University of Wisconsin - Extension

Don Last marked Earth Day 2000 by paddling around Madison's Lake Mendota in a kayak. It was a time for him to reflect on a 30-year career that began in the lake's watershed, but which ultimately influenced water and land-use policies throughout Wisconsin.

Last retired this summer from appointments as a UW-Extension natural resource policy specialist and professor in the College of Natural Resources at UW-Stevens Point.

Last's early involvement with natural resource policy was as environmental quality agent with UW-Extension in Dane County. He encouraged farmers in the Lake Mendota watershed to curb runoff. With federal agency partners, he worked with early-adopter farmers who became the first in the nation to get cost-sharing grants for wintertime manure storage systems.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began to shift its attention from "point" sources to non-point sources of water pollution Last saw a new role for soil and water conservation districts. In 1975, he drafted a memorandum of understanding signed by the county's water management agency (Dane County Regional Planning Commission) and the county's Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). The EPA distributed the memo as a national model, leading to the extensive involvement that county land conservation departments now have in non-point pollution programs.

As early as 1973, Last organized a conference on the causes, consequences and controls of urban runoff to encourage communities to address erosion in a way similar to agricultural producers. He organized and presented construction site erosion control workshops for public officials and land developers in the early 1990s. "Today, state law requires communities to enforce construction site erosion control ordinances," he explains.

Current use-value assessment practices for farmland are in part an outgrowth of work that Last began in 1988. He conducted workshops across the state, training 500 assessors on the use of tables, text and maps in soil survey reports to classify lands on their potential to produce farm crops. "We planted a seed which was the idea that using inherent productive value is the way to go," says Last. Today, the soil survey is a prime tool in use-value assessments of farmland. And Wisconsin and its counties have joined the federal government in a partnership to pay soil mapping and re-mapping costs.

During his career, Last worked extensively with SWCSs, labored for proposed legislation that stimulated recreational opportunities on privately owned lands, and developed a position statement on protection for wetlands. But the achievement that he smiles most broadly about is his involvement in founding 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, a statewide citizen organization to advocate for land-use planning, and its sister organization, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin Land Use Institute.

"1,000 Friends has been called one of the most vibrant of the 'environmental' interest groups," says Last. " It has nearly 2,000 members now, and it has spawned the formation of 1,000 Friends groups in Minnesota and Iowa."

In retirement Last will pursue his interests through the 1,000 Friends organization. He says the emerging issue that needs to be addressed now is "forest sprawl," the excessive dividing of forestland into smaller and smaller parcels. "That precludes a lot of the options for sustainable forest practices."

Wisconsin, no doubt, has yet to hear the last word from Don Last.

Water and land issues have dominated the 30-year career of Don Last. In retirement he plans to enjoy the resources he helped protect.