Have you ever met a person who is so passionate about their work that they nearly bounce when they talk about it –– sort of like Tigger, in “Winnie the Pooh”? During a walking tour at Polly Hill Arboretum recently, I met a man named Marc Fournier (dubbed “Tigger”), who has enthusiastically made conservation, environmentalism, climate change, and horticulture his life’s work.
“I do a lot of tree and energy-efficient work,” Fournier said. “It’s critical work.”
Well, yes, he does do a lot of tree and energy work, but that’s just the tiptop of the tree. Fournier has extensive experience in arboriculture, landscape design, sustainability, building construction, recycling, organics diversion, materials management, public works, and facilities management. And he mentors Eagle Scouts. And he’s a beekeeper. And has chickens. In other words, he’s busy.
Currently the energy efficiency and environmental sustainability specialist at Lasell University and Lasell Village in Auburndale, Fournier has been coming to the Island for more than 30 years. “My wife Nan and I came here back in the early Nineties and fell in love with it. We bought a house in Vineyard Haven 13 years ago.”
Though not a full-time Vineyard resident, Fourier has never been a lie-on-the-beach type of Island guy. He’s invested in the community, and has been (and still is) involved with a variety of Island organizations. He is a former seasonal property manager at the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and arborist/horticulturist at the Trustees of Reservations’ Mytoi Japanese Garden; he currently works as a consulting arborist, and assists people interested in native plant landscape design.
“I haven’t retired three times, my wife would say,” Fournier chuckled. “Back in March 2019, I was doing volunteer work at Mytoi, and someone there said they had an opening. So I applied, and got the job. I was there for 3½ years. I fell in love with the place. It’s a magical location –– this wonderful little microcosm on Chappy. I developed really great relationships with the Trustees and many Chappy neighbors.”
Since he was someone who had spent much of his career teaching others the importance of planting native plants, I asked Fournier what it was like working in a Japanese garden in Massachusetts. “Yeah, there I was, a native-plant guy working in a Japanese garden. But I worked to find a balance. They had a lot of mowed grass, to start. So I created native meadows, and we got more pollinator plants in. We brought in a lot of good volunteers, including Chappy residents and AmeriCorps members. We cleaned out the streambed, which was filled with invasive plants, and dredged the western edge of the pond. Myself and a team also designed the cedar log wall, and brought in compost from Morning Glory Farm, because the soil at Mytoi is extremely acidic, and was killing the plants. The compost amended the soil and brought the pH level up to where it needed to be.”
Fournier currently serves on the advisory committee of the Mass Audubon Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary. “I’ve been volunteering for 15 years there. Mostly land management –– cleaning pathways, pruning, and landscape design. I’ve worked at many of their major events, and provided advice on everything from building picnic tables to raised garden beds. They have a great team there. They’re wonderful.”
A strong theme that runs through all of Fournier’s work is collaboration. “One of my strengths has always been working with people. I got my MBA in organizational behavior, and that became just as important. You can have all the smart people in the room you want, but if you can’t work together, it’s not going to be successful.”
According to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, “There are several conservation organizations that have worked for decades to preserve open space on Martha’s Vineyard, each with its own focus, expertise, and resources.” So I asked Fournier how well he thinks the Island’s conservation and environmental organizations collaborate with one another. “There are a lot of great organizations who partner,” he said. “At Mytoi, for example, we would bring our staff to Polly Hill and have meetings, where they would share thoughts and ideas and expertise. And then Polly Hill staff would come out to Mytoi for a day and help us out and share their expertise and labor. I think a lot of Island organizations are doing that, and we need to keep broadening this. We need to keep working together.”
Though Fournier approaches his work with a positive attitude, he acknowledges there is a lot of work to be done. “We need to focus on educating people on native and pollinator plants. We are losing so much of our forest canopy to increased carbon dioxide. We need to keep promoting this wherever we can — for us and future generations.”
He also suggests folks really start thinking about what they are driving. “I drive a Toyota Prius C that makes approximately 48 miles per gallon, and when I need to move something large, I hook up our utility trailer. I know everyone can’t do this, but we have to figure out ways to reduce our vehicle emissions.”
What is Fournier’s next “retirement” opportunity? “It’s going to absolutely involve trees and native landscapes, and all the ecosystems. The other thing I do is restore vintage tools. It’s a way to save them –– a combo of art and function –– and teach people how to use them so they can live on.” Fournier and his wife Nan are also restoring their 1748 farmhouse. “We’re blending the very old and very new. We added new insulation and air sealing throughout, 9.18 kW solar PV array, 96 percent efficient condensing boiler, hybrid hot water tank, and heat-pump system for the tool shop to make our home as environmentally sustainable as possible, and to serve as a model for others. And we’re surrounded by native plants and trees.”
If you would like to learn more about environmental sustainability and how you can help, reach out to Fournier at rmarcfournier@gmail.com.
