Season 6 kicks off in the deep dark woods: the simplified, post-industrial forests of the world — the only forests that many of us have ever known.
Join us as we meet foresters in British Columbia, Vermont, and Scotland, all working to embrace the messy art of ecological forestry. Because if we want our forests to be old growth-ier, we might not be able to just wait and leave them alone. It might mean challenging some assumptions and getting out of our comfort zone, but that's what it'll take to see the forest for the trees.
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Transcripts
Introduction Voiceover:
You are listening to Season Six of
Introduction Voiceover:
Future Ecologies.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay. Hey, Adam. Welcome back.
Adam Huggins:
Hi, Mendel. Can you believe it? Season six and
Adam Huggins:
we still have no idea what we're doing.
Mendel Skulski:
I think we're getting better, just not
Mendel Skulski:
necessarily faster.
Adam Huggins:
That is true.
Mendel Skulski:
So what's up? What's with all the hammering?
Adam Huggins:
Well, knock, knock, Mendel.
Mendel Skulski:
Who's there?
Adam Huggins:
Wood.
Mendel Skulski:
Wood, who?
Adam Huggins:
Would you care to go with me on a stroll through
Adam Huggins:
the forest?
Mendel Skulski:
Always. What kind of forest are we strolling
Mendel Skulski:
through?
Adam Huggins:
Okay, if you can picture it, the trees here are
Adam Huggins:
all young, pretty much all the same. They're the same age,
Adam Huggins:
they're the same height, they're all Douglas firs.
Mendel Skulski:
Right. We're talking like a Christmas tree
Mendel Skulski:
farm.
Adam Huggins:
A Christmas Tree farm, if the Christmas trees
Adam Huggins:
were, I don't know, 20 meters tall, and only green up at the
Adam Huggins:
very top. So they wouldn't make very good Christmas trees, I
Adam Huggins:
guess. Down here on the ground, it's mostly just tree trunks in
Adam Huggins:
every direction, and lots of dead twigs sticking out from
Adam Huggins:
those trunks. You know, poking you in the face, crunching
Adam Huggins:
underfoot. And even though it's it's sunny outside today, it's
Adam Huggins:
pretty dark down here. There's not much growing at ground
Adam Huggins:
level.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, so what are we doing here? What's with
Mendel Skulski:
all the noise?
Adam Huggins:
Right. This is not what a forest usually sounds
Adam Huggins:
like. Welcome to my day job.
Mendel Skulski:
Oh, I hope we're not interrupting.
Adam Huggins:
Nah, you're fine. It's take your podcast co-host
Adam Huggins:
to work day.
Mendel Skulski:
Aw.
Adam Huggins:
And my colleagues and I have just managed to haul
Adam Huggins:
about a 50 pound chain hoist 10 meters up a tree, and we've
Adam Huggins:
secured it up there with these massive steel nails that you
Adam Huggins:
pound into the tree. They look like they've been around since
Adam Huggins:
the Second World War.
Mendel Skulski:
Sounds like fun.
Adam Huggins:
It's a huge pain in the ass, honestly.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, and...?
Adam Huggins:
And now we've run the chain from the chain hoist
Adam Huggins:
down to the base of the tree. We call that the 'spar' tree,
Adam Huggins:
through a pulley, which is called a 'snatch block', for
Adam Huggins:
reasons I don't understand. And that pulley guides it to the
Adam Huggins:
base of another tree, I don't know, about 20 meters away. We
Adam Huggins:
call that the 'pivot' tree. It's called the pivot tree because
Adam Huggins:
from that tree there's another snatch block at the base. The
Adam Huggins:
chain pivots out to a third tree. We wrap the chain about
Adam Huggins:
five meters up, and we call that the 'cull' tree. So three trees,
Adam Huggins:
a chain and cables running between them, and we've got a
Adam Huggins:
smaller chain hoist over there.
Mendel Skulski:
What's that one for?
Adam Huggins:
We use that one to tighten everything up and get
Adam Huggins:
ready.
Mendel Skulski:
Get ready for what?
Adam Huggins:
To pull the third tree down.
Mendel Skulski:
Excuse me?
Adam Huggins:
We're going to pull that cull tree, the third
Adam Huggins:
tree, we're gonna pull it over. You know, trees are usually
Adam Huggins:
vertical, but we're gonna make this one horizontal.
Mendel Skulski:
I got that part. Why? Why are you pulling this
Mendel Skulski:
poor tree down?
Adam Huggins:
Oh, it's nothing personal. There are just too
Adam Huggins:
many trees here.
Mendel Skulski:
Too many trees... That's a thing?
Adam Huggins:
Oh yeah, wait just a second, this is the best part.
Mendel Skulski:
...what happened to you this summer? Did a tree
Mendel Skulski:
fall on your head? You're getting paid for this mischief.
Adam Huggins:
Yeah, pretty cool, eh? we do this with kids too.
Mendel Skulski:
You're pulling kids over?
Adam Huggins:
No, the the kids pull the tree down. They wear
Adam Huggins:
cute little hard hats and everything.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, I'm feeling pretty lost.
Adam Huggins:
Well, you wouldn't be the first person to stray
Adam Huggins:
into the deep, dark woods and get a little bit lost. But in
Adam Huggins:
all seriousness, what I'd like to do with this episode is to
Adam Huggins:
let some light into this dark forest. For the past couple of
Adam Huggins:
years, I've been interviewing foresters across the temperate
Adam Huggins:
world, and they've all said more or less the same thing — that
Adam Huggins:
when it comes to the management of the woody places of the
Adam Huggins:
world, we've been failing to see the forest for the trees. But
Adam Huggins:
all of that is starting to change. To save the forests, we
Adam Huggins:
may have to cut down some trees. Like, a lot of trees. So many
Adam Huggins:
trees. So to kick off our sixth season of future ecologies, I'm
Adam Huggins:
Adam.
Mendel Skulski:
I'm lost in the woods...
Adam Huggins:
And this is forest tree.
Introduction Voiceover:
Broadcasting from the unceded, shared and
Introduction Voiceover:
asserted territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and
Introduction Voiceover:
Tsleil-Waututh, this is Future Ecologies – exploring the shape
Introduction Voiceover:
of our world through ecology, design, and sound.
Adam Huggins:
Okay, before we get any further, you asked me
Adam Huggins:
what happened to me this summer, and I would say the highlight
Adam Huggins:
was actually getting to spend some time with you in a very
Adam Huggins:
different kind of forest. Do you remember?
Mendel Skulski:
Of course!
Adam Huggins:
All right, I'm gonna take us back for a minute.
Adam Huggins:
We're lying on the ground on our backs, and the river is humming
Adam Huggins:
gently in the background.
Mendel Skulski:
Can I pitch in?
Adam Huggins:
Absolutely.
Mendel Skulski:
The air is warm and moist, with the faint scent
Mendel Skulski:
of vanilla leaf. We're surrounded by literally 1000
Mendel Skulski:
year old Sitka spruce trees towering over us... towering
Mendel Skulski:
over even all the other trees, which would seem enormous in any
Mendel Skulski:
other context.
Adam Huggins:
But it isn't dark.
Mendel Skulski:
No, the trees are huge, but spaced pretty far
Mendel Skulski:
apart, so the light is finding its way down to us, and
Mendel Skulski:
everything is just covered in moss. Everything is so alive.
Adam Huggins:
Even the dead things are alive! Like just a
Adam Huggins:
stone's throw away, there's this enormous standing snag, bleached
Adam Huggins:
white by the sun, and there are birds nesting in holes up and
Adam Huggins:
down its trunk. And then right here in front of us, a decaying
Adam Huggins:
log the size of a school bus.
Mendel Skulski:
Yeah, a horizontal tree. Your favorite.
Adam Huggins:
My favorite. I would call it a nurse log, and
Adam Huggins:
it's covered in moss and shrubs and even small trees, getting a
Adam Huggins:
head start
Mendel Skulski:
And on the ground, ferns, herbs, mosses and
Mendel Skulski:
mushrooms. The soil is so full of mycelium, it's spongy,
Mendel Skulski:
bouncy, almost like a trampoline.
