environmentalism/forests?    Htrp-@aol.com
   Dec 20, 2002 17:28 PST 

Folks,


the forest summit sounds wonderful, not sure if i'll make it, still have no idea where i'll be after may! Wendell Berry spends some time thinking about what local forestry looks like and talking about the Menominee forest in "Another Turn of the Crank," a book I would suggest to all.

my students turned in their final essays for field biology. they brought up the very troubling notion that humans do only bad to the environment. somehow humans are evil, and the environment can only be good and beautiful if we leave it alone.... i seem to get the same feel from you folks in the desire to preserve ogf. obviously preserving ogf is important. what better way to realize my insignificance in the world than in a diverse, functioning, happy forest with immense trees?

But dichotomizing humans and nature worries me.
my generation (us 20somethingyearolds) will be taking over forests and management soon enough. what will guide us? all we seem to want to do is say "ack! don't touch it, we'll just screw it up! maybe if we hide, and protect it as wilderness and let nature know best, it will regain its natural harmony." but we love interacting with the forest. i haven'Monk, C.D. 1967. Tree
species diversity in the eastern deciduous forest with particular reference
to north-central Florida.   American Naturalist 101:173-187. t seen the dances of joy that surely accompany your large measurements, nor do i understand all the management ideas that you talk of. i'm not a forester (but i sure do love the stories, measurements, and discussions that I get to read from ENTS).

Anyway, these ideas have prompted me to do quite a bit more thinking on the topic of what it means to be human and interact with the forest. This paper is one that i have written exploring my ideas. it might be wrong. i might be wrong about a lot of things, i'm young and inexperienced. but i think my ideas have merit, and i also get to spend a fair amount of time sharing them with folks around school and with my students who might go out into the world and manage lands with these ideas! if i'm wrong, i'd like to know and rethink things. so please, read what i think, and send any comments.
joy,
Heather
Re: environmentalism/forests?    Robert Leverett
   Dec 21, 2002 11:57 PST 
Heather:

    Thanks for giving us the opportunity of discussing with you on the important subject of human-nature interaction and it is we who are honored to participate with you. We will do our best to rise to the challenge.

    Let me say right away that if I've left the impression in my writings that humans can only do damage to the environment and should restrict their activities to the greatest extent possible, I have not meant to leave that impression. Big trees are quite often partially a result of human interaction with the land. It is all in the kind of interaction we have that must be the focus of our attention.

    Let me quote again from Barbara McMartin's superb book a passage that reflects the opposing approaches to interacting with nature - the lumberman vs the forester.

    "The results of early timber harvesting on the Adirondack League Club property did not bear Fernow out. His plan was impeded by unsupervised and uncontrolled loggers. Most loggers were distrusted even when they were under the direction of a forester, and their activities on the Adirondack League Club forests were not unique. When asked if he would favor scientific forestry, that is, the cutting of mature timber on State land, the manager of the Saranac Club replied that "you will have to have a man on the ground all the time to watch them or they will cut everything." Asked if that wasn't a "pretty tough criticism", he countered, "Well, I don't know any lumberman I would trust on a lot of mine." "

    The lumbermen of the Adirondacks lived to cut as much as they could and then get out as fast as they could. The forester was there to develop a long term stewardship view. One class of scientific forestry that grew out of the big timber companies developed partly in response to the needs of the paper industry. Large volumes of fiber had to be supplied on a relatively short turn around schedule. Plantations were the only answer. The environmental impact is not what we want. But there is another kind of scientific forestry.

    Modern ecoforestry as described in "ECOFORESTRY - The Art and Science of Sustainable Forest Use", edited by Alan Drengson and Duncan Taylor, is a world removed from the practices in either those early Adirondack lumber camps or by Weyerhaeuser. It IS what we can be proud of. So human interaction with nature does not have to always be to the detriment of the latter. TNC and other environmental and government organizations work to restore habitat and mitigate past damages. Ecoforesters work to toward the sustainable use of the forest without changing the landscape into the tree equivalent of a giant chicken farm. Both the restoration work of TNC and the practice of ecoforestry are advances that we can be proud of.

