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OTTO TELLER—A FARMER WITH A CONSCIENCE |
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Otto Teller came from a farming background. His father once grew grapes on Lake Erie. When Teller returned to farming after a stint in the Army Air Corps during WWII, he refused to join neighboring farmers in embracing the new chemical miracles that were sweeping the farming industry. “I didn’t need all those chemical fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides,” he said, years later. The controversy around Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” which emerged around that time, likely helped solidify his conservationist convictions. By the 1970’s, Teller was a full fledged conservationist, bringing not only such “radical” organizations as the Farallones Institute onto the farm to direct the farming operations, but also playing a pivotal role in the founding of Trout Unlimited, serving on the board of Ducks Unlimited, and contributing to conservation efforts around the country, both large and small. Teller funded many small innovators in the field of “appropriate technology,” such as solar energy and wind power, and was himself constantly experimenting with such technologies, bringing solar hot water, composting toilets, and other new ideas to the farm. In keeping with his zeal for conservationist ideals, Teller became interested in the idea of farmland preservation and seized on the conservation easement as a tool for assuring that not all land would be converted into duplexes. To that end, he helped found the Sonoma Land Trust, and donated an Oak Hill Farm conservation to the trust. Under this easement agreement, no new building or activity that would change the complexion of the 700-acre Oak Hill Farm property will be allowed. The Sonoma Land Trust actively monitors compliance with the agreement. In addition, Teller owned several thousand acres of land in the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana, where he set up a wildlife refuge and a conservation learning center, both of which he protected via conservation easements. Otto Teller was also a passionate fisherman and duck hunter, and over the years he observed the decline and destruction of habitats and watersheds in his travels around the world. An activist at heart, during the 1960’s he dedicated his considerable energies and resources toward the protection of endangered habitats and spent the rest of his life working for the cause of conservation. |
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Copyright © 2005 Oak Hill Farm |
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