WEBVTT 00:00:00.770 --> 00:00:08.628 - Good evening and welcome to a presentation by forester, musician, and award-winning author, Ethan Tapper. 00:00:08.628 --> 00:00:16.115 - I am Lee Huss. I am president of the Indiana Forest Woodland Owners Association. For 37 years, I was 00:00:16.115 --> 00:00:23.677 - honored to be the urban forester in Bloomington. During that time, I worked with passionate citizens, 00:00:23.677 --> 00:00:26.494 - planners, support staff, politicians, 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:34.354 - civil engineers to create a forestry program that places trees as critical infrastructure in the design 00:00:34.354 --> 00:00:41.713 - of a livable city. That same passion for trees in the natural landscape is evident within the members 00:00:41.713 --> 00:00:49.144 - of the sponsor organizations of tonight's program. They are the Indiana Nature Conservancy in Indiana, 00:00:49.144 --> 00:00:55.710 - Sam Schein Foundation, Let the Sunshine in Indiana, Indiana Society of American Foresters, 00:00:56.130 --> 00:01:02.699 - the Indian Associations of Consulting Foresters, and IFWO. Also at this time, I'd like to recognize 00:01:02.699 --> 00:01:09.597 - that State Forester Jack Seifert and Hoosier National Forest Supervisor Mike Chavez are in the audience. 00:01:09.597 --> 00:01:16.166 - Following Ethan's presentation, Chris Nigger with the Nature Conservancy of Indiana will moderate a 00:01:16.166 --> 00:01:22.800 - discussion with a panel of local conservation experts. At the conclusion, Ethan will be available to 00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:25.822 - sign your books in the adjacent meeting room. 00:01:27.298 --> 00:01:33.856 - Several years ago, while on a fishing trip in Minnesota, former Indiana State Forester Bernie Fisher 00:01:33.856 --> 00:01:40.413 - presented me a copy of Northern Woodlands Magazine. This publication written by and for Northeastern 00:01:40.413 --> 00:01:47.165 - private woodland owners and nature enthusiasts is where I was first introduced by the writings of Ethan 00:01:47.165 --> 00:01:53.658 - Tapper. One article in particular that resonated with me and is also discussed in his book spoke of 00:01:53.658 --> 00:01:56.190 - the ecological benefits of wolf trees. 00:01:57.058 --> 00:02:03.671 - Being the owner of such a tree, a 200-year-old broken-limbed white oak growing near an historic survey 00:02:03.671 --> 00:02:10.155 - cornerstone, it sadly represented the crown jewel on my previously high-graded forest property. Then 00:02:10.155 --> 00:02:17.153 - after reading Zethen's book, I was surprised to learn how it reminded me of my ninth-grade science teacher's 00:02:17.153 --> 00:02:23.573 - introduction to the class of Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac. Like Leopold's seminary work about 00:02:23.573 --> 00:02:26.398 - nature and the life of his Wisconsin cabin, 00:02:26.530 --> 00:02:33.163 - Ethan's book is an account of his observations, thoughts, decisions, and ultimate efforts to use the 00:02:33.163 --> 00:02:39.730 - tools of a professional forester and naturalist to regain his bare island forest, focusing not only 00:02:39.730 --> 00:02:46.428 - on timber, but the long-term health, stability, and beauty of the entire natural community. It's good 00:02:46.428 --> 00:02:51.550 - to know the land ethic is alive and well. Ladies and gentlemen, Ethan Tapper. 00:03:01.634 --> 00:03:09.101 - Let's go down. Goodness. What do you want to talk about? I have been in Indiana all of 36 hours. And 00:03:09.101 --> 00:03:16.863 - the first question that I asked was, and so I've just told this to a couple of people and their reaction 00:03:16.863 --> 00:03:24.626 - has been really funny. So I want to ask you. The first question that I asked is, can I sample your local 00:03:24.626 --> 00:03:30.910 - delicacies? So in Vermont, we have like maple syrup and apples and cheese and stuff. 00:03:31.394 --> 00:03:39.530 - Do you know what they told me was Indiana's local delicacy? A pork tenderloin sandwich. Pounded flat 00:03:39.530 --> 00:03:47.667 - and fried hard. And it's supposed to be this big, right? And the bun is like this big? I think I got 00:03:47.667 --> 00:03:55.964 - it. I had one. It was really good. So my name's Ethan, and I'm mostly a forester from Vermont, and now 00:03:55.964 --> 00:04:00.798 - a few other things. I'm privileged to be the author of this 00:04:01.058 --> 00:04:07.678 - book that means a lot to me called How to Love a Forest. And since then, entering into this world of 00:04:07.678 --> 00:04:14.627 - digital storytelling, which is my attempt at a less gross way to say being an influencer, which is deeply 00:04:14.627 --> 00:04:21.771 - strange. But ultimately, I would say that my life is sort of divided into this work of caring for ecosystems 00:04:21.771 --> 00:04:28.588 - in Vermont, my own land, which I call Bear Island, and also the land of my clients. So I'm a consulting 00:04:28.588 --> 00:04:30.686 - forester. I run my own company. 00:04:30.978 --> 00:04:38.754 - And I have a lot of private landowners with forests of all different shapes and sizes that I help care 00:04:38.754 --> 00:04:46.606 - for them there for us as well. And then this work of communication, which is telling this story through 00:04:46.606 --> 00:04:54.156 - writing and through social media and through speaking of how we care for these precious ecosystems. 