Bob
Re: environmentalism/forests?    Robert Leverett
   Dec 21, 2002 14:44 PST 
Heather:

    Over the years, Wild Earth publication has had many articles on the meaning of wilderness, wilderness preservation, wilderness disappearance, and wilderness ethics. I was a contributor to Wild Earth in the 1990s, but wrote less about wilderness per se than about old growth and large trees. I couldn't match the eloquence of the writers who spoke to wilderness values and I always felt immensely grateful to be included in their midst. I've read and reread their words, but am seldom moved to put my thoughts about wilderness on paper.

    My love of wilderness and appreciation of nature is much more experiential that literary. I always appreciate the thoughts of others, but I believe that wilderness is a concept that each of us must ultimately define for ourselves. Wilderness becomes real for me in the context of a particular environment that awakens some primal feeling. I came to realize that years ago when a young second lieutenant in the USAF, assigned to Ellsworth AFB, near Rapid City, South Dakota. The Cloud Peak Wilderness Area in the Bighorn Mountains of north central Wyoming was 220 miles distant. A friend and I headed over there in 1965 and the Bighorns cast a spell that has never weakened. The Bighorns defined wilderness for me, which for that time, became synonymous with imposing rock faces, pencil-straight spruce trees, ferocious winter blizzards, and late spring wild flower blooms of such extent and exquisite loveliness as to defy verbal description. And yet, that wilderness was a human creation to an extent. It had boundaries. It had a trail network. There were campgrounds on its perimeter. Its line of 12,000-foot peaks bore human names and the lumbering grizzly had been eliminated from its vastness, probably by the 1920s. I could go to the fire lookout on 10000-foot Sheep Mountain and gaze into what appeared to be an endless maze of peaks, yet there was that thin line of trials that traversed the maze. No more were the Bighorns the contested ground of the Absoraka and Lakota nations. Yes, one could see elk, moose, black bear, and maybe even mountain lion, but the Bighorns that I loved were unquestionably tamer and safer than a century before and that was just fine by me.

    The Bighorn wilderness is one of many that we humans created out of the 1964 Wilderness Act. We legislated wilderness into existence and we impose rules on its use. Does that make wilderness artificial or less valuable? Not at all. It punctuates the importance of the role of natural systems to we humans, and even if more symbolically than realistically, the wilderness legislation allows us to make a statement. The crucible of creation from which speciation takes place needs space. At some point our numbers simply overwhelm the natural order and we become a deadly parasite on the skin of the planet. We have yet to learn that lesson or our place. That is why we must continue to search for those critical points of balance and above all to practice humility. More on this latter point in a future e-mail.

Bob
RE: environmentalism/forests?    Dale J. Luthringer
   Dec 21, 2002 22:01 PST 
Heather,

Thank-you for the opportunity to comment on your paper.

I must admit that at first glance I thought it was going to be another
tirade about the "Christians" who supposedly raped and pillaged the land
for their own good. In this day and age when it is common practice to
bash Christians at every turn, it was quite refreshing to come across
some of the commands that God gave to man that we all at some point have
fallen away from and should return to.

Lynn White's comment that it was God's will to exploit nature is totally
unsubstantiated in the Bible. It was never God's will to do this. When
God finished His Creation He called it "very good", and gave man
dominion over it. We were charged with a great responsibility, but we
chose to rebel against God and were cast out of the perfect garden. Sin
marred his perfect work, and we've been in a world of hurt ever since.

Your comment about allowing the Bible to inform a new ethic is close to
the mark. What we should be doing is bringing ourselves back to the
original ethic and responsibilities that God has called us to in the
Bible. If we do anything apart from His will it will all be in vain.
If we were to follow His commands, the environment wouldn't be the mess
that we've made it into.

