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19525,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17016\/revisions\/19525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}