Trees in black & white: simple truths are sometimes the hardest, and the woods are suffering while we learn - Editorial

American Forests, Autumn, 2002 by Michelle Robbins

Most of us learn the world is not black and white before we're old enough to make decisions affected by that simple truth. Yet there's another simple truth a lot of us have missed: Forests aren't black and white either.

That point seems to be missing in much of the debate over thinning to reduce the threat of wildfires. The only part of the story that is black and white is the aftermath. The fires sweeping the West this year are terrifying watch, devastating to forests and rural communities alike. We all can agree on the need to avoid the kind of fire seasons becoming all too common.

What's not black and white are the emotions on either side of the issue. On one side are environmentalists, who fear any kind of cuffing in the woods--regardless of how right-minded the reasoning is--will cut the good stuff, the big trees. The Forest Service and the timber companies say cutting is needed to get rid of underbrush that helps fuel these hot, slow-burning fires and to weed out the small trees.

There's a lot that's right--and wrong--with all that thinking. That's understandable, given the two sides' contentious history. But this is not a black and white story. Here at AMERICAN FORESTS we hear of--and work with--many, many projects that showcase just how innovative the solutions can be when the efforts focus on solutions, not grandstanding. When competing interests sit down and genuinely try to find common ground, guess what? They often do.

And it's time to dispel the notion that small-diameter wood can't hold its own in the commercial world. You need look no further than page 38 of this magazine for evidence of this untapped resource's potential. A start-up nonprofit in Arizona is using small-diameter wood to build traditional hogans for Navajos, an idea that has met with overwhelming demand. Compromise is tough. It's easier to keep the woods black and white in our minds. We go there to remember our childhood and watch our kids scramble over rocks and look for deer and salamanders. Then we go back to thinking about the stuff of everyday life. The woods? Leave 'em black and white. There's too much else to think about.

Think again. The places and species we grew up taking for granted are disappearing, not only from out-of-control wildfires, but outdated thinking, encroaching civilization, and a raft of invasive species.

While hiking in Shenandoah National Park recently I was struck not by the number of families in an old-growth hemlock grove called the Limberlost, but by their obliviousness to the dead and dying trees around them. Hemlock wooly adelgid, a seemingly innocuous bit of white fluff, is literally sucking the life out of the East's ecologically critical hemlocks.

The outlook is just as dire on the West Coast, where the frightening sudden oak death is knocking off a host of species and raising the specter of Dutch elm disease--which robbed this country of its lovely American elm--on a much larger scale.

Both stories have the potential to change the woods as we know them. But neither has pierced the national consciousness at the level that is needed. If we're to save the forests we profess to cherish, we need folks who understand that the only game worth playing is the one that ultimately benefits our ecosystems.

Our history shows us the dangers both of trying too hard and trying too little in our woods; the answers lie in between. Our forests are not black and white. By all means, hold tight to your starryeyed view of the woods. Then get over it. There's work to be done.