The Prince George’s Sierra Club is delighted to announce that the 2023 Environmental Service Award goes to Maureen Fine for Outstanding Work Nurturing Local Ecosystems. The Environmental Service Award will be presented at a special community forum – Environmental Justice and You: Stormwater Management – on Saturday, October 7, 11 AM-2 PM at the Mount Rainier Nature Center. All are welcome to attend this fall meeting to celebrate Maureen’s work and to join in the community discussion about nature-based solutions for stormwater problems. Register here to reserve your seat at the table.
Each year, the Prince George’s Sierra Club presents an Environmental Service Award to a Prince George’s County resident who has done outstanding work for the environment in our County. Past recipients have included diverse professionals, government officials, entrepreneurs, and volunteers who have been recognized for their work in conservation, advocacy, education, legislation, environmental justice, climate action, waste diversion, and more. To learn more about past recipients, visit our website. The 2023 Environmental Service Award honors Maureen Fine for her Save BARC initiative, her work as a habitat advisor with the Prince George’s Audubon Society’s Wildlife Habitat Program, and decades of local environmental activism.
When Maureen learned that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) planned to build a new currency manufacturing facility on part of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), she saw this as a threat to the local ecosystem and to BARC’s mission. Clearly, BARC -- a world-renowned agricultural research facility, one of Maryland’s top 10 E-bird hotspots, and home to globally-rare pine barrens, a Tier II stream, and approximately 3,000 acres of forest – should be protected for future generations. Along with Vijay Parameshwaran and others, Maureen brought together local experts and advocates to form a team that came to be known as Save BARC. Initially, the group, as Save BARC-Stop the BEP, focused on opposing relocation of the BEP to BARC. But after it became clear that relocating the BEP to BARC was a "done deal" that had vigorous support from federal, county and state lawmakers, Save BARC re-organized around decreasing the BEP's negative impacts, while attempting to publicize the importance of preventing future development at BARC.
With Maureen’s leadership and inspiration, the Save BARC team collected information about the proposed facility, the land it would occupy, and the governmental decision-making processes, as well the potential impacts on the land, water, air, and wildlife. Through letters, public testimony, and conversations with decision-makers, the Save BARC team helped to decrease the facility’s environmental impacts by reducing the size of the parking lot and the amount of impervious surfaces, ensuring that windows are treated to decrease bird collisions, and protecting Beaver Dam Creek by changing how wastewater from the facility will be treated. They also drew public attention to the importance of conserving BARC’s land and its mission.
Maureen’s Save BARC initiative exemplifies how committed advocates can make a difference when they bring important information to the attention of decision-makers.
Since 2021, Maureen has served as a volunteer habitat advisor with the Prince George’s Audubon Society’s Wildlife Habitat Program, helping homeowners to grow native plants that support native insects, birds and other wildlife. In home visits, she consults with homeowners about their visions and needs, and then she develops a report that includes recommendations for native plants that will do well in that particular environment. In this work, she applies lessons learned through years of experience with both the removal of invasive species and the cultivation and nurturing of local native plants, in addition to the training she received from the Prince George’s Audubon Society. Maureen has worked on projects in Mount Rainier, Hyattsville and Greenbelt. Her most recent project, a wildlife habitat at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Bowie, was certified by Audubon in summer 2023.
Maureen grew up in an industrial town in Pennsylvania’s coal country, where opportunities to enjoy nature were few and far between. However, in precious visits to surrounding lakes and forests, she discovered the peace that a connection to nature can bring -- a discovery that led to a lifetime of advocating for and nurturing natural spaces, large and small.
Since her early years, she has had an appreciation of the wisdom of indigenous peoples who were stewards of the land before us and the importance of a spiritual connection with nature. A lifelong learner, she seeks out new experiences to deepen her own understanding of the natural world and to explore new ways to share her enthusiasm and reverence for the land with others. In efforts to decrease her own environmental footprint, as well as our collective impact on the environment, her focus has been on the connections between the environment and human health.
“It’s not just that you are what you eat,” she said, “but also that what you do to the environment, you do to yourself. In taking care of the environment, you take care of yourself.”
Since the first Earth Day, she has been committed to lifestyle choices that decrease her personal environmental footprint. She considers environmental impacts of everyday decisions about what she grows, what she buys, what she eats, and how she manages household waste. When tending her garden of native plants, removing invasive species, monitoring bluebird boxes, helping others plan their native gardens, and taking action to influence public policy, she does what she can to help good things grow.
Fresh out of school in the early 1970s, Maureen landed a job in Washington, DC as a therapeutic recreation specialist. Working with the DC Department of Recreation, she helped people with special needs in Anacostia connect with nature in local parks. Feeing an inner drive to connect with nature, she wanted to share this with others who might not otherwise have this opportunity. Participating in outings with the Sierra Club and the Appalachian Trail Club and birding trips broadened what she had to share.
Throughout her careers as in physical and massage therapy (1978-2015), she found time to advocate for environmental causes, participating in local environmental initiatives, while also continuing her education and tending native plants at her home in Bowie. Her property in Bowie was one of the first in the area to become a certified wildlife habitat. Special birds and butterflies visit frequently.
To cap off a distance-learning Master’s Program in Earth Literacy, she developed a year-long project to remove invasive plants at Belt Woods, a forested area in Bowie that contains a designated National Natural Landmark of one of the last stands of old-growth hardwoods on the Atlantic Coastal Plain.
In 2000, concerns about political changes led her to get more involved in advocacy. Always a gardener, she became more interested in native plants, and worked part-time at Chesapeake Natives while also broadening her knowledge base through educational activities with the Maryland Native Plant Society. She served on the Prince George’s Sierra Club Executive Committee 2000-2002, and mobilized a group of Bowie Sierra Club volunteers to do cleanups and native plantings.
As part of Bowie’s Environment and Wildlife Habitat Advisory Group, she worked to decrease the environmental impact of the building of the Bowie Town Center and helped to developing guidelines for developers regarding maintaining buffers and wildlife corridors.
In 2017, to broaden her perspective beyond plants to include the whole ecosystem, she trained as a Maryland Master Naturalist, learning more about natural systems of Maryland’s coastal plain as well as how to engage others through education and volunteer work.
During the pandemic, she participated in advocacy with the Greenbelt Climate Action Network and Clean Air Prince George’s, helping to raise voices against building new fossil-fuel infrastructure in Brandywine. She also worked with the Maryland Coalition for Responsible Transit in opposition to the Baltimore-Washington Maglev Project.
In response to news about the 2023 Environmental Service Award for Maureen Fine, long-time Sierra Club volunteer Janis Oppelt said, “Perfect choice!”
Vijay Parameshwaran said, “Maureen and I worked together closely since late 2021 on organizing concerned local residents around development at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Maureen was one of the strongest voices and most persistent individuals to get grassroots efforts going, whether it was doing research on environmental impact, engaging elected officials, or writing op-ed columns. The award is well deserved!"