Feb 22, 2008  |  By: ZACK ROSEN  | COMMENTS     

Environmental activism is often thought of as the domain of the hippie, a project undertaken by someone with enough time and resources to swim with the dolphins or live in a tree. Jarid Manos, founder and CEO of the Great Plains Restoration Council and author of the memoir “Ghetto Plainsman,” paints a much different picture of a man trying to save the earth.

A gay son of an Italian immigrant father (who likely has North African ancestry), with a history of drug dealing and hustling, Manos is poised to change the popular idea of what it means to take care of our planet. Though he’s already responsible for the salvation of thousands of acres of Texas prairie, Manos finds that people have trouble overlooking his background.

“They think I’m a thug, or just off the street,” Manos says. “I guess I have that appearance to them. Even some of my friends expect me to be so hard. The strong man can also be sensitive. You can evolve, you can keep it real … I’m actually a very passionate person.”

The fruits of Manos’ passions can currently be seen in the landscape of Fort Worth. His biggest success to date was the preservation of just under 2,000 acres of land in an area he named the “Fort Worth Prairie Park.” His efforts prevented the land from being bulldozed, and he continues to fight for the area’s permanent protection.

“I refer to him as John the Baptist, coming out of the wilderness, it’s the only analogy I have,” says Bob Ray Sanders, who is the vice president, associate editor and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “His impact has been incredible. Here’s a man who came and just went to work. These 2,000 acres that he felt was one of the last parts of the prairies, he stopped it from being under the bulldozers right now.”

A MORE PERSONAL ACCOUNT of Manos’ life and works can be found in “Ghetto Plainsmen,” an intensely evocative chronicle of his past and the events that led him to his current fight in Texas. The book details Manos’ underprivileged childhood in Ohio and bleak years working through New York City’s drug and sex economies.

While Manos has earned much media attention through his environmentalism, the more sordid details of his life, as well as the honest fact of his sexuality, might come as a surprise to his followers. Manos has struggled with his sexual orientation, but thinks it’s an integral part of his story and shouldn’t be left out.

“There was a newspaper column that came out a couple weeks ago that made it all public, it was weird, it was something I dreaded for a long, long time,” Manos says. “I was definitely one of those people that wanted to kill [the gay] out of me, I dealt with huge self-hatred issues. It’s something that I always hated, I’m only comfortable with it now. I still hated seeing those words, ‘Manos is gay,’ in [the article.] It’s a process I’m sure everyone goes through.”

Sanders, the author of the column, was originally skeptical of Manos’ intentions but was quickly won over by the activist’s dedication. Sanders had seen a good number of “flim-flam men” and “crooked politicians” come through Texas trying to exploit its citizens’ devotion to the environment, but had his mind changed by Manos’ quick and decisive action. Manos asked Sanders for a list of governmental figures that could help his cause and had contacted or met with them all within two days of the conversation.

“[I told him about] the land commissioner, in whose hands the [prairie] land is, and within two days he was in Austin in the man’s office,” Sanders says. “Jarid said, ‘He’s going to come here, he’s going to walk this land.’ Two days later the land commissioner was up there and Jarid was taking him through the wilderness. He’s an amazing individual.”

MANOS’ ENGINE OF CHANGE is the Great Plains Restoration Council. The group’s web site divides the organization’s mission into two categories: “healing the earth” and “healing ourselves.” Healing the earth has had impressive results, but preserving the psyches of his fellow community members is of equal importance to Manos. GPRC runs several programs intended to provide support to inner city youth through hands-on environmental work.

“If you look at devastation in communities, the social devastation and ecological devastation ...