More than a dozen years ago I distributed business cards of an idea that was called: Carbon Conscious Forestry.
I was searching for landowners who wanted to increase tree redundancy and the resultant forest resiliency with no kill methods like canopy pruning rather than logging.
But back then the notion of evenly spaced trees that don’t get shaded out was still thriving, as if thinning out your vegetable garden for a bigger crop in one growing season was just as beneficial when applied to trees that normally live for hundreds and even a thousand growing seasons.
The future of forestry as carbon sequestration will not be based on short rotation crop management/tree farms but based on building redundancy and diversity into a living system that has evolved to dominate this planet for 382 million years.
And after all these years landowners are starting to understand this and I finally have my first demonstration forest to show the beauty and long term durability of a forest that is managed with non-tree killing ways that assures it will still be a forest in 700 years with today’s carbon still locked up up in its still thriving canopy.
Towards this end, a new writing focus begins today. The inspiration of a writer’s residency application due on April 1st will hopefully end with a long year of really hard work that creates a huge new audience who’d rather find better ways to keep trees standing rather than making excuses for why the forests can only be saved if trees are cut down and sold for profit:
“We invite writers to help readers across the country and around the world imagine the importance of these forests in climate stabilization.During the Environmental Writing Fellowship (May 2023 to May 2024), the selected writer will be supported in creating a portfolio of work about the critical relationship between climate change and Oregon’s forests. A “portfolio” may be defined broadly, and may include several pieces of the same genre, several pieces across genres, a body of research with one long-form piece of writing, etc. Oregon Wild will provide the Fellow with background information, access to scientific and policy experts and people who live within Oregon’s forested landscape, and other resources to enrich the project. The Spring Creek Project will help connect the Fellow with scientists at Oregon State University, provide a residency at the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek in the Oregon Coast Range for up to four weeks (this time could be split into multiple blocks, and family members are welcome), and host an event featuring the Fellow’s work at the conclusion of the year-long fellowship.” https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/centers-and-initiatives/spring-creek-project/