By the time you get the spring issue of Northern Woodlands, the magic and majesty of winter will have devolved into miserable weather, an empty propane tank, and the truck buried to its frame in your swamp of a driveway. Nerves will be keenly honed and cabin fever will have reached its climactic pitch. Your dog will be depressed. The migrating birds will still be thousands of miles away. Deer, in some deeryard somewhere, will be dropping dead from starvation.
In light of all this, it seems to us that we ought to do an edition of the magazine with a focus on hope. As you know, people who pay attention to the natural world are bombarded with bad news stories, some of them fair and important, some of them agenda-driven and knee-jerk. We want this issue to serve as a general winter balm, sure, but we also want to put together a substantive issue that says, yes, there are dire problems facing the natural world, but there are also many successes that are worth trumpeting. In one feature story, we’re asking prominent figures from a variety of fields (loggers, naturalists, writers, environmental activists, mill owners, educators) to write a short commentary on what makes them hopeful. We also want to know what you, our readers, think.
What gives you hope, as a landowner, or as an outdoor recreationalist, or as someone who works in a forest-based field, or as a general fan of the natural world—however you choose to define yourself. Please respond in the comment box below, or if you’d rather correspond directly with me, send me an email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Keep your thoughts under 200 words, and be sure to include a full name and the town and state you live in. We’ll pick some of our favorite answers and run them in the spring issue.
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