Adam Huggins:
Or a mattress. I remember when we were lying down
Adam Huggins:
there, you said you could smell the layers in the landscape.
Mendel Skulski:
I smell the rich duff. I smell the soil here, put
Mendel Skulski:
down by these trees, put down by these plants, put down on top of
Mendel Skulski:
sand, put down by a river... layer after layer after layer.
Mendel Skulski:
There's a lot of time in this place.
Adam Huggins:
I really love how you put that, that there was so
Adam Huggins:
much time in that place. You could literally see the time in
Adam Huggins:
the layers of wood, in the layers of vegetation, in the
Adam Huggins:
layers of sediment.
Mendel Skulski:
Yeah, I just wish that, that we could have
Mendel Skulski:
spent more time there.
Adam Huggins:
Oh, man, it's not every day you get to spend in an
Adam Huggins:
old growth forest.
Mendel Skulski:
An old growth rainforest! Also a UNESCO World
Mendel Skulski:
Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve, and the territory of
Mendel Skulski:
several First Nations.
Adam Huggins:
Savvy listeners might have guessed already that
Adam Huggins:
you and I were doing some good old fashioned forest bathing in
Adam Huggins:
the Hoh rainforest, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington,
Mendel Skulski:
Followed up by the other kind of bathing in the
Mendel Skulski:
Hoh River.
Adam Huggins:
Which was very cold.
Mendel Skulski:
Yes.
Adam Huggins:
But we weren't just on location for vacation.
Mendel Skulski:
No, of course not. We were there to do some
Mendel Skulski:
serious reporting!
Adam Huggins:
Very serious.
Mendel Skulski:
In one of the very few forests left on the
Mendel Skulski:
entire Pacific Coast that has never been clear cut.
Adam Huggins:
Folks come from all over the world, you and me
Adam Huggins:
included, to experience the Hoh and to walk through the hall of
Adam Huggins:
mosses. It's hard to overstate just how rare these high
Adam Huggins:
productivity, low elevation old growth forests have become. In
Adam Huggins:
the part of the world where you and I live, the vast majority of
Adam Huggins:
these forests have been lost. Or to take it out of the passive
Adam Huggins:
voice, they've been cut down. We've cut them down. I mean, not
Adam Huggins:
you and me personally, but we in general. On the south coast of
Adam Huggins:
British Columbia, where we live, less than 10% of the original,
Adam Huggins:
high productivity old growth forest remains, and a lot of
Adam Huggins:
that is pretty difficult to access.
Mendel Skulski:
It's true. I mean, we took two ferries,
Mendel Skulski:
crossed an international border and cleared, I don't even know
Mendel Skulski:
how many kilometers...
Adam Huggins:
About 200.
Mendel Skulski:
- just to be there in person. And of course,
Mendel Skulski:
it was amazing. But then as we left and crossed out of the park
Mendel Skulski:
boundary, we found ourselves pretty quickly back in a
Mendel Skulski:
different kind of forest.
Adam Huggins:
Yeah, the forest that blankets so much of this
Adam Huggins:
coast, the forest that most of us have become accustomed to —
Adam Huggins:
an impenetrable green wall of conifers, same age, same height
Adam Huggins:
and darkness below. And before too long, we pulled into some of
Adam Huggins:
the towns that produced these forests. Communities where,
Adam Huggins:
judging from the signs on the side of the road, you and I
Adam Huggins:
might imagine that tree hugger is a pejorative term, and that
Adam Huggins:
loggers are the underdog heroes. You know, communities where the
Adam Huggins:
war in the woods never ended.
Hexxus:
New orders, boys. You're going to Fern Gully.
Mendel Skulski:
Oh, I know that voice.
Adam Huggins:
Somehow, I am not surprised. I take it that you
Adam Huggins:
have seen the 1992 animated classic, Fern Gully?
Adam Huggins:
Of course! Of course. I knew that movie by heart when I was a
Adam Huggins:
kid.
Adam Huggins:
Apparently, I still know it by heart. I'm gonna go out on a
Adam Huggins:
limb and say that for our generation, I think this piece
Adam Huggins:
of pop culture was foundational to our perspectives on forestry.
Unknown:
Hmm, yeah. I mean, definitely for me.
Adam Huggins:
For those who haven't seen it, it's about a
Adam Huggins:
lovely rainforest
Mendel Skulski:
Called Fern Gully
Adam Huggins:
That is filled with fairies and talking bats
Adam Huggins:
and what I think are little gangs of bugs, and everything
Adam Huggins:
seems peachy. Until, of course, the humans show up.
Crysta:
Humans back in the forest!
Batty:
Yeah, there goes the neighborhood.
Crysta:
Be nice, Batty.
Batty:
First thing all these trees go. Then come your
Batty:
highways, then come your shopping malls and your parking
Batty:
lots and your convenience stores, and then come [zap].
Mendel Skulski:
And then come... animated films about how great
Mendel Skulski:
the forest used to be?
Adam Huggins:
Anyway, one of the humans - a handsome blonde lug
Adam Huggins:
named Zak — with a K, without a C... 90s Zak — gets shrunk by
Adam Huggins:
magic to fairy size. And of course, he makes friends with a
Adam Huggins:
lady fairy named Crysta.
Mendel Skulski:
I think we all know where this is going.
Adam Huggins:
In typical 90s movie fashion, romance is
Adam Huggins:
preceded by heartache.
Crysta:
What are you doing?
Zak:
Carving your name, see? C, R, Y, S...
Crysta:
No, no, you mustn't do that! Here, can't you feel its
Crysta:
pain?
Zak:
Its pain?
Crysta:
Yes!
Batty:
Humans can't feel anything. They're numb from the
Batty:
brain down.
Mendel Skulski:
Sometimes I feel numb from the brain up.
Adam Huggins:
I can relate to that. Anyway, throughout the
Adam Huggins:
course of the film, Zak and Crysta, and you know, by
Adam Huggins:
extension, the rest of us, we learn a few lessons. Lessons
Adam Huggins:
like trees feel pain, logging is bad, oil is straight up evil.
Adam Huggins:
And, of course, everything is connected.
Magi:
There are worlds within worlds Crysta. Everything in our
Magi:
world is connected by the delicate strands of the web of
Magi:
life, which is balanced between forces of destruction and the
Magi:
magic forces of creation. Help it grow.
Mendel Skulski:
Wow. Can you believe that was over three
Mendel Skulski:
decades ago?
Adam Huggins:
I mean, it's like my childhood vanishing before my
Adam Huggins:
eyes. Yeah, I have a lot of gratitude for this old film, but
Adam Huggins:
I bring it up because I think it instilled within me an instinct
Adam Huggins:
that I have since come to doubt.
Mendel Skulski:
Huh? And what would that be?
Adam Huggins:
The idea, maybe, maybe just the feeling, since
Adam Huggins:
it's never explicitly stated, that cutting down trees is
Adam Huggins:
inherently bad — that it necessarily hurts the forest.
Mendel Skulski:
I mean, that's kind of gospel for a lot of
Mendel Skulski:
environmentalists, I think, right? Like we were just saying
Mendel Skulski:
how we've lost most of the old growth to logging. All the Fern
Mendel Skulski:
Gullies of the world, they are mostly gone... and maybe
Mendel Skulski:
forever.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, and we absolutely have to protect the
Adam Huggins:
few that remain, like the Hoh for sure.
Mendel Skulski:
So can we say that unequivocally? Like when we
Mendel Skulski:
were back in the Hoh, you weren't making plans to pull
Mendel Skulski:
down any of the giant Sitka spruce.
Adam Huggins:
Could you imagine?
Mendel Skulski:
No.
Adam Huggins:
I think the Hoh is doing just fine on its own. The
Adam Huggins:
forests that we're going to talk about today aren't the Fern
Adam Huggins:
Gullies of the world. The forests that we're going to talk
Adam Huggins:
about are what's left behind after the cartoon villain of
Adam Huggins:
Fern Gully and his industrial machinery have rolled over the
Adam Huggins:
forest, and spit it out the other side. So I'm gonna take
Adam Huggins:
you on a little tour of the plantation forests of the
Adam Huggins:
temperate world to meet some of the folks who work in them.