00:04:54.156 --> 00:04:58.686 - And I have to tell you that I did not plan to write a book. 00:04:58.978 --> 00:05:05.361 - I did not plan to be up here in front of all of you. This is all something that sort of took me by surprise. 00:05:05.361 --> 00:05:11.217 - And I do like to tell the story of how it happened because it's something that happened on accident 00:05:11.217 --> 00:05:17.191 - in a way that has taught me a lot about how some really small things can become really big things. So 00:05:17.191 --> 00:05:23.457 - when I started writing How to Love a Forest, I did not know how to write a book. I had never done anything 00:05:23.457 --> 00:05:27.966 - like that before. And yet, there was some stuff that I wanted to talk about. 00:05:28.354 --> 00:05:34.974 - And I figured out that there was this really special time of the day, the first hour that I was awake. 00:05:34.974 --> 00:05:41.401 - And what I was doing with that first hour was I was being really efficient on my computer and doing 00:05:41.401 --> 00:05:48.150 - administrative work and just firing off emails. And I said, what if I just took this hour all to myself? 00:05:48.150 --> 00:05:54.577 - And I wrote. And so I started to not to write a book, but just to write for an hour. The first hour 00:05:54.577 --> 00:05:57.662 - that I'm awake, which for me is from 5 to 6 AM. 00:05:58.306 --> 00:06:04.926 - And it became this really beautiful practice, this wonderful way to start the day, where every day I'd 00:06:04.926 --> 00:06:11.418 - just be drinking my coffee as the world was waking up and just writing from an hour. Tapping away at 00:06:11.418 --> 00:06:17.974 - the laptop, 6 o'clock comes around, I close the laptop and go work in the woods. It was this practice 00:06:17.974 --> 00:06:24.465 - that by itself, these daily gestures, this hour of writing, by itself is completely meaningless. And 00:06:24.465 --> 00:06:27.486 - then what it really felt like I was doing was, 00:06:27.714 --> 00:06:33.731 - taking a little stone and stepping off my back porch and throwing it back there. A gesture that's completely 00:06:33.731 --> 00:06:38.810 - meaningless and insignificant. And then you do it again and again and again, day after day. 00:06:38.810 --> 00:06:44.552 - And one day, you look back there and you're like, that pile of stones is getting pretty big. I did this 00:06:44.552 --> 00:06:50.183 - practice for six years. And then I signed this contract with a publisher. And I was like, this book's 00:06:50.183 --> 00:06:55.262 - going to be out by the end of the week. And they said, your publication dates in two years. 00:06:55.778 --> 00:07:02.341 - So I worked on it for another couple of years, and that brought us to September of last year. Now, at 00:07:02.341 --> 00:07:08.775 - the same time that this book was taking shape one little gesture at a time, I was also engaged in a 00:07:08.775 --> 00:07:15.273 - very similar parallel process, which is that I had become the owner of this forest that I named Bear 00:07:15.273 --> 00:07:21.707 - Island. Now, in 2017, when I bought Bear Island, it was the most degraded forest I had ever seen, a 00:07:21.707 --> 00:07:25.310 - forest that had every problem that a forest could have. 00:07:25.954 --> 00:07:32.238 - And to me, it was really this symbol of everything that was wrong with the world. And I didn't know 00:07:32.238 --> 00:07:38.773 - how to bring this ecosystem back from collapse. It was too big to wrap my hands around. So what I could 00:07:38.773 --> 00:07:45.119 - do was just offer it one day at a time, one hour at a time, to give to it the time and the resources 00:07:45.119 --> 00:07:51.654 - and the energy that I had. And at the same time that I was watching this book that's called How to Love 00:07:51.654 --> 00:07:55.550 - a Forest Take Shape, I was watching this forest of mine heal. 00:07:56.514 --> 00:08:03.884 - and seeing all of these different things, places that I once saw as being so hopeless become these incredibly 00:08:03.884 --> 00:08:10.585 - hopeful places. And really, that forest going from being a symbol of everything that was wrong with 00:08:10.585 --> 00:08:17.285 - the world in my eyes to being a symbol of what's possible and a symbol of hope. So the story that I 00:08:17.285 --> 00:08:24.321 - really want to tell you all, what I want to talk about today and then talk about on this panel, is about 00:08:24.321 --> 00:08:26.398 - this thing called stewardship. 00:08:27.170 --> 00:08:33.589 - Have we heard of this word, stewardship? It's an awesome word. And I think sometimes I get so focused 00:08:33.589 --> 00:08:40.196 - and so in my little silo of thinking about forests and talking about forests and talking to other people 00:08:40.196 --> 00:08:46.741 - that think about it and talk about forests all the time that I forget that maybe this isn't a word that 00:08:46.741 --> 00:08:51.838 - we all use. It's a wonderful word. And the reason that it's so wonderful is that 00:08:52.226 --> 00:08:58.903 - It's a word that encompasses this broad and endless and expansive process of caring. We can be stewards 00:08:58.903 --> 00:09:05.387 - of each other. We can be stewards of our communities. We can be stewards of our families. And we can 00:09:05.387 --> 00:09:11.871 - be stewards of our ecosystems. And it doesn't mean that we control them. And it doesn't mean that we 00:09:11.871 --> 00:09:18.355 - dominate them. It means that we care for them, whatever that means. And there's another thing that I 00:09:18.355 --> 00:09:21.886 - think is really special about this term, which is that 00:09:22.434 --> 00:09:29.505 - sort of