The problem is that many Christians have side-stepped this issue
entirely allowing the exploiters of the environment to take advantage of
the void. I believe this is mainly true because many have fallen to the
belief that science has disproved the Bible. Nothing could be further
from the truth. True science that deals with things that can be tested
in the present never disproves the Bible, although I'm sure a very great
percentage of those on this list will hotly disagree with me on this
matter. That would bring us into the great debate over world views that
I don't believe your paper is trying to invoke, so I will stop there.

There is common ground out there that I believe both sides can work on.
I believe a number of authors you've chosen to include in your paper are
trying to help us fix the problem of environmental degradation. The
problem is that many of us choose to deny the God who made it all and
choose do to things our own way, resulting in a continual downward
spiral of misuse and abuse of the environment ie: poor logging
practices, pollution, exploitation, etc.

Wilderness, wild areas, and old growth forests are things that are very
special to me. It saddens me to see what we've done to it, but it is
also an exciting time for the future to actually get involved and make a
difference to change things for the better. I am indebted to ENTS for
allowing me to be a part of this process.

Most of my free time is spent scurrying from tree to tree at Cook Forest
in attempts to find some of the most magnificent specimens that have
survived for centuries in hopes of using this information to better
manage our younger forests. New discoveries await at almost every
turn... I can almost here Bob saying, "Just over the next hill..." It
is exciting and awe inspiring that often reminds me of the Creator.
Many times I've come across a grove of trees or section of river that
gives me a slight glimpse as to how beautiful the original creation must
have been before we chose to fall away and mar which was once "very
good".

One of my most memorable wilderness experiences was when I was in the
Marine Corps serving in Japan. A couple of my buddies and I would often
rent a vehicle and travel to the Hokaido volcano range in northern
Honshu (mainland Japan). There is a massive lake here (~25 miles
circumference) that formed in the caldera of a huge volcano. The best
way to explain it was that it was Japan's example of Lake Tahoe.

We would often take excursion trails to the top of volcanoes that the
Japanese would travel for various religious ceremonies. We would start
at the bottom of the valley and travel about 6 miles to the crest of the
volcano passing hot sulfur springs and sometimes even snow monkies along
the way. Once we got above the tree line we entered into the world of
clouds and mist. We decided to take a break at the crest by a large
rock, and were rewarded by the most memorable wilderness experience I
have had to date. At that instant, the clouds opened up below us and
for just a few scant seconds we peered through the sunbeam to the clear
and lush valley about 3500 vertical feet below. It felt as if God
opened up the clouds for us for just these few scant seconds to reflect
on his majesty and creation. The moment was fleeting though as the
clouds quickly came together again obscuring our view. We all looked at
each other in amazement, and were quite dumfounded by the experience for
the rest of the trip. It was truly a religious experience.

Thank-you again for the opportunity to review and comment on your paper.
I also would like to thank ENTS for putting up with my "rant". Very
seldom do I "wax eloquent" on topics of this nature on this site, due to
what I've perceived as often a negative attitude toward Christianity in
general, but it is where I stand on issues of this nature. I hope to
not be excluded from future discussions of subjects of this nature. I
also believe that it is one of the reasons that make this listserve so
great in that it has been a platform where views of varying degrees
about the environment can be discussed. Maybe I'm the only one with
these views, if so, than you've just obtained a little more diversity to
liven up things from time to time.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas.

Dale
Re: environmentalism/forests?    Htrp-@aol.com
   Dec 21, 2002 23:23 PST 
hey all,

thanks to bob and dale for responses.

since you all havent met me, i guess it would be hard for you to know how i really interact with nature. it would probably be pretty obvious if you knew me. but, it fills my soul, gives my life meaning, is the subject of most of my love and affection, is my haven almost every weekend and is what makes my spirit sing. that said, i'll pick apart some ideas.

i agree with you, bob. wilderness, like anything spiritual is found through experience, not through literature alone. can we really expect anyone to throw their heart and soul into any kind of environmental work without them having had it pulled out of them in encounters with the forest? So, i thank you for pointing that out - sometimes i miss the obvious and your stories ring true in my own life. I think you are getting at the fact that wisdom and intuition, not the intellectual discussion of it, are really at the core here. i agree wholeheartedly.