Adam Huggins:
Okay. Well, let's go.
Adam Huggins:
One quick note before we do. Just to be clear, the forestry
Adam Huggins:
that I'm going to discuss, at least in the North American
Adam Huggins:
context, is settler colonial forestry, right? How it
Adam Huggins:
transformed the diverse, thriving forests of this
Adam Huggins:
continent into collections of trees, and then how we might
Adam Huggins:
turn its own tools towards restoration. There is a long
Adam Huggins:
history of Indigenous forestry on this continent, and that
Adam Huggins:
deserves its own episode another day.
Mendel Skulski:
For sure.
Adam Huggins:
All right, first stop Vermont.
Mendel Skulski:
Huh.
Adam Huggins:
With our tour guide, Ethan Tapper. He's a
Adam Huggins:
forester and author. He actually just wrote a book called "How to
Adam Huggins:
Love a Forest". And when I spoke to him last year, he was the
Adam Huggins:
Chittenden County forester for the Vermont Department of
Adam Huggins:
forests and recreation.
Ethan Tapper:
So we're a 75% forested state. 80% of those
Ethan Tapper:
lands are owned by private landowners. As county foresters,
Ethan Tapper:
we have this real interest in helping people manage that
Ethan Tapper:
private land better.
Mendel Skulski:
So Ethan is your friendly local county forester.
Adam Huggins:
Pretty much.
Mendel Skulski:
and we're in Vermont, so,
Adam Huggins:
So we're talking about Eastern hardwood forests.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, I'm picturing maples, oaks,
Mendel Skulski:
birches... pine? ,
Adam Huggins:
Chestnut, elm, walnut, beech. Forests that turn
Adam Huggins:
bright red and yellow each fall — becoming an irresistible
Adam Huggins:
magnet for the leaf peepers of the world.
Mendel Skulski:
Leaf peepers!
Adam Huggins:
But it will probably not surprise you to
Adam Huggins:
know that the forests that we see today are very different
Adam Huggins:
from what they might have looked like in the past.
Ethan Tapper:
The vast majority of Vermont's forests 300 years
Ethan Tapper:
ago were what we would now call old growth forests. That means a
Ethan Tapper:
lot of different things. You know, that's not a monolith. Old
Ethan Tapper:
growth forests are defined by their variability.
Adam Huggins:
These forests would have been super diverse
Adam Huggins:
,with dry areas and other areas that were really wet.
Ethan Tapper:
We think that prior to the 1600s, which is
Ethan Tapper:
when beaver trapping really started in North America by
Ethan Tapper:
Europeans, we think that we had 300 beaver dams per square mile
Ethan Tapper:
in our valleys. The massive amount of beaver activity that
Ethan Tapper:
would have not just completely altered the hydrology of our
Ethan Tapper:
riparian areas and our valleys, but also, you know, provided
Ethan Tapper:
habitat for this incredible array of other species, and, you
Ethan Tapper:
know, fundamentally changed the way that water moved through our
Ethan Tapper:
landscape.
Adam Huggins:
And not just beavers, but large herbivores
Adam Huggins:
and predators too.
Ethan Tapper:
We think we had a forest dwelling species of elk,
Ethan Tapper:
which is now extinct, called Eastern elk, caribou and moose,
Ethan Tapper:
and those were our prominent ungulates, and those were all
Ethan Tapper:
gone by the late 1700s. And we had two apex predators, the
Ethan Tapper:
Eastern Cougar, which we call the Catamount, and wolves, which
Ethan Tapper:
were both also bountied, hunted to extinction.
Adam Huggins:
Long story short, those forests were cut down and
Adam Huggins:
the animals were hunted and killed for timber, for furs, but
Adam Huggins:
primarily for agriculture.
Ethan Tapper:
Certainly, the biggest single driver of the
Ethan Tapper:
clearing that we saw was pasture, and particularly
Ethan Tapper:
pasture for the Merino sheep. You know, going from 90 plus
Ethan Tapper:
percent forested landscapes in New England, we were down to 20
Ethan Tapper:
to 30%
Mendel Skulski:
Oh, that... that's a huge change.
Adam Huggins:
Oh, yeah.
Ethan Tapper:
You know, the easiest way to understand it is
Ethan Tapper:
throughout most of New England, certainly in Vermont, every
Ethan Tapper:
forest anyone has ever been in, unless it's extremely remote or
Ethan Tapper:
on like the top of a mountain was a pasture in the 1800s.
Adam Huggins:
And that's because, as small scale
Adam Huggins:
agriculture has declined, many of those pastures have been
Adam Huggins:
planted to trees or just allowed to regenerate on their own. But
Adam Huggins:
these new forests are very different from the old growth
Adam Huggins:
forests that existed prior to land clearance.
Ethan Tapper:
The forests today that we have are largely 60 to
Ethan Tapper:
100 years old. Most of them were a pasture 60 to 100 years ago.
Adam Huggins:
These forests are comprised of a single generation
Adam Huggins:
of trees, often just a single species. Take Eastern White
Adam Huggins:
Pine, for example, which is now really common in Vermont because
Adam Huggins:
—
Ethan Tapper:
it's an opportunist, because it's good
Ethan Tapper:
at growing in old fields, specifically. And in many cases,
Ethan Tapper:
it's growing on a site which will not really be home to white
Ethan Tapper:
pine in the future.
Adam Huggins:
Whereas, on the other hand, species like beech,
Adam Huggins:
chestnut, butternut and elm, which used to be really common
Adam Huggins:
and really important, are very uncommon, largely because of
Adam Huggins:
introduced pathogens. Like in the past, a single beech tree
Adam Huggins:
could live to be over 400 years old, and then immediately regrow
Adam Huggins:
new stems from its own clones.
Ethan Tapper:
And now it has this disease called Beech bark
Ethan Tapper:
disease. So instead of living to be 400 years old, it lives to be
Ethan Tapper:
40 years old.
Adam Huggins:
And that's just one example.
Ethan Tapper:
You know, chestnuts with chestnut blight.
Ethan Tapper:
Butternuts, which is a really cool species, the butternut
Ethan Tapper:
canker. Ash trees, emerald ash borer. Elm trees with Dutch elm
Ethan Tapper:
disease.
Adam Huggins:
So not only have some native tree species been
Adam Huggins:
almost completely wiped out, the ones that are left behind are
Adam Huggins:
just different.
Mendel Skulski:
Like their role in the forest has shifted?
Adam Huggins:
Exactly. And Ethan called this "cryptic function
Adam Huggins:
loss". You know, whenever a species has ceased to perform
Adam Huggins:
its full range of ecological services. But it's not only the
Adam Huggins:
trees. The hydrology and soils are no longer performing their
Adam Huggins:
full range of ecological services either.
Ethan Tapper:
The way that water works in general, in our forest
Ethan Tapper:
is just completely altered now. I mean, we obviously have
Ethan Tapper:
ditches and we have streams that have been straightened and
Ethan Tapper:
drained and damned. And then we also are missing many of the
Ethan Tapper:
structures that help the forest slow down water, absorb it,
Ethan Tapper:
spread it out, help it infiltrate, especially dead
Ethan Tapper:
wood.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, so if I was a leaf peeper and I wanted
Mendel Skulski:
to see some nice fall color, I could be stumbling around these
Mendel Skulski:
younger forests in Vermont, and I have no idea that what I'm
Mendel Skulski:
seeing is, in many cases, not really a forest so much as a
Mendel Skulski:
bunch of trees that happen to grow up on an abandoned pasture.
Adam Huggins:
I mean, it begs the question, what is a forest,
Adam Huggins:
exactly? Those might be the only forests that many Vermonters
Adam Huggins:
have ever known. Okay, so that's a little portrait of Vermont.
Adam Huggins:
Let's put a pin in that for now, and hop across the pond to the
Adam Huggins:
Scottish Highlands... through the power of radio. Okay, you
Adam Huggins:
ready?
Mendel Skulski:
Uh huh...