baked into it is this idea of a temporariness, right? That we are holding all of these things 00:09:29.505 --> 00:09:36.645 - in this world, these lives, these ecosystems, these communities on behalf of future generations. We're 00:09:36.645 --> 00:09:43.647 - holding them just for this one brief and precious moment in time. And I think that a lot of times we 00:09:43.647 --> 00:09:50.579 - get so focused in what we're doing right now that we forget that our job is to hand a world that is 00:09:50.579 --> 00:09:51.550 - more abundant 00:09:51.810 --> 00:09:57.462 - and more full of life, and more full of opportunity to our children. And there's this amazing thing 00:09:57.462 --> 00:10:03.285 - about caring for forests, which is that you get a little bit of an attitude with other people, because 00:10:03.285 --> 00:10:08.937 - you're like, oh, other people are doing all this thing, these other things, but I'm actually caring 00:10:08.937 --> 00:10:14.872 - for these ecosystems that make it possible for us to live here. Do we know this? Sometimes I'll do like, 00:10:14.872 --> 00:10:18.942 - in one of these talks, I'll be like, do you want to hear a forest fact? 00:10:19.362 --> 00:10:25.067 - And then my forest fact is like, do you know that forests literally make it possible for us to exist 00:10:25.067 --> 00:10:30.885 - on this planet and we can't live without them? Do you know that? There's a lot of things in this world 00:10:30.885 --> 00:10:36.647 - that are optional, that we get to choose to support or not support, that we get to choose to care for 00:10:36.647 --> 00:10:42.295 - or not care for. And ecosystems are not one of those things. Ecosystems are something that make our 00:10:42.295 --> 00:10:46.814 - lives functional in an objective way. They create this climate that we inhabit. 00:10:47.426 --> 00:10:53.591 - and regulate it for us. They clean our air. They clean our water. They provide the pollinators of our 00:10:53.591 --> 00:10:59.696 - food crops and so many other things that it would be impossible to enumerate them now. And they also 00:10:59.696 --> 00:11:05.801 - do this other thing, which is often forgotten as we think about how do we protect these forests that 00:11:05.801 --> 00:11:12.087 - make our lives possible, which is that they make our lives beautiful. They make our lives worth living. 00:11:12.087 --> 00:11:16.862 - They give us things like birds and trees, forests that we get to walk through. 00:11:17.538 --> 00:11:24.274 - And an underappreciated part of that beauty that I really see in the future is going to be a bigger 00:11:24.274 --> 00:11:31.011 - part of the incredible privilege that it is to be in this world with these forests is the beauty of 00:11:31.011 --> 00:11:38.016 - getting to be a steward of these forests, that we get to go into these ecosystems which are so precious 00:11:38.016 --> 00:11:45.022 - and so vital and so important in their own right, intrinsically valuable, that have the right to exist. 00:11:45.538 --> 00:11:52.003 - and that also are in this moment are very wounded and struggling. And we get to help them move into 00:11:52.003 --> 00:11:58.597 - a better future. And we get to help future generations see forests that are more full of life than we 00:11:58.597 --> 00:12:05.191 - could possibly imagine. What a privilege. So when I talk about how to love a forest, I say a bunch of 00:12:05.191 --> 00:12:11.914 - different things about it. But one thing I say about it is that it's a love story. Because it's a story 00:12:11.914 --> 00:12:13.918 - about how we actually discover 00:12:14.338 --> 00:12:23.197 - what it means to love a forest in this moment, and how, like any great love story, the route that we 00:12:23.197 --> 00:12:32.408 - use to get there might not be one that you'd expect. So I'm going to do a couple readings from the book, 00:12:32.408 --> 00:12:41.179 - if that's OK with you. Here's the audience participation part. Is that OK with you? OK. When I say, 00:12:41.179 --> 00:12:42.846 - read, you say, um, 00:12:44.034 --> 00:12:51.048 - Okay, so this is from the introduction of the book, which sort of describes what made me want to write 00:12:51.048 --> 00:12:57.993 - it in the first place. Once it seemed that there were only two paths to follow. A status quo that saw 00:12:57.993 --> 00:13:04.871 - forests and other ecosystems as commodities, and an opposing force that sought to protect ecosystems 00:13:04.871 --> 00:13:07.390 - from ourselves, to leave them alone. 00:13:08.610 --> 00:13:15.037 - As forests everywhere struggle under the weight of the many threats and the stressors of the modern 00:13:15.037 --> 00:13:21.785 - world, as they suffer the legacies of the past and confront a future that promises challenges like never 00:13:21.785 --> 00:13:28.469 - before, I have realized that neither of these two paths is enough. I have realized that the world needs 00:13:28.469 --> 00:13:35.024 - action intertwined with compassion, relationship imbued with responsibility, death infused with life. 00:13:35.024 --> 00:13:38.430 - I have gone my own way, fostering a divergent vision 00:13:39.234 --> 00:13:47.050 - a reimagining of what it means to love a forest, engaging in the radical act of trading simplicity for 00:13:47.050 --> 00:13:54.789 - complexity, trading a tidy vision for one that is true. My journey toward these realizations has been 00:13:54.789 --> 00:13:56.990 - long and lonely and sinuous. 