Seeing the Forest for a Lack of Trees.

Residing in a small mountain town ingrains ones everyday life with the surrounding ecosystem. Firs cast shadows across soft morning light streaking in through East facing window panes. The scent of pine sap in the morning awakens the senses in equal measure to a cup of coffee. The soft smoke of cedar burning in the wood stove provides a sense of comfort within a home.

That cabin in the woods, made of hewn trunks, exists in a community founded on logging. Historic mills dot downtown, long ago renovated into art galleries and coffee shops. Their operations moved away from society, behind ridges and beyond private property signs, as they always have been - out of sight, out of mind. The majority of those who visit as tourists, and many of those who call this place home, do not consider the impact of this industry, let alone think to impart their voice in holding it responsible.

We have become relatively numb to the forest fires this practice perpetuates. The diversity loss is lost on the many who could not tell the difference between a Douglas Fir and a Ponderosa Pine. Even the long term effects on livelihoods and recreation can be blurred into normalcy as few here stay long enough to pass down stories that provide a baseline for how things should be.

The loss of canopy drives away birds and leads to more rapid snowmelt. Bare ground erodes at a higher rate, adding sediment to rivers and lakes, impacting fish populations. The singular species re-planting methods employed by logging companies prevents the wounds from healing, preferring trees that can be logged again in 40 to 70 years to a functioning ecosystem.

No matter how these facts are said or written, people are rarely driven to action from stories to which they cannot relate. Instead I look across to hillsides above town, dotted with 3000 square meter mansions built in the last several years to meet demand for vacation homes for those who wish to enjoy, but not worry about a place. Their decks and windows looking down upon a town built between a river and a set of tracks, where in-between diners and ski shops, trains stops twice daily at the lumber yard to add rough cut logs to payloads of oil, gas and minerals from the neighboring state, all headed to cities along the coast.

If there are truths in conservation, two of them are absolutely:

• People know only what they see and hear. Each generation establishes its own baseline for change based on what is in front of them and what they are told came before them.
• People conserve and protect only what they personally care for. Rarely is this done proactively, but rather in response to threats.

For all that could be written on the importance of conservation and the knowledge of those who came before us, a single act on a place we can relate to may pull the hardest at our conscience.

The trails on this hillside were here before I was, and were travelled by many besides myself. They were treasured as communal gathering spaces and escapes from whatever reality needed escaping from. The first few turns are the same as I remembered them to be over the past decades, receptive in the way that only dirt moist from a winters snowmelt can be. Rapidly, the dappled light experienced from the forest floor becomes harsh while the trail tread disappears into a melange of bows, limbs, rocks and masticated dirt.

Sections of trail that held countless memories safely amidst a thriving forest are now dust under a mile wide swath of sticks. The absence of what once was is only made more apparent after crossing the clearcut and finding the existing remains of the trail in untouched woods. Memories and emotions were buried in that dirt, now gone along with the mycorrhiza that was torn up by the sharp edges of great machines. At the base of this trail an intersection lies at the outlet meadow for the watershed.

Sitting quietly along the opposite bank is a black bear, pausing its foraging for spring roots to evaluate the threat I might pose. For all the harm I had considered done to myself in the hectares above, the loss imparted on her was far greater, yet my acknowledgment of her plight may not have crossed my mind had our eyes not been level.

Recreation has always been our modern cultures way of interacting with the natural world. To spend time in landscapes is to know them by experiencing their nuances and patterns. This perspective is easily lost in the clutter of competitiveness, media, and personal gain, but doing so both literally and figuratively misses the forest for the trees.

To stay aware of impacts on nature, recreation can be a force for good alongside reducing our dependencies on materials and respecting the wisdoms of those who came long before us. To be an outdoor recreational user is not as simple as buying equipment and participating, but requires opening ourselves to the world around us and protecting it in equal measure to the protection it provides us. No one wishes to wait to see the forest for a lack of trees or the ocean for its plastic content.