Adam Huggins:
3, 2, 1, hop!
Brian Duff:
My name is Brian Duff. I work for Forestry and
Brian Duff:
Land Scotland, and I'm based in Glenmore Forest Park.
Adam Huggins:
I chatted with Brian earlier this summer. He
Adam Huggins:
works up in this mountain range called the Cairngorms.
Brian Duff:
Yeah, Cairngorms is in the north northeast of
Brian Duff:
Scotland. It's the largest area in Great Britain that is above
Brian Duff:
4000 feet. They're very rounded hills, so they're quite unusual
Brian Duff:
from that point of view, well weathered over the millennia.
Brian Duff:
And they're also part now of the National Park, the Cairngorm
Brian Duff:
National Park, which is the largest national park in Great
Brian Duff:
Britain.
Adam Huggins:
And unlike in New England, where European
Adam Huggins:
colonization resulted in lots of small private landowners,
Adam Huggins:
Scotland has a legacy of large private landowners.
Brian Duff:
Scotland's got a tradition of estates and in the
Brian Duff:
past that was kind of used for recreation purposes, i.e.
Brian Duff:
hunting, culling, deer, grouse shooting, that sort of thing.
Mendel Skulski:
Hmm, these would have been the playgrounds of the
Mendel Skulski:
upper class gentlemen hunters that we talked about in Season
Mendel Skulski:
Four, huh?
Adam Huggins:
Definitely. But these folks weren't just
Adam Huggins:
hunting. The woodlands where Brian works have a long history
Adam Huggins:
of silviculture as well.
Brian Duff:
It was exploited heavily for timber in the 18th
Brian Duff:
century. It was a deer forest, as they called it. And that's
Brian Duff:
quite a weird expression in Scotland, because there wasn't a
Brian Duff:
lot of forest in a deer forest. It was mostly just deer, to be
Brian Duff:
honest.
Adam Huggins:
For reasons which will become apparent later, the
Adam Huggins:
idea of a forest that has more deer than trees absolutely
Adam Huggins:
chills my blood. And at Glenmore, that was before the
Adam Huggins:
war.
Brian Duff:
Then the first world war came, and guys, funny
Brian Duff:
enough, from Canada, came and... flattened the whole forest,
Brian Duff:
virtually.
Mendel Skulski:
Flattened?!
Brian Duff:
Yeah, yeah. It was quite, quite incredible,
Brian Duff:
actually. 450 guys and they built a railway system and two
Brian Duff:
saw mills, etc. And it's just quite incredible. They were
Brian Duff:
there for less than a year.
Mendel Skulski:
Hmm, nobody does it quite like us.
Adam Huggins:
Resource extraction know-how, baby.
Adam Huggins:
Canada's greatest export. Anyway, when Forestry and Land
Adam Huggins:
Scotland acquired Glenmore,
Brian Duff:
When we took this land on, there was only about 80
Brian Duff:
hectares or so of native woodland left. And at that time,
Brian Duff:
before and after the Second World War, the rest of it was
Brian Duff:
planted up with what we would call non-native species now. And
Brian Duff:
that would be species from America, like spruces, larch,
Brian Duff:
douglas fir as well from the Pacific coast. And nobody really
Brian Duff:
thought anything more about that.
Mendel Skulski:
What's there to think about? That seems fine.
Adam Huggins:
What could go wrong?
Mendel Skulski:
What could go wrong? So just like in Vermont,
Mendel Skulski:
over in Scotland, they've got forests that are not only very
Mendel Skulski:
young. They are very different from the historical woodlands.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, different in terms of species, age, structure
Adam Huggins:
and also density of trees.
Brian Duff:
During this reafforestation, a lot of
Brian Duff:
planting of Scots Pine was done, and that was done at what we
Brian Duff:
call commercial spacing. So at year five, we're looking for two
Brian Duff:
and a half thousand trees per hectare.
Mendel Skulski:
And I take it, that's a lot. Is this what you
Mendel Skulski:
meant by having too many trees?
Adam Huggins:
Yeah, we actually don't really know what the
Adam Huggins:
historic density of Scots Pine woodlands would have been but
Adam Huggins:
just for reference, an old growth forest out here on the
Adam Huggins:
coast would have maybe 80 to 120 trees per hectare.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, so this is like an order of magnitude more.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, two and a half thousand trees is wild.
Adam Huggins:
Some of the densest forests I've ever been in are around 1500
Adam Huggins:
trees per hectare, and it's actually difficult to even walk
Adam Huggins:
through those. Speaking of which, we have one more forest
Adam Huggins:
to visit... or to revisit. We're headed back to the West Coast.
Mendel Skulski:
Aha... back to where we started off?
Adam Huggins:
Yes, back to my neck of the woods – Galiano
Adam Huggins:
Island. That particular forest is broadly representative of the
Adam Huggins:
forests left behind by industrial forestry throughout
Adam Huggins:
our region, if a particularly extreme example. It's called the
Adam Huggins:
Pebble Beach reserve, and my organization, the Galiano
Adam Huggins:
Conservancy, purchased it back in the late 1990s
Keith Erickson:
They had this 160 acre piece of land that was
Keith Erickson:
a forest plantation that had been nuked, in terms of
Keith Erickson:
industrial forestry terminology, or the terminology I use for
Keith Erickson:
industrial forestry. And so the next question was, what are we
Keith Erickson:
going to do with this?
Adam Huggins:
This is Keith Erickson. He was the one running
Adam Huggins:
the chain hoist at the top of the episode.
Adam Huggins:
Chain hoist guy!
Adam Huggins:
As I am sure he would love to be known. He's a biologist. Worked
Adam Huggins:
for the Galiano Conservancy for many years and has been a mentor
Adam Huggins:
to me. But when he got his first job out of university a couple
Adam Huggins:
decades back right here at Pebble Beach, he was pretty
Adam Huggins:
green behind the ears. And luckily, he found his own
Adam Huggins:
mentors on the job, the late director of the Galiano
Adam Huggins:
Conservancy, Ken Millard, and the renowned eco forester, Herb
Adam Huggins:
Hammond.
Herb Hammond:
I still remember how startlingly degraded it was.
Herb Hammond:
It was not just a plantation, but it was a plantation where
Herb Hammond:
trees had been planted after the site had been windrowed. And
Herb Hammond:
they just scraped all the material, the fallen trees, all
Herb Hammond:
the organic matter and a good share of the topsoil into these
Herb Hammond:
windrows. And then in between, they planted them with nicely
Herb Hammond:
spaced trees. And the plan on MacMillan Bloedel's part was to
Herb Hammond:
harvest that mechanically.
Adam Huggins:
MacMillan Bloedel, the major logging company that
Adam Huggins:
owned, cleared, and planted this lot, used it as kind of an
Adam Huggins:
experimental, free-for-all test site. They were trying to
Adam Huggins:
eliminate an endemic parasite called laminated root rot that
Adam Huggins:
affects Douglas fir trees, and they imagined harvesting the
Adam Huggins:
trees using giant machines like the one in Fern Gully.
Mendel Skulski:
Uhh.... I'm picturing, like, cutting down
Mendel Skulski:
rows of trees as if they were wheat.
Adam Huggins:
That's actually not too far from what they were
Adam Huggins:
imagining as well. But it didn't work out like they had hoped.
Adam Huggins:
Take a walk in this forest today, and Keith will tell you
Adam Huggins:
about the kind of ecosystem that that plantation turned into.
Keith Erickson:
You get a sense of that... bulldozed, low light
Keith Erickson:
conditions, dense Douglas fir, very monoculture, not much going
Keith Erickson:
on here. Youu look at the soil — pits and mounds and the
Keith Erickson:
undulating structure in the mature forest. And here you look
Keith Erickson:
out, it's pretty darn flat. Jump up and down in the mature
Keith Erickson:
forest, and of course, it's got a little bit of spring to it,
Keith Erickson:
and you jump up and down here, and it's like mineral soil.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, I'm sensing the pattern. Wherever
Mendel Skulski:
you might go, healthy old forests have some similarities.
