I can’t think of many subjects that are harder to write about than forestry, something I’m reminded of whenever I read how-to stories about traditional farming. Crop farmers get to till their fields every year and start with a clean slate. They test their soil, then amend it however they’d like. They plant seeds that have been genetically preselected (if not manipulated) and scientifically refined to the point where they can take a certain germination percentage to the bank. When they harvest a crop a few months after planting, they’ve created a conclusive scientific story – these actions plus these variables equaled this result – and a personal one: here’s how my year went.
It can be easy for a tree farmer to envy these short term results and greater level of human control. We don’t use fences or irrigators or plows in the woods. Our seed comes on the wind. In most cases, animals shape forest composition more than we do. The seedlings we nurture today will, in some cases, be harvested when we’re long dead by someone we may or may not have ever met. It’s all very poetic – the humility, the way we’re tied in to nature’s time, not human time. But it can be really frustrating to write, and read, stories about something that is so thoroughly ambiguous and unfolds over a scale of centuries.
All of which leads me to ask for your help.
We’re coming up on our 20th anniversary as a magazine, and while 20 years is still a relatively small chunk of forest time, it’s long enough to show real results in some cases. What I’m looking for are forest management stories that have unfolded over the last two decades. Maybe you did a pre-commercial thinning in 1994, and just harvested some nice trees as a result. Maybe you’ve been working on eradicating honeysuckle for the last 20 years and have X to show for it. Maybe you’ve been building a sugarbush, or trying to improve the deer habitat on your back 40, or restoring a damaged wetland. Whatever it is you’ve been doing, I want to hear about it.
The best stories will be able to demonstrate tangible results, and will have accompanying pictures that can help illustrate things. You can email them to me. I’d love to get a pile of good submissions, and highlight the best in a future issue of the magazine.
Discussion *