00:13:58.146 --> 00:14:05.258 - In my little house at the foot of the mountain, my bookshelf is crowded with books about trees and plants 00:14:05.258 --> 00:14:12.169 - and animals, birds and bears and fungi, the relationship between people and ecosystems and the threats 00:14:12.169 --> 00:14:19.013 - both face. Never have I found a book that has articulated what a forest truly is, not just its botany 00:14:19.013 --> 00:14:25.790 - and its biology, the contours of its many pieces and its parts, but how this entire living community 00:14:25.790 --> 00:14:27.870 - moves and behaves and changes. 00:14:28.738 --> 00:14:35.820 - Never have I found a book that described what it means to care for a forest like Bear Island, an ecosystem 00:14:35.820 --> 00:14:42.439 - that has been changed and degraded and depleted and left to suffer alone. Never have I found a book 00:14:42.439 --> 00:14:49.522 - that described the pain and the joy and the anxiety of trying to love and protect an ecosystem, of guiding 00:14:49.522 --> 00:14:53.758 - it toward wholeness at this strange and crucial moment in time. 00:14:55.554 --> 00:15:02.241 - No book has prepared me for the many complex and bittersweet choices that I would someday make at Bear 00:15:02.241 --> 00:15:08.928 - Island, or for the fact that these actions would be celebrations, the substance of a truly radical and 00:15:08.928 --> 00:15:15.875 - responsible relationship with the forest. In this book, I draw these disparate threads together, exploring 00:15:15.875 --> 00:15:22.432 - what it means to love a forest in this changed and changing world. In a world that is both human and 00:15:22.432 --> 00:15:24.510 - wild, both wounded and vibrant, 00:15:24.994 --> 00:15:31.784 - both suppressed and emergent. This is a vision both for how we manage forests and take care of ecosystems 00:15:31.784 --> 00:15:38.639 - and how we manage ourselves, how we take care of each other. So I want to return to this last idea because 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:45.109 - it's another one that's really important to me. Because even as we have these ideas about this thing 00:15:45.109 --> 00:15:51.579 - that we call nature and how we should take care of it, I think that's something that's fundamentally 00:15:51.579 --> 00:15:54.910 - missing from the discourse of how we talk about it, 00:15:55.170 --> 00:16:04.033 - Is all of us here in this room right now? the objective fact that we actually like really can't take 00:16:04.033 --> 00:16:13.071 - care of Ecosystems without acknowledging that we are a part of them. What did I find? We can't without 00:16:13.071 --> 00:16:21.758 - acknowledging that we are a part of them that we affect them and that our lives will always affect 00:16:23.074 --> 00:16:31.248 - And also without acknowledging that in addition to wanting to have these ecosystems that are abundant 00:16:31.248 --> 00:16:39.501 - and full of life and healthy and vibrant, we also want to have human communities that are abundant and 00:16:39.501 --> 00:16:47.515 - full of life and vibrant. We want to live here. And sometimes we act like these questions of how do 00:16:47.515 --> 00:16:49.438 - we live here as humans? 00:16:49.666 --> 00:16:55.514 - And how do we sustain this thing that we call nature are two different questions. And really, they're 00:16:55.514 --> 00:17:01.362 - deeply connected. And so it's really important that as we're asking these questions about how we care 00:17:01.362 --> 00:17:07.325 - for ecosystems, that we're understanding that we're a part of them too, and that we're making solutions 00:17:07.325 --> 00:17:13.115 - that acknowledge that fact. So with that in mind, I want to go back and read one little thing that I 00:17:13.115 --> 00:17:13.918 - skipped over. 00:17:19.234 --> 00:17:28.802 - going to go flying again, I could tell. And this little mini reading starts with a vocabulary word. 00:17:28.802 --> 00:17:38.943 - Do you like vocabulary? Yeah. I was, yesterday, speaking at the Crown Hill Cemetery. Have you been there? 00:17:38.943 --> 00:17:48.702 - There's an amazing linden, it's a little leaf linden, not an American basswood, that's growing there. 00:17:48.866 --> 00:17:58.609 - That is an incredible tree. You've got to go and see it. And it broke and bent over like this, and then 00:17:58.609 --> 00:18:08.259 - it healed itself and righted itself. It's amazing. The fruiting structure of a basswood or linden tree 00:18:08.259 --> 00:18:16.222 - is called a cluster of nutlets subtended by a leafy bract. So now you know that one. 00:18:17.698 --> 00:18:25.045 - Another one that I'm fond of is the structure that attaches a fur needle to the twig, which is called 00:18:25.045 --> 00:18:32.393 - a suborbicular leaf cushion. You can use that in a conversation. Here's a vocab word for you. Forests 00:18:32.393 --> 00:18:39.596 - are socio-ecological systems. Our lives are forever stitched into the green flesh of the biosphere. 00:18:39.596 --> 00:18:44.638 - The separation of the human world from the wild world is an illusion. 00:18:45.474 --> 00:18:52.093 - We cannot care for ecosystems without recognizing that we will always rely on them and we will always 00:18:52.093 --> 00:18:58.776 - tax them. That human life will always be precious and worth nourishing and will always come at a cost. 00:18:58.776 --> 00:19:05.395 - We cannot choose if we will impact ecosystems, if we will impact peoples across the globe, if we will 00:19:05.395 --> 00:19:10.910 - impact the lives of future generations. We can only choose what that impact will be. 00:19:16.066 --> 00:19:24.334 - What a responsibility, and what an opportunity. So I want to shift gears a little bit, and I want to 00:19:24.334 --> 00:19:32.684 - tell a little bit about my story, because I think it tracks with the bigger story that I want to tell 00:19:32.684 --> 00:19:40.951 - you all. So I grew up in this little town in southeastern Vermont called Saxton's River. Have any of 00:19:40.951 --> 00:19:44.062 - you heard of Saxton's River, Vermont? 