Mendel Skulski:
They have trees of varying species, varying ages. Some are
Mendel Skulski:
old, some are very young. They have wide spacing and gaps, so
Mendel Skulski:
plenty of light gets down to the understory. They have lots of
Mendel Skulski:
dead trees standing and dead trees lying down. They have
Mendel Skulski:
layers of different vegetation, which makes for a lot of little
Mendel Skulski:
niches for all the different species who make their homes in
Mendel Skulski:
forests, and you can even bounce on their soil like a trampoline.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, they are complex and messy and lovely,
Mendel Skulski:
Mhm... whereas industrial forests kind of look
Mendel Skulski:
like industrial farms.
Adam Huggins:
Tree farms! They are often just called tree
Adam Huggins:
farms.
Mendel Skulski:
Right, so,monocultures of trees. The
Mendel Skulski:
same age, the same height, at high densities, and so you lose
Mendel Skulski:
all that light, and from that you lose the diversity and the
Mendel Skulski:
wildlife habitat.
Adam Huggins:
And that is most forests. Sometimes they're
Adam Huggins:
created intentionally, like at the Pebble Beach reserve, and
Adam Huggins:
sometimes they occur when disturbed sites are abandoned,
Adam Huggins:
like those Vermont pastures.
Mendel Skulski:
So what can we do about it? You can't just
Mendel Skulski:
magically make a forest older...
Adam Huggins:
No, that's not how time works, and we are not
Adam Huggins:
fairies.
Mendel Skulski:
Well, Imean, speak for yourself.
Adam Huggins:
Fair enough. You're right, we can't make
Adam Huggins:
forests older at will, which is another reason why it's so
Adam Huggins:
important to protect our remaining old forests. But we
Adam Huggins:
can help younger forests acquire old growth characteristics. We
Adam Huggins:
can make them old growth-ier.
Mendel Skulski:
Huh. And that's a technical term?
Adam Huggins:
It's what you might call a term of art. We
Adam Huggins:
really don't have the language for this yet, but what we're
Adam Huggins:
trying to do is imbue younger forests with old growthiness.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, cut to the chase. How are we supposed to do
Mendel Skulski:
that?
Adam Huggins:
I will tell you... after the break.
Mendel Skulski:
And we're back. I'm Mendel.
Adam Huggins:
I'm Adam. This is Future Ecologies, and I have
Adam Huggins:
just finished taking Mendel on a whirlwind tour of the plantation
Adam Huggins:
forests of the world.
Mendel Skulski:
The deep, dark woods.
Adam Huggins:
And now we're going to follow a trail of
Adam Huggins:
gingerbread crumbs to grandmother's house.
Mendel Skulski:
Meaning, now you're gonna tell me why you
Mendel Skulski:
were pulling a tree down.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, that, yes.
Mendel Skulski:
Come on, Adam, what would the fairies say?
Crysta:
No, no, you mustn't do that! Can't you feel its pain?
Adam Huggins:
Okay, well, let's talk for a minute about the
Adam Huggins:
fairy-approved strategy. We left off with the question, how can
Adam Huggins:
we take a young, simplified forest and make it older and
Adam Huggins:
more complex? And the traditional answer to that
Adam Huggins:
question would be to protect it and leave it alone, let time do
Adam Huggins:
its work, right?
Ethan Tapper:
Old growth forests are amazing. They're diverse.
Ethan Tapper:
They provide all this really amazing habitat. They store lots
Ethan Tapper:
of carbon.
Adam Huggins:
Ethan Tapper again, our forester from
Ethan Tapper:
And so how do we make forests old growth? And the
Ethan Tapper:
Vermont.
Ethan Tapper:
most intuitive explanation for how we do that is that we leave
Ethan Tapper:
them alone for a long, long time, and they become old
Ethan Tapper:
growth, and they sort of start to embody all of those different
Ethan Tapper:
values. And that's what they call proforestation.
Mendel Skulski:
Proforestation... I mean, I guess I'm pro
Mendel Skulski:
forestation, right?
Adam Huggins:
You know, I wasn't familiar with this term either,
Adam Huggins:
but basically, proforestation means letting forests grow and
Adam Huggins:
recover on their own.
Ethan Tapper:
In general, I believe that most of the people
Ethan Tapper:
who are involved in proforestation believe that this
Ethan Tapper:
is what it means to love a forest. It makes all the sense
Ethan Tapper:
in the world. If you love a forest, you don't cut any trees
Ethan Tapper:
and you leave it alone.
Mendel Skulski:
Yeah, I mean that that seems like the obvious
Mendel Skulski:
and reasonable reaction to seeing clear cuts everywhere.
Mendel Skulski:
Those places look horrible and so fair enough to feel like do
Mendel Skulski:
exactly the opposite of that.
Ethan Tapper:
Yeah, those two polarities, it's almost, I
Ethan Tapper:
think, like indicative of so many of the problems that we
Ethan Tapper:
have where we think it has to be like completely one thing or
Ethan Tapper:
completely the other, because we can't picture a world in which
Ethan Tapper:
it's sort of one thing and sort of the other and both things and
Ethan Tapper:
neither.
Mendel Skulski:
So Ethan is saying that the world might
Mendel Skulski:
actually be a little bit more nuanced than Fern Gully would
Mendel Skulski:
have us believe.
Adam Huggins:
Maybe. I mean, I think it's important to
Adam Huggins:
acknowledge that so many of us who got inspired to care for the
Adam Huggins:
more than human world, we start from a strong desire to protect
Adam Huggins:
it.
Ethan Tapper:
I came to forestry from a place of not necessarily
Ethan Tapper:
being interested in management, but just from loving forests and
Ethan Tapper:
just from wanting to be around them and in them. And really,
Ethan Tapper:
actually, I think when I started, I was just sort of more
Ethan Tapper:
interested in protecting them, and, you know, figuring out how
Ethan Tapper:
to leave them alone. Through the course of my career, and through
Ethan Tapper:
the course of my time at the University of Vermont, really
Ethan Tapper:
started to understand the beauty and the importance of
Ethan Tapper:
management, that these forests were not systems that could just
Ethan Tapper:
exist, that they were extremely altered, highly degraded, and
Ethan Tapper:
that there was a role for people in making them really healthy
Ethan Tapper:
and vibrant and abundant ecosystems.
Mendel Skulski:
So we're talking about a middle path between
Mendel Skulski:
leaving forests alone and managing them like tree farms.
Mendel Skulski:
But what's what's wrong with proforestation? Why not just let
Mendel Skulski:
them grow old on their own.
Adam Huggins:
Well, we can, and frankly, we do. Once a forest is
Adam Huggins:
no longer under the purview of industrial forestry, we tend to
Adam Huggins:
just leave it alone, right? We protect it. But I think there
Adam Huggins:
are several good arguments for why we should get more hands on.
Adam Huggins:
And the first one is that forests take a long time to
Adam Huggins:
develop old growth characteristics. It's right
Adam Huggins:
there in the name.
Ethan Tapper:
So if you're in a forest that is 100 years old, it
Ethan Tapper:
might take another 200 years to develop that full complement of
Ethan Tapper:
functions and values, you know, just by leaving it alone.
Mendel Skulski:
Yeah. Who has that kind of time.
Adam Huggins:
You know, if we want improved habitat and carbon
Adam Huggins:
storage now, we don't have that kind of time. Also, like any
Adam Huggins:
kind of monoculture plantation, forests are highly susceptible
Adam Huggins:
to disease and disturbance.
Mendel Skulski:
Makes sense.
Adam Huggins:
So whether it's laminated root rot or bark
Adam Huggins:
beetles or budworms, windstorms or mega fires, there's a
Adam Huggins:
significant risk for these forests that they will never get
Adam Huggins:
the chance to grow that old if we leave them alone.
Mendel Skulski:
Got it. They don't only take longer to get
Mendel Skulski:
there. They might not make it at all.