I read through a lot of that ecoforestry text before i started writing (i actually quoted a bit of it). a book that has a lot of wisdom. but i had a hard time with the introduction because it seemed to be trying to tell me that we should value humans as equal to all other life forms.
i spent a while trying to wrap my mind around that idea and i would really like to be able to believe it. but somehow, i just cant get that idea to intuitively make sense to me.
i think humans have a separate place and different responsibilities than other creatures do. does the idea of equality of species work in other people's lives (Daniel Quinn, in his book, Ishmael, pokes fun at people for thinking that we're different from other species by describing a jellyfish who thinks he's the pinnacle of evolution. good point.)?

The other trouble I have had with ecoforestry, ecology, and the way environmental sciences are taught here at my university is with the notion that good science will tell us what's right in the world. these positions seem to say things like: - evolution tells us that all creatures are of equal worth, - that the ecosystem is more important than the individual, - life will return to a "natural balance", - even that we should value biodiversity. i dont think science can show really say these things or answer these questions. how can a system that tries to be objective and value-less tell us about our values?
didnt we just talk about how wilderness is a spiritual experience? it feels dishonest to try to pass this stuff off as science. and it also feels dishonest that as a culture, we will only value it if it is science. wisdom, intuition and love are so undervalued, but we dont have to respond by pretending that everything we believe in our cores is based on empirical reason.

so, in that sense, I agree with Dale. I'm not particularly christian (although i was raised mormon, so some of that comes back to bite me now and then), so i dont think we have to acknowledge a God per se, but maybe i'm wrong there. i wonder what is the firm ground that nonchristians can stand on? Where can i put my roots, and what big piture/perception of the world should infrom my choices?
maybe science's place is to tell us how we can effectively get what our ethics and spiritual knowledge tells us has value, is good, beautiful, and true.

the role of old growth and wilderness - a place for spirtual journeys? - a place to realize how small you are and to lose your self-centeredness? - a place to meet many creatures? - A place to find that the land truly will hold you, love you, and take care of you so that you dont need to be so compulsive and controlling? I think all of these things are important.

if you made it this far, i thank you for listening to my rant and for considering my ideas for what they are: the half-baked ideas of one who is just trying to understand the world. and i hope you will rip my ideas to shreds - i'd like to see what stays standing. I'd also love to see how you folks interact with the forest sometime, that i may learn from your wisdom.

be well and enjoy this longest night of the year (it's all uphill from here)!
Heather
Re: environmentalism/forests?    Robert Leverett
   Dec 22, 2002 19:24 PST 
Heather:

    I especially like your passage:

"the role of old growth and wilderness - a place for spiritual journeys? - a place to realize how small you are and to lose your self-centeredness? - a place to meet many creatures? - A place to find that the land truly will hold you, love you, and take care of you so that you don't need to be so compulsive and controlling? I think all of these things are important."

    True enlightenment begins with spiritual journeys where self is relegated to the role of student and humility is the guiding principle. I remember a trip to the Adirondacks I once made with a group that included Dave Foreman, a co-founder of Earth First. I had met Dave before, but had not gotten to know him. At the Adirondack rendezvous, I discovered a person of extraordinary depth and humility. Dave had been on many spiritual journeys. In the views of those who think along such lines, Dave would be classified as an "old soul". His life experiences had taught him great humility to accompany what can be a fiery personality. I always read with intense attention Dave's words about nature, wilderness, and human interaction with same.

    Simon Schama also writes about wilderness. Schama's approach is insular and highly intellectual. Lots in his book to think about and compare and contrast to Foreman's thinking. Have you read Schama?

Bob
Re: environmentalism/forests?    Michele Wilson
   Dec 29, 2002 20:00 PST 

I'm sure that I have inadvertently crushed a zillion ants in my day;
however, sometimes, I marvel at the thought of how such a small critter can
have all the bodily systems stuck together in such a small body, and with
everything engineered by the man upstairs such that the systems actually
work...truly amazing...
michele