00:19:45.762 --> 00:19:54.912 - Really? This is unprecedented. I have asked that question, so I've done since Hadalua Forest came out, 00:19:54.912 --> 00:20:04.239 - which is 360 days ago. I have asked that question to audiences, I think 150 times. And this is the third 00:20:04.239 --> 00:20:13.389 - time that no one has known about it, which is weird because Saxons River, Vermont is this teeny little 00:20:13.389 --> 00:20:15.166 - town of 300 people. 00:20:16.258 --> 00:20:23.185 - And it's surrounded by the forest. It's the perfect place, really, if you were going to start a story 00:20:23.185 --> 00:20:29.977 - about someone who just always loved the woods and always knew they were going to work in the woods. 00:20:29.977 --> 00:20:37.040 - And that wasn't my experience at all. Growing up in Saxons River, Vermont, I was surrounded by forests. 00:20:37.040 --> 00:20:41.726 - And I had no idea that I wanted anything to do with them whatsoever. 00:20:43.106 --> 00:20:48.844 - And it's funny because now when I read these stories about these great nature writers and ecologists 00:20:48.844 --> 00:20:54.809 - and biologists, they are always like, I was always the nature kid. I was always down in the dirt looking 00:20:54.809 --> 00:21:00.490 - at bugs, and I was tracking deer, and I was always out in the woods, and I always knew that this is 00:21:00.490 --> 00:21:06.171 - what I wanted to do. And that wasn't my experience at all. What I remember feeling most strongly in 00:21:06.171 --> 00:21:11.454 - those days was that I wanted to get out of there really bad. And I remember telling someone, 00:21:11.810 --> 00:21:17.387 - My junior year of high school, I said, I don't know where I'm going to go to college, but I know where 00:21:17.387 --> 00:21:22.964 - I'm not going to go. And that's the University of Vermont. Because everybody goes there, and it's like 00:21:22.964 --> 00:21:28.595 - this huge cop out. The first month of my senior year of high school, I got a letter from the University 00:21:28.595 --> 00:21:34.010 - of Vermont that told me that I got this scholarship called the Green and Gold Scholarship, which is 00:21:34.010 --> 00:21:38.558 - a full scholarship. And I was like, because I'm going to the University of Vermont? 00:21:38.754 --> 00:21:45.350 - Unfortunately, I had absolutely no values, no integrity. I said, okay. But even once I got there, 00:21:45.350 --> 00:21:52.485 - I still, I wasn't like magically knew what I wanted to do. I was like bumbling around taking these random 00:21:52.485 --> 00:21:59.350 - classes. But it just happened that the first big love of my life, my high school girlfriend, as I was 00:21:59.350 --> 00:22:06.014 - doing my second semester, she was on this wilderness expedition with this program for five months. 00:22:06.274 --> 00:22:12.548 - When she came back, she had had this huge, life-changing experience. And I had not. I'd just been hanging 00:22:12.548 --> 00:22:18.585 - out in my dorm room doing whatever 19-year-olds do. And we weren't connecting, and it was freaking me 00:22:18.585 --> 00:22:25.036 - out because I thought we were going to break up. And so like any perfectly reasonable, rational 19-year-old, 00:22:25.036 --> 00:22:30.955 - I said, well, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going on a wilderness expedition. And the next one 00:22:30.955 --> 00:22:33.086 - with that program left in two weeks 00:22:33.698 --> 00:22:40.354 - And it was a six-month expedition where we skied north for three months. And then we built a canoe and 00:22:40.354 --> 00:22:47.009 - canoed back down. Now, in retrospect, I did this for no reason. The relationship did not work out. But 00:22:47.009 --> 00:22:53.471 - after that, all I wanted to do was be in the woods. And I ended up working as a wilderness guide. I 00:22:53.471 --> 00:23:00.191 - lived in this uninsulated yurt with a fur bow floor in the woods of Maine for a year, worked with draft 00:23:00.191 --> 00:23:03.422 - animals, did a little bit of draft horse logging. 00:23:03.522 --> 00:23:09.747 - And then I got a letter from the University of Vermont that told me that I had to come back or I was 00:23:09.747 --> 00:23:16.033 - going to lose my scholarship. And I remember sitting on the bow floor of my yurt holding a paper list 00:23:16.033 --> 00:23:22.196 - of all the majors at the University of Vermont and scrolling down, saw forestry, and I swear that I 00:23:22.196 --> 00:23:28.421 - did not know what it was. I just saw the word forest and I was like, let's try that. And it ended up 00:23:28.421 --> 00:23:31.934 - being this really amazing fit. So I had this experience. 