Adam Huggins:
And then finally, there are actual timber
Adam Huggins:
considerations here. If you have all of these dense trees that
Adam Huggins:
are going through the same phase of life at the same time
Adam Huggins:
together, they're all competing for the same resources, and that
Adam Huggins:
stresses them out. It curtails their growth. So if you want
Adam Huggins:
nice, big trees eventually, you need healthy trees. And if you
Adam Huggins:
want healthy trees, you might need less trees. And frankly, if
Adam Huggins:
we want to use wood, but we don't want to be seeing clear
Adam Huggins:
cuts, then we're going to have to find a way to fall in love
Adam Huggins:
with selective tree cutting.
Mendel Skulski:
Right... we all use wood products.
Ethan Tapper:
There's something really radical about consuming
Ethan Tapper:
local resources, consuming local renewable resources, which would
Ethan Tapper:
often is even if that makes us uncomfortable.
Adam Huggins:
This is a conversation that I think is
Adam Huggins:
going to take us a little bit out of our comfort zone. And
Adam Huggins:
Ethan experienced that directly, the first time that he visited
Adam Huggins:
an acreage that he would come to own.
Ethan Tapper:
It had every problem that a forest could
Ethan Tapper:
have, truly. I mean, it had massive invasive plant issues.
Ethan Tapper:
It had been high graded. So loggers had come, they cut all
Ethan Tapper:
the healthiest trees, which are the most valuable, and left all
Ethan Tapper:
the least healthy trees. And the first time I walked through it,
Ethan Tapper:
I actually remember walking through and saying, I cannot
Ethan Tapper:
find any healthy trees. I have not seen a healthy tree on 175
Ethan Tapper:
acres. It had old skid roads, forest roads that were eroding.
Ethan Tapper:
It was just tough, really, really tough. And this has come
Ethan Tapper:
to be a piece of land, you know, a forest that I love
Ethan Tapper:
intrinsically. It doesn't have to do anything for me, doesn't
Ethan Tapper:
have to give anything to me. I think it and its biological
Ethan Tapper:
community has the right to exist, and yet I could not
Ethan Tapper:
pretend that, in light of all of these things, that just leaving
Ethan Tapper:
it alone could be a kindness. Going out there and doing things
Ethan Tapper:
as bittersweet as cutting trees, killing deer, spraying herbicide
Ethan Tapper:
on invasive plants were acts of compassion.
Mendel Skulski:
Wow... we've talked about killing deer in a
Mendel Skulski:
previous episode. Are... are we going to talk about herbicide
Mendel Skulski:
now?
Adam Huggins:
No, that is for another time. The point here is
Adam Huggins:
that there's a lot of land where proforestation is just not
Adam Huggins:
working out so well.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, so then the alternative is giving these
Mendel Skulski:
woodlands some hands-on attention. What does that look
Mendel Skulski:
like? How do you actually restore a forest?
Adam Huggins:
I have been waiting for you to ask me that.
Adam Huggins:
This is where it gets really fun. So on my little island, at
Adam Huggins:
Pebble Beach in the 90s, back when Keith and Ken and Herb were
Adam Huggins:
thinking about this, there really was no recipe for this
Adam Huggins:
work. There wasn't any guide. And so Herb turned to the
Adam Huggins:
forests themselves to provide the answers.
Herb Hammond:
We set out to do something initially that no one
Herb Hammond:
had ever done, and that's to restore an old growth forest
Herb Hammond:
from a tree plantation following clear cutting. There was no
Herb Hammond:
question that there wasn't a step by step kind of process
Herb Hammond:
here. So what we relied upon was, let's create as many
Herb Hammond:
examples of natural disturbances that would have occurred in a
Herb Hammond:
young forest that would lead it eventually towards the diversity
Herb Hammond:
that would make up an old growth forest.
Mendel Skulski:
So the idea is basically mimic natural
Mendel Skulski:
disturbances.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, and this idea is a through line through all of
Adam Huggins:
the conversations that I've had.
Ethan Tapper:
It's important to recognize that old growth
Ethan Tapper:
forests are not just valuable because they're old. They are
Ethan Tapper:
valuable because of the attributes that they have. And
Ethan Tapper:
we can create these conditions, not perfectly, but certainly to
Ethan Tapper:
a much greater extent than would be represented in our forests
Ethan Tapper:
today, centuries sooner than they would naturally occur.
Adam Huggins:
Remember, these are all very different forests
Adam Huggins:
that we're talking about, so the techniques vary a bit from place
Adam Huggins:
to place, but at heart, the concepts and values are quite
Adam Huggins:
similar. And the first and foremost intervention that many
Adam Huggins:
of these forests just desperately need is to be
Adam Huggins:
thinned.
Mendel Skulski:
And by thinned, you mean cutting down a certain
Mendel Skulski:
percentage of the trees?
Adam Huggins:
Yes... in a way... but it's more of an art form
Adam Huggins:
than that, because it ends up being less about what you're
Adam Huggins:
removing than what you're leaving behind.
Ethan Tapper:
I'm not thinking about the tree that I'm cutting.
Ethan Tapper:
I'm thinking about the forest that I am manifesting, which is
Ethan Tapper:
diverse and complex, more like these old forests that were here
Ethan Tapper:
for 1000s of years, and to which all of our native species are
Ethan Tapper:
adapted.
Brian Duff:
If you've got a whole plantation of the same
Brian Duff:
trees growing at the same height with no variation, it's about
Brian Duff:
trying to influence that and to break that up.
Ethan Tapper:
And to just create weirdness, what we would call
Ethan Tapper:
complexity, or I call weirdness — irregularity, little mixes of
Ethan Tapper:
habitat that are novel and unique.
Herb Hammond:
Mimic what nature does. Windthrow is one of the
Herb Hammond:
main natural disturbance regimes in these systems.
Adam Huggins:
Hey, Mendel — do you know what windthrow is?
Mendel Skulski:
If I had to guess, it's when the wind blows
Mendel Skulski:
trees over.
Herb Hammond:
And windthrow is there for a purpose — to open up
Herb Hammond:
the canopy, to allow more light in for a diversity of plants,
Herb Hammond:
and then with that, a diversity of animals that depend upon the
Herb Hammond:
plants.
Brian Duff:
So every 15 years, we'd be going in and thinning
Brian Duff:
and opening it up and opening it up.
Adam Huggins:
And once we make the forest less dense through
Adam Huggins:
thinning, there's all sorts of different techniques to create
Adam Huggins:
diversity in the forest that remains. There are elements of
Adam Huggins:
pro forestation.
Ethan Tapper:
Legacy trees are just trees that we're leaving
Ethan Tapper:
them in the forest forever, so we're never going to cut them
Ethan Tapper:
down. These don't have to be the most valuable trees from a
Ethan Tapper:
commercial perspective in your forest. So these can be trees
Ethan Tapper:
that are hollow, that are full of cavities. You know, are sort
Ethan Tapper:
of half dead, that have all of these functions which are
Ethan Tapper:
actually really important wildlife habitats.
Adam Huggins:
And even in the most simplified forests, there
Adam Huggins:
remain these little opportunities for diversity.
Herb Hammond:
There was a few places where there was still
Herb Hammond:
indigenous vegetation, oceanspray and red elderberry,
Herb Hammond:
alder. A few little patches, and those became focal points that
Herb Hammond:
we wanted to build off — our anchors for the restoration. And
Herb Hammond:
then the other thing we did was tip trees over which created
Herb Hammond:
root balls and root cavities, which provided exposed soil for
Herb Hammond:
indigenous plants to seed and take root in.
Ethan Tapper:
You know, don't just make it a clear cut, even
Ethan Tapper:
though that's what most people will intuitively want to do,
Ethan Tapper:
because it will look really neat and tidy. Make it messy.
Brian Duff:
That whole thing has changed even in my lifetime in
Brian Duff:
forestry, when I first started, you know, the forest had to be
Brian Duff:
clean, and no foresters would accept trees just blown over or
Brian Duff:
lying about, as it were.
Ethan Tapper:
You're looking for opportunities to put dead wood
Ethan Tapper:
on the ground.
Brian Duff:
Dead wood is a very vital part of structure of the
Brian Duff:
forest.
Herb Hammond:
We not only top trees to introduce rot.
Brian Duff:
So there'd be hand winching, ring barking.
