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The sustainable philosopher king

Arthur DeJong’s passion is protecting the environment. He’s trying to make an economic model for it
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Arthur DeJong has a problem. It's his truck. It's a huge all-terrain vehicle and every time he presses his Salomon hiking boot on the gas pedal it burns more fuel than he cares to think about.

As much as Whistler Blackcomb's mountain planning and environmental resource manager works toward a zero carbon operating footprint for the entire company, he's caged by the cursed technological shortcomings of the human race.

"I try to eliminate as many contradictions from my life as I can," he says. "But then watch me put out a fire in a Smart Car."

He laughs. The Motorola radio strapped to the breast pocket of his reflector vest crackles and through the static comes a little nasally voice that sounds like an otherworldly Bob Dylan - a songwriter he just so happens to love.

We've spent over two hours discussing his appreciation for Eckhart Tolle, his love of bears, a passion for photography. But mostly, we discussed Whistler's role in the future of global sustainability.

"If Whistler is sustainable, so what?" he says. "We don't live in a global reality anyways. We're at the top of the pyramid here, and whether Whistler existed or not is not going to - I mean truly - affect the world in terms of the issue of sustainability."

But because tourism is 10 per cent of the global economy, Whistler could become a model for sustainable tourism and, ideally, influence 10 per cent of the economy. For Arthur, this is vital both economically and socially because tourism provides a social adhesive, bridging the cultural divides that are at the root of much of the global tension we see today. He says it's Whistler's calling to lead this change.

"It brings people together, it allows us to understand people's cultures," he says. "The more we understand each other the more likely we are to get along and work things out. I think from a sustainability perspective, tourism has a very, very important role in social integration."

Spend 10 minutes with this man and one thing is deafeningly clear: Arthur DeJong bleeds altruism. He's the kind of guy who busses tables at Christine's when they're understaffed. The type of guy who gives presentations to the UN on sustainability, who wants to take the powder from the gun of everyone in the room. If there's an obvious fault, it's that he doesn't laugh enough - something he chalks up to a Dutch heritage.

Or maybe it's that he can talk for hours on end. Only it's not the senseless droning of a narcissist. His monologues are thoughtful and engaging. He speaks deliberately, pausing often to find the right words, eyes closed, left hand help up with the finger tips pressed together like a lotus flower ready to bloom - and listeners find themselves hanging on a verbal cliff face, reaching for that next word.

"There are days when you feel like you're sliding backwards and it's a very steep hill, and there are other days when it feels like you're going to hit the summit," he says when asked about how close Whistler Blackcomb is to the zero-operating-footprint goal. "But one of the most important lessons I've ever learned is if you know it's the greater good, if you know it's the right thing to do, you never stop. You never give in."

He was born for the mountains, born to protect them even. His name is a derivative of arth, the Welsh word for bear, which in many cultures was a symbolic protector of nature - a shard of serendipity, he says, since his parents picked the name simply because they liked it. He grew up on a dairy farm in Surrey with the mountains in the foreground. Little Arthur would point up at them, fascinated, those blue eyes of his acting like reflectors of the pale blue sky swimming above the peaks he was so fixated on.

But his calling wasn't made apparent until 1993, when, as operations manager of Blackcomb, he had to deal with a considerable fuel spill on the mountain. It was his job to figure out what happened and he discovered it was completely human error that caused the spill.

"It was a spear in my chest. It was the kick in the soul," he says. "I really believe I was hardwired much earlier in my life that that was supposed to happen, and that's when it did happen."

From that time forward, he had to have his hand in the day-to-day development operations on Blackcomb - eventually Whistler Blackcomb - to ensure sustainable stewardship practices. A business degree graduate with a paramedic's training, he had little knowledge of biology or geography. Most of what he knows now is self-taught. He reads as much about economics and marketing as he does about Earth science. He's headed the shift toward a conservation culture at Whistler Blackcomb, spearheading a composting initiative that has helped decrease waste output from 1,400 tonnes annually to just 500. And that's really only the beginning.

He's helped the company earn Golden Eagle awards, Silver Eagle awards, Starfish awards from B.C. Tourism, UK awards for sustainability. He led numerous initiatives outside his environmental duties to improve the lives of people inside the community and humanity at large: Habitat Improvement Team, Burn Kids, Kids Off the Street. And on and on.

"The man is totally passionate about the world we live in," says Arthur's boss Doug Forseth, vice-president of operations at Whistler Blackcomb. "He's not just here doing his job. He's living his job and enjoying his job. He's making a difference."

"My soul, my passion, is about protecting the environment," De Jong says. "The pragmatist in me, the realist, knows that if I can't make a solid economic model of it, I'll fail.

"My best environmental argument should be an economic one."

He's hiking through Symphony Trail, a steady hum of flies swarming around his head, stepping over fallen wood, shrubs and the odd heap of bear scat, surveying the land for fallen timber and what he should do with it. A map can't do any of the terrain on this map justice, the way it swells and falls, peaks and lulls, erodes around the creeks and so on. De Jong seems to know it all like the inside of his skull. Manoeuvring the hill like it's his own backyard, discussing the whole time - with complete authority - the possible fate of our planet.

"I keep myself grounded by saying, 'Don't worry about all this stuff, just do what you can and what will be will be.' But it's not an individual thing. If we do succeed it will be a collective thing and that's not lost on me at all," he says. His back is to the sun, which is glowing bright just behind his head, illuminating the threads of his bucket hat like a halo.

On the way back down the mountain, we see a bear cub stretching out and clawing a tree. Arthur gets out, Nikon digital SLR in hand and snaps a few shots. This is a man in his element, at peace with whatever's around.
Arthur may be burdened by that behemoth vehicle, but this here is his office.