00:23:32.354 --> 00:23:40.737 - In this moment, as I started going to forestry school, where I came to that experience of going to forestry 00:23:40.737 --> 00:23:48.732 - school thinking that I already knew everything about forests and about what our relationship with them 00:23:48.732 --> 00:23:54.398 - should be, I had been living in the woods for years in a very close way. 00:23:55.426 --> 00:24:02.169 - I thought that I understood these ecosystems completely, and I understood the perfect relationship that 00:24:02.169 --> 00:24:08.717 - we should have with them, which was this very leave no trace, hands off attitude. I had, when I went 00:24:08.717 --> 00:24:15.266 - to forestry school, this really jarring experience, which is that as I actually started to deepen my 00:24:15.266 --> 00:24:21.944 - relationship with ecosystems and deepen my understanding of forests, I learned that these forests that 00:24:21.944 --> 00:24:24.926 - I had thought were so perfect and so pristine 00:24:25.154 --> 00:24:31.776 - and so utopian were actually deeply imperiled. That they were struggling with these profound legacies 00:24:31.776 --> 00:24:38.528 - of the past, dealing with an incredible volume of threats and stressors in the present, the combination 00:24:38.528 --> 00:24:45.021 - of things that we refer to as global change, and moving into a future that promised more challenges 00:24:45.021 --> 00:24:51.643 - than ever before. And suddenly, I was like walking through this forest and it felt like something had 00:24:51.643 --> 00:24:54.110 - been taken from me. Because suddenly, 00:24:54.434 --> 00:25:01.737 - Yes, I still saw that these forests were beautiful, and I still saw that they were so incredible, and 00:25:01.737 --> 00:25:09.112 - they made me feel so much. But I also couldn't believe anymore that they were these perfect, pristine, 00:25:09.112 --> 00:25:16.558 - utopian places that we could just say, just take our hands off them, and everything's going to be fine. 00:25:16.558 --> 00:25:23.646 - And it was a crisis for me in many ways, because what I had to do in that moment was to figure out 00:25:23.938 --> 00:25:32.071 - What to do with that? Did I stop loving forests because suddenly they weren't what I thought they were? 00:25:32.071 --> 00:25:40.204 - Or did I see where that love would take me? Did I ask myself, OK, so these forests are struggling. What 00:25:40.204 --> 00:25:48.024 - do we do about it? There's two things that I think are really special about forestry in particular. 00:25:48.024 --> 00:25:53.342 - One of these is that I think as I started to go to forestry school, 00:25:53.730 --> 00:26:00.230 - you take all these different classes, you know, and you take soil science, and you take geology, and 00:26:00.230 --> 00:26:06.795 - you take biology, and you study ornithology, and you study botany, and dendrology, and hydrology, and 00:26:06.795 --> 00:26:13.359 - all of these different aspects of ecosystems, and as you're taking these individual classes, time and 00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:19.988 - time again, I saw that all of these things were connected within forests, that actually you can't pull 00:26:19.988 --> 00:26:21.726 - apart all of these pieces, 00:26:22.242 --> 00:26:28.476 - and create an ecosystem, that you actually have to bring them all together, that you can't have any 00:26:28.476 --> 00:26:34.835 - one of these aspects of ecology without having all of them. And fundamentally, forestry is an attempt 00:26:34.835 --> 00:26:41.256 - not to manage one single aspect of forest, but to manage all of that stuff at once. The forest itself, 00:26:41.256 --> 00:26:47.552 - this incredibly dynamic and interconnected ecosystem. And I think that fundamentally is a better way 00:26:47.552 --> 00:26:51.230 - to think about caring for ecosystems in that holistic way. 00:26:51.874 --> 00:26:59.776 - And the second thing that I think is really special about forestry is that at its heart, it's a discipline 00:26:59.776 --> 00:27:07.384 - of action. So imbued in us is this idea that we do not have to be bystanders in these ecosystems. That 00:27:07.384 --> 00:27:15.138 - we can go into them, and we can see what's going on, and then we can do something about it. As I learned 00:27:15.138 --> 00:27:20.382 - more and more and more, I became more and more and more of an advocate 00:27:20.770 --> 00:27:27.882 - for taking action, seeing what tools that we have to affect positive changes in these ecosystems. There's 00:27:27.882 --> 00:27:34.726 - this concept, I don't know, maybe this is a Vermont thing, I don't know. Are you aware of the concept 00:27:34.726 --> 00:27:41.973 - of a natural community? The concept of a natural community, it's a really cool idea in a bunch of different 00:27:41.973 --> 00:27:48.414 - ways. Traditionally, as foresters, we would describe forests by what's called their cover type. 00:27:49.346 --> 00:27:54.882 - So a cover type is like a word or a description of a forest based on the trees that are there right 00:27:54.882 --> 00:28:00.417 - now. So you go into a forest, and there's a bunch of white pine trees, and you're like a white pine 00:28:00.417 --> 00:28:06.119 - forest. You go into a forest, and there's a bunch of northern hardwood trees. It's a northern hardwood 00:28:06.119 --> 00:28:11.821 - forest. You go into a forest with a bunch of hemlock trees and hardwood trees. It's a hemlock hardwood 00:28:11.821 --> 00:28:17.246 - forest, right? Super, super simple. And it's really a very superficial way of looking at forests. 00:28:17.954 --> 00:28:23.880 - Now, a definition that I like a lot more is this definition of what we call a natural community. And 00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:29.864 - there's three reasons why I really like natural communities as a better definition of our ecosystems. 