Arthur Wayne Jokela

The memorial service for Arthur Wayne Jokela has been scheduled for November 8th in Pomona CA, with thanks to Harriet Lyle and Mikko Jokela for making the arrangements. If you’d like to attend, please email awjokela@yahoo.com for details.

We realize that with the high cost of travel, many friends, colleagues, and community members won’t be able to attend the service. Perhaps we can all set aside a moment at 2PM Pacific time on November 8th to acknowledge Arthur’s presence throughout the world.

Arthur Jokela, 68, Earth Scientist and Environmental Advocate

Arthur Jokela, a champion of environmentally sustainable development, passed away on August 13, 2008.

He collapsed during a layover in London, UK, while en route from Africa to his home in Pomona, California. He had been traveling in Malawi, Mozambique, and Kenya, where he worked with African authorities on strategies for reforestation and environmental sustainability. On July 28, while in Malawi, he presented the keynote speech at the 2nd International African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE) symposium on climate change.

Arthur Wayne Jokela was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on November 5, 1939. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Earth Sciences from MIT, with field work in Greenland and the Arctic. He did postgraduate work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. While at Scripps, he became active in California’s environmental movement; this experience formed the basis of a 40-year career in environmental advocacy.

A longtime faculty member and lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Environmental Design, Arthur helped shape the curriculum for the university’s John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies and co-authored the chapter on water in Lyle’s seminal 1994 book Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. With the Arroyo Seco Foundation, he played a critical role in the re-greening of Pasadena’s Lower Arroyo Seco watershed. Arthur was active in many other projects and causes, including Deaf education, the UNICEF International Children’s Forum, and project-based learning as practiced at International Polytechnic High School in Pomona.

Arthur was tireless and brilliant in creating solutions for environmental problems, and linking the people, institutions, and ideas that could implement positive change. To quote the condolences of two of his African colleagues, “we resent death’s brutal robbery” … but “we shall surely carry on his mission since the seeds have already been planted.”

He is survived by his wife, Karen; his five sons, Arne, Mikko, Tod, Mars and Cosmo; his mother, Lila; his sister, Mary; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service is being planned for early November.

• A kind, thoughtful obituary on the Arroyo Seco Foundation website
• The blog of a man who met Dad on the road in Africa
• Some pictures of Dad
• Ellen Datlow’s blog, representative of the wonderful science fiction community that has helped so much in the last week

One of the highlights of Dad’s trip to Africa was his keynote speech to the Second International Symposium of the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry, and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE). The accompanying paper, linked below, sums up his recent work in Africa, and indeed much of his life’s work.

Mainstreaming Carbon and Biofuels, with Agroforestry, into Education

Dad referred to this kind of document as “techno-poetry,” an apt label describing at once his scientific grounding, dense language, and dazzling creativity.