Herb Hammond:
The next thing we tried was girdling trees.
Brian Duff:
That's where we take the cambium layer off the bark,
Brian Duff:
the cambium layer off the tree, and kill it standing up.
Herb Hammond:
... to make snags. And I still remember that it was
Herb Hammond:
just a matter of days, or maybe a week or two, before we had
Herb Hammond:
pileated woodpeckers back on the site
Brian Duff:
Anyway. We just have to go in with it.
Mendel Skulski:
And to think I was shocked when you were
Mendel Skulski:
pulling one tree over. These guys are like a windstorm, a
Mendel Skulski:
wildfire, a plague of locusts, and an earthquake all at the
Mendel Skulski:
same time.
Adam Huggins:
Yeah it turns out there are lots of different ways
Adam Huggins:
to kill trees. The chain hoist system that I introduced you to
Adam Huggins:
is just one particularly creative way that the late Ken
Adam Huggins:
Millard devised to simulate windthrow. But you can kill
Adam Huggins:
trees with pulleys, with knives, with saws. I think you could do
Adam Huggins:
it with fire too. There are probably other ways.
Mendel Skulski:
Surely.
Adam Huggins:
For our next intervention, it's not only the
Adam Huggins:
trees that need to be thinned out.
Brian Duff:
I don't know what it's like in Canada, but
Brian Duff:
certainly here it's this can be quite an evotive subject. People
Brian Duff:
still have this sort of like, I don't know, Bambi feeling about
Brian Duff:
about deer? I don't know
Mendel Skulski:
Oh, deer.
Brian Duff:
I think as an organization in the whole
Brian Duff:
Scotland, Forestry and Land Scotland cull nearly 40,000 deer
Brian Duff:
a year. So we're one of the bigger players in Scotland, and
Brian Duff:
it's still not touching what it should be, really, and that's a
Brian Duff:
crazy thing. Because we don't have an apex predator.
Mendel Skulski:
We know that part of the story from Season
Mendel Skulski:
Three. But what's the problem here? Are the deer hungry enough
Mendel Skulski:
to eat all your freshly downed logs?
Adam Huggins:
Oh, I mean, in this case, it's not the logs
Adam Huggins:
that we need to be worried about. If you're creating gaps
Adam Huggins:
in the canopy and you're hoping that a diversity of forest
Adam Huggins:
species are going to grow up to fill those gaps, in most places,
Adam Huggins:
it's just not going to happen without fewer deer. And unless
Adam Huggins:
you have natural predators, which is not the case for any of
Adam Huggins:
the forests in this episode, then you need to be the
Adam Huggins:
predator. You need to hunt them.
Brian Duff:
I think there's a lot of people argue when the
Brian Duff:
last wolf was shot in Scotland, but probably 250, 300 years ago
Brian Duff:
now. So there's been nothing since then. Basically, if it's
Brian Duff:
not old age or a bullet, nothing's going to stop deer,
Brian Duff:
really.
Mendel Skulski:
Yikes.
Adam Huggins:
I mean, it's true. And in Scotland, they sell the
Adam Huggins:
venison.
Brian Duff:
All our venison goes to what we call a game dealer.
Brian Duff:
You know, we got a contract with them. They come and pick the
Brian Duff:
carcasses up from our larder, and it goes into the food chain,
Brian Duff:
basically.
Mendel Skulski:
I'm part of the food chain! How do I get my
Mendel Skulski:
hands on some of this venison?
Brian Duff:
We've done a couple of successful open days, what
Brian Duff:
they call Hill to Grill, to get in the public along to see the
Brian Duff:
whole process, and to taste the product. Because venison is a
Brian Duff:
fantastic meat to eat, and we should be actually using much
Brian Duff:
more of it.
Mendel Skulski:
Sure yeah, I'll put in a little plug for
Mendel Skulski:
venison. I mean, it's actually one of the most delicious meats
Mendel Skulski:
I've ever tried. It's kind of funny that they... it seems like
Mendel Skulski:
they need to put in a lot of effort just to market it.
Adam Huggins:
You know what they don't have to put much effort
Adam Huggins:
into marketing?
Mendel Skulski:
What?
Adam Huggins:
The wood! Timber sales can actually help pay for
Adam Huggins:
the forest restoration, at least in Scotland, where they often do
Adam Huggins:
clear whole areas of introduced valuable species, like Douglas
Adam Huggins:
fir, in addition to their forest thinning.
Brian Duff:
Timber is harvested and sold on a commercial basis
Brian Duff:
to the local timber trade, when we're doing clear felling and
Brian Duff:
thinnings. So the larger material, saw logs will go for
Brian Duff:
manufacturing products, and smaller round wood goes to this
Brian Duff:
board factory — orientated strand board, or pallet wood as
Brian Duff:
well, and sometimes fencing materials.
Adam Huggins:
So this kind of commercial cost recovery can
Adam Huggins:
generate useful materials locally. At a minimum, it helps.
Adam Huggins:
And in some cases, it actually enables the restoration to be
Adam Huggins:
done in the first place.
Ethan Tapper:
And that was really eye opening, realizing
Ethan Tapper:
that commercial forest management is not just a
Ethan Tapper:
necessary compromise, it's also what allows work to occur.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, hold on for just a second. Isn't there
Mendel Skulski:
like an inherent conflict between managing forests
Mendel Skulski:
commercially and managing them for old growthiness? Like even
Mendel Skulski:
if we can do commercial forestry more selectively, there's got to
Mendel Skulski:
be trade offs, right?
Adam Huggins:
There's always trade offs. Mendel,
Ethan Tapper:
The ecologically ideal situation would be cutting
Ethan Tapper:
all these trees to create these canopy gaps, and to thin around
Ethan Tapper:
our healthiest trees. And we'd be just leaving them on the
Ethan Tapper:
ground, because there'd be more dead wood there at that time.
Ethan Tapper:
But the difference is that, because this is a commercial
Ethan Tapper:
forest management project, not only are we producing local
Ethan Tapper:
renewable resources, which is incredibly valuable, but it is
Ethan Tapper:
the commerciality of that project that is allowing it to
Ethan Tapper:
occur. So we wouldn't have been in there, creating gaps, putting
Ethan Tapper:
dead wood on the ground, doing any of this stuff, if it wasn't
Ethan Tapper:
commercial. And so in that way, it's I... I really believe it to
Ethan Tapper:
be a really happy compromise.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, so there, there is still a compromise.
Adam Huggins:
If you trust Ethan, a happy compromise.
Mendel Skulski:
Hmmm... but I guess what he's saying is that
Mendel Skulski:
it's worth it, because otherwise we'd be back in that black and
Mendel Skulski:
white, clear cuts or proforestation kind of world
Mendel Skulski:
view.
Adam Huggins:
Yes, the argument is that it is possible to take
Adam Huggins:
some wood out and still leave some on the ground. And you
Adam Huggins:
know, it's going to be a different balance in every
Adam Huggins:
place. Perhaps in some areas we want to remove more wood to
Adam Huggins:
generate value for the community, or to limit fire
Adam Huggins:
risk, right? Perhaps in other areas, we can afford to leave
Adam Huggins:
more on the ground, and allow it to build the soil. What really
Adam Huggins:
struck me listening to all of these folks from around the
Adam Huggins:
world, is that what we're talking about is a kind of
Adam Huggins:
forestry that balances the needs of the forest as a whole with
Adam Huggins:
the lives of individual trees, and that brings the humans back
Adam Huggins:
into the forest.
Brian Duff:
What I'm not creating here is a tree museum.
Brian Duff:
I would really like it to be managed in the future. You know,
Brian Duff:
the woods should be there for people, whether it be through
Brian Duff:
recreation, but especially through working. Should actually
Brian Duff:
have more people involved in the forest, really, if we can, not
Brian Duff:
less.