00:28:29.864 --> 00:28:36.083 - One is that it is so much more expansive. So a definition for what a natural community is that I'm taking 00:28:36.083 --> 00:28:41.950 - from this book called Wetland, Woodland, Wildland, which is a book about the natural communities of 00:28:41.950 --> 00:28:46.174 - Vermont, is a natural community is quote, and I'll tell you this twice. 00:28:47.458 --> 00:28:55.269 - So if it goes over your head, I'm going to tell you again. A natural community is, quote, an interacting 00:28:55.269 --> 00:29:02.857 - assemblage of organisms, their physical environment, and the natural processes that affect them. Time 00:29:02.857 --> 00:29:10.742 - number two. An interacting assemblage of organisms, their physical environment, and the natural processes 00:29:10.742 --> 00:29:17.214 - that affect them. So what I like about this definition is it's so much more expansive. 00:29:17.538 --> 00:29:23.403 - So a forest is not just these trees that are here in this moment. A forest is all of the living pieces 00:29:23.403 --> 00:29:29.210 - and parts of this ecosystem. It's these trees, these plants, these animals, the birds, the bears, the 00:29:29.210 --> 00:29:35.132 - butterflies, the fungi, all of these living pieces and parts. And it doesn't end there. It is also this 00:29:35.132 --> 00:29:41.110 - physical environment, things like soils and waters, components of the forest that we traditionally think 00:29:41.110 --> 00:29:45.950 - of as abiotic or non-living things, like geology, where in the world that forest is. 00:29:46.082 --> 00:29:53.462 - And it is also inclusive even of natural processes, the way that the forest changes over time. So forests, 00:29:53.462 --> 00:30:00.704 - if you didn't know, have fooled us all. They have fooled us into thinking that they are these ecosystems 00:30:00.704 --> 00:30:07.739 - that are defined by being stable, by staying the same, when in fact they're these ecosystems that are 00:30:07.739 --> 00:30:15.326 - defined by the way that they change. These natural processes, even things like the foundational and beautiful 00:30:15.746 --> 00:30:23.651 - process of tree mortality, which is, by the way, as normal, as natural, as ancient, and arguably as 00:30:23.651 --> 00:30:31.556 - essential to forest ecology as living trees are as integral a part of them as the trees themselves. 00:30:31.556 --> 00:30:39.539 - So taking this definition, the thing that we call a forest is not just these trees. It is all of the 00:30:39.539 --> 00:30:43.966 - living parts of this ecosystem, all of these non-living 00:30:44.098 --> 00:30:51.279 - abiotic parts of this ecosystem, all of these natural processes. And what I like about this is not just 00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:58.184 - having this as a thought exercise. When we change what we call the forest, it changes what it means 00:30:58.184 --> 00:31:05.366 - to take care of the forest. It is not our job to take care of these trees that are here in this moment. 00:31:05.366 --> 00:31:12.478 - It's our job to take care of this entire volume of life. The best analogy that I can give you is that, 00:31:12.738 --> 00:31:18.313 - The way that I see a forest is it's like a coral reef. So the trees are like the coral. They're this 00:31:18.313 --> 00:31:23.778 - living structure that defines this ecosystem around which this community is built. But none of us, 00:31:23.778 --> 00:31:29.298 - of course, would ever say a forest or a coral reef, I should say, is a bunch of coral in the water. 00:31:29.298 --> 00:31:34.817 - We would define it by this dense and diverse web of life that's woven around that living structure. 00:31:34.817 --> 00:31:40.392 - And that's what forests are like to me. So that's the first part of natural communities that I like. 00:31:40.392 --> 00:31:41.662 - That's more expansive. 00:31:42.434 --> 00:31:48.691 - The second part is that it has quality. So there's an idea that you can have a natural community that 00:31:48.691 --> 00:31:55.009 - is a better or worse representation of that natural community. A white pine forest is not a white pine 00:31:55.009 --> 00:32:01.266 - forest. There are so many variables that can determine what kind of a forest it is and its ability to 00:32:01.266 --> 00:32:07.523 - sort of express how these different ecosystems have been on our landscape for thousands of years. And 00:32:07.523 --> 00:32:12.062 - the third part of this natural community definition that I really like is 00:32:12.290 --> 00:32:19.501 - that it has an element of potentiality. So what we're doing with these natural communities is we don't 00:32:19.501 --> 00:32:26.641 - say, oh, here's a bunch of white pine trees in the forest. This is a white pine forest. We're looking 00:32:26.641 --> 00:32:33.642 - beyond this moment. And we're asking ourselves, what has this place been in the past? What could it 00:32:33.642 --> 00:32:40.222 - be in the future, all other things aside, that may derail its journey toward its future self? 00:32:40.450 --> 00:32:46.488 - So deer overpopulation and introduce plant species, introduce pests and pathogens and climate change 00:32:46.488 --> 00:32:52.465 - and all of these other things. We'll put those over here and say sort of like, what has this forest 00:32:52.465 --> 00:32:58.622 - been and where is it going? And so this is an incredibly profound gesture because it allows us to look 00:32:58.622 --> 00:33:04.720 - at these forests as they are today and to realize that actually a lot of our forests are far more and 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:09.502 - far different than they appear. That a forest that we might see here in Indiana 00:33:09.762 --> 00:33:16.690 - that's a bunch of, I don't know, Virginia pines, might actually be a savanna, right? It might actually 00:33:16.690 --> 00:33:23.550 - be this place where it has been providing this incredibly rich and beautiful habitat for thousands of 00:33:23.550 --> 00:33:30.276 - different species of organisms for thousands of years. And it is only in this state for this moment 00:33:30.276 --> 00:33:37.001 - in time. And what I love about this is that it helps us think about these ecosystems, which, again, 00:33:37.001 --> 00:33:38.750 - are not just these trees. 