Ethan Tapper:
And that, to me, is like the most profound
Ethan Tapper:
expression of what it means to be the steward of a forest at
Ethan Tapper:
this moment in time. Like, we get the world that we get. Here
Ethan Tapper:
we are. And we have the forest that we have. The question is,
Ethan Tapper:
what are we going to do about it? We already have the power to
Ethan Tapper:
address these issues. We just have to decide to do it. Not
Ethan Tapper:
leaving these forests alone, but asking "what can we do to make
Ethan Tapper:
these ecosystems healthy again" is truly radical, and truly an
Ethan Tapper:
expression of love for them.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay Adam, I just have one question left.
Adam Huggins:
And what would that be?
Mendel Skulski:
Does any of this actually work?
Adam Huggins:
Oh, I mean, there are always successes and
Adam Huggins:
setbacks with work like this, but the short answer is... yes.
Herb Hammond:
I remember us having this conversation that we
Herb Hammond:
would never live long enough to see this place feel different
Herb Hammond:
and look different, but we were really wrong. It was a matter of
Herb Hammond:
months, or a year plus, and it had a totally different look and
Herb Hammond:
feel to it than it did when we started.
Mendel Skulski:
You're telling me you can see changes inside of
Mendel Skulski:
a year.
Adam Huggins:
Oh yeah. Forests can be amazingly responsive.
Adam Huggins:
Much of the forest diversity might be pushed to the brink,
Adam Huggins:
but wherever it remains, it's ready to bounce back. For
Adam Huggins:
instance, in Scotland, they have the capercaillie. It's an
Adam Huggins:
endangered bird, kind of like a grouse. And for the
Adam Huggins:
capercaillie, after just a few decades, breaking up the tree
Adam Huggins:
canopy is already showing results.
Brian Duff:
There's more light getting in, there's more heat
Brian Duff:
generated, there's more insect life. The capercaillie seem to
Brian Duff:
thrive on that.
Adam Huggins:
But results like these take persistence and
Adam Huggins:
coordination at a landscape scale. Brian's work with
Adam Huggins:
Glenmore is part of a project called Cairngorms Connect that
Adam Huggins:
links a number of large landowners that are all working
Adam Huggins:
together to recover ancient woodlands, to manage deer, to
Adam Huggins:
restore wetlands. It's an incredibly exciting, holistic
Adam Huggins:
vision for the whole region, and I wish I could talk about it
Adam Huggins:
more.
Mendel Skulski:
Maybe some other time.
Brian Duff:
The thing is, it's such a long term vision. At
Brian Duff:
Cairngorms Connect, we say 250 years. You know, in human terms,
Brian Duff:
that's difficult sometimes to get your head around. In
Brian Duff:
ecological terms, it's nothing really. You know we're talking
Brian Duff:
about pine woodlands being here for 8000 years, since the last
Brian Duff:
ice age.
Adam Huggins:
But that doesn't mean that they don't already see
Adam Huggins:
results.
Brian Duff:
The areas we felled out in the 1990s in Glenmore
Brian Duff:
have regenerated really well, and now we've got what we call
Brian Duff:
our Pinewood reserve — nearly 1000 hectares there of pure
Brian Duff:
regenerated pine woodlands. And it looks, it looks fantastic.
Brian Duff:
Forest regenerating of all shapes and sizes of tree. The
Brian Duff:
plan is in 200 years, people will be walking through from one
Brian Duff:
end of Cairngorms Connect area to the other, through this
Brian Duff:
gnarly old pine woodland.
Adam Huggins:
It's incredible to think that we have the power to
Adam Huggins:
change the forest, but if we want that change to be for the
Adam Huggins:
better, we have to allow the forest to change us too.
Herb Hammond:
So the first step in order to get there is to
Herb Hammond:
change our relationship with forests. And changing our
Herb Hammond:
relationship with forests means to move from exploitation and
Herb Hammond:
extraction to protection and restoration.
Keith Erickson:
The most important thing that I've
Keith Erickson:
learned from that is about creating a relationship with a
Keith Erickson:
place, and being attuned to the place where you live and where
Keith Erickson:
you work. And I got to know that land so well in the time that I
Keith Erickson:
was able to study it and to try and help it to heal. And there's
Keith Erickson:
a real relationship that gets born out of that. And it's about
Keith Erickson:
us becoming part of the landscape and finding our place
Keith Erickson:
there.
Mendel Skulski:
Hmm... so what about you, Adam, have you found
Mendel Skulski:
your place in the forest?
Adam Huggins:
I mean, somewhere between a windstorm and an
Adam Huggins:
earthquake, yeah, I'm helping to make an absolute mess, and I am
Adam Huggins:
having a lot of fun doing it. And, you know, I guess what I
Adam Huggins:
have learned is that if we're doing forest restoration, if
Adam Huggins:
we're trying to restore a forest, we have to embrace the
Adam Huggins:
messiness of it. We have to make an art of the messiness. Because
Adam Huggins:
messy things are full of life, destruction and creation.
Mendel Skulski:
Hmm well, maybe Fern Gully had it right all
Mendel Skulski:
along.
Magi:
Everyone can call on the magic powers of the web of life.
Magi:
You have to find it in yourself.
Adam Huggins:
There are lots of people to thank for this
Adam Huggins:
episode, and also a lot of material that did not make the
Adam Huggins:
final cut. So for all of our patrons on Patreon who support
Adam Huggins:
the show, you can expect some extras that dive deeper into
Adam Huggins:
some of the conversations that we've raised here. And in the
Adam Huggins:
meantime, I'm actually involved in a forest restoration project
Adam Huggins:
right now. On a site called Quadra hill here on Galiano
Adam Huggins:
Island.
Mendel Skulski:
Well, please let us know how it goes.
Adam Huggins:
I definitely will. Okay, as always, Future
Adam Huggins:
Ecologies is an independent podcast supported by our amazing
Adam Huggins:
community on Patreon. If you like what we do, you can help us
Adam Huggins:
to do it, by contributing any amount at
Adam Huggins:
futureecologies.net/join
Mendel Skulski:
All of our patrons get access to early
Mendel Skulski:
episode releases, exclusive bonus content, and our community
Mendel Skulski:
Discord server.
Adam Huggins:
And our biggest supporters get to show off with
Adam Huggins:
stickers, embroidered patches,and now toques! That's a
Adam Huggins:
beanie for American listeners.
Mendel Skulski:
In this episode, you heard Keith Erickson, Herb
Mendel Skulski:
Hammond, Ethan Tapper, Brian Duff,
Adam Huggins:
and just a little bit of Ria Okuda, my colleague
Adam Huggins:
at the GCA.
Mendel Skulski:
And music by Thumbug, Spencer W Stuart,
Mendel Skulski:
Nathan Schubert, and Sunfish Moon Light.
Adam Huggins:
You can find Ethan's new book, How to Love a
Adam Huggins:
Forest, at ethantapper.com/book. You can learn more about
Adam Huggins:
Cairngorms connect at cairngormsconnect.org.uk. And if
Adam Huggins:
you're curious about my day job at the Galiano Conservancy. You
Adam Huggins:
can find us galianoconservancy.ca
Mendel Skulski:
This episode was produced by Adam Huggins, and me
Mendel Skulski:
Mendel Skulski, with help from Eden Zinchik, and cover art by
Mendel Skulski:
Ale Silva.
Adam Huggins:
Special thanks to Ethan for nudging us into
Adam Huggins:
telling this story; to Lizzie Brotherston for connecting us
Adam Huggins:
with Brian; to all my colleagues at the Galiano Conservancy for
Adam Huggins:
letting me record them while working; To Thomas Heinrich, who
Adam Huggins:
interviewed some folks in the San Juans who will be featured
Adam Huggins:
in a sub-episode because we just couldn't fit them in here; and
Adam Huggins:
to Tal Engel for his engaging conversations on this topic. We
Adam Huggins:
also found the Northwest Natural Resource Group's new book A
Adam Huggins:
Forest of Your Own to be really helpful in putting this episode
Adam Huggins:
together.
Mendel Skulski:
Okay, we've got an amazing season lined up for
Mendel Skulski:
you full of great new stories.
Adam Huggins:
Keeping us very, very busy.
Mendel Skulski:
And you know what that means?
Tony:
Yeah! Beaucoup overtime.
Hexxus:
Oh what a miraculous device. I'm really getting the