00:33:38.946 --> 00:33:45.625 - But this entire volume of life, in a way that we're saying, how do we help this forest not become what 00:33:45.625 --> 00:33:52.498 - we want it to be, but to become itself? So as we compare these sort of elements of this natural community 00:33:52.498 --> 00:33:59.306 - to the thing that I mentioned at the beginning, this idea of a cover type. There's a bunch of pine trees 00:33:59.306 --> 00:34:06.114 - here. This is a pine forest. Versus this incredibly dynamic natural community, which is all these living 00:34:06.114 --> 00:34:08.254 - things, these non-living things, 00:34:08.354 --> 00:34:13.838 - natural processes, this thing that has quality, and this thing that also has an identity, which is not 00:34:13.838 --> 00:34:19.482 - linked to where it is right at this moment in time. It feels like when we talk about natural communities, 00:34:19.482 --> 00:34:24.807 - we're talking about a forest face. I'm sorry, when we talk about cover types, we're talking about a 00:34:24.807 --> 00:34:30.238 - forest face. And when we talk about natural communities, we're describing like it's soul. That's what 00:34:30.238 --> 00:34:35.722 - it really is. And I mention all of this because there's this amazing thing that happens with ecosystem 00:34:35.722 --> 00:34:36.414 - stewardship. 00:34:37.026 --> 00:34:44.175 - which is that if we take the time and we ask the questions and we engage with the people who have done 00:34:44.175 --> 00:34:51.186 - this work, we have the opportunity to deepen our understanding of these ecosystems and to deepen our 00:34:51.186 --> 00:34:58.127 - ability to care for them. An understanding of what it means to be a good steward of an ecosystem in 00:34:58.127 --> 00:35:02.430 - this moment. It's not something that any of us are born with. 00:35:03.042 --> 00:35:09.633 - It's not something that is easy to understand. It may be something that's powerfully counterintuitive, 00:35:09.633 --> 00:35:16.352 - as I often describe in How to Love a Forest. It may be something that is even heartbreaking, or jarring, 00:35:16.352 --> 00:35:22.815 - or confusing. How could it be that we could be cutting a tree, a beautiful tree that we love, and it 00:35:22.815 --> 00:35:29.214 - could be part of how we care for a beautiful ecosystem that we love? It doesn't make any sense, and 00:35:29.214 --> 00:35:32.798 - yet it can be a way that we help these ecosystems heal. 00:35:34.242 --> 00:35:41.122 - So I just have 12 more minutes, 10 more minutes. And so I want to tell you a story, and then I want 00:35:41.122 --> 00:35:48.071 - to do one last reading. I'm not going to finish in time, and I'm just going to do it anyway. There's 00:35:48.071 --> 00:35:54.951 - nothing you can do about it, because I'm up here. So I want to tell you the story of my land, which 00:35:54.951 --> 00:36:01.900 - is called Bear Island, as a means to talk about this a little bit more deeply. So when I first heard 00:36:01.900 --> 00:36:03.070 - about this land, 00:36:03.170 --> 00:36:09.293 - that now I know as Bear Island. I had this idea that I was helping all these other people as a consulting 00:36:09.293 --> 00:36:15.300 - forester and then as a service forester, public forester, helping all these other people care for their 00:36:15.300 --> 00:36:21.192 - forests. And I was like, someday I would like to have a forest of my own to be the steward of. And my 00:36:21.192 --> 00:36:27.142 - friend was like, did you see that big piece of land for sale? 175 acres. And I looked on this realtors 00:36:27.142 --> 00:36:31.070 - website, and it said 175 acres for sale, almost as an afterthought. 00:36:31.458 --> 00:36:37.346 - What they really wanted to focus on with this ad was this view of this mountain called Camel's Hump. 00:36:37.346 --> 00:36:43.292 - Where I live, a view of Camel's Hump is like the currency of wherever you live. It's like, you've got 00:36:43.292 --> 00:36:49.122 - to have it. It's all that matters. Everybody wants a view of Camel's Hump. And so the ad was almost 00:36:49.122 --> 00:36:55.185 - like, don't worry about that 175 acres. Just build your mansion right here, and you can look at Camel's 00:36:55.185 --> 00:36:58.974 - Hump. It was pretty cheap. And I was like, what's wrong with it? 00:37:00.226 --> 00:37:05.889 - And I went to go take a look. So the first thing that I saw when I rolled up onto this piece of land 00:37:05.889 --> 00:37:11.889 - was that I went up on the access road, and it had been properly stabilized, and there was a ravine cutting 00:37:11.889 --> 00:37:17.945 - right down the center. I had to straddle it with the wheels of my truck. I finally got up to this clearing, 00:37:17.945 --> 00:37:23.776 - this log landing, which is where that picture of Campbell's Hub had been taken from, and it was covered 00:37:23.776 --> 00:37:28.542 - in trash. Bags of household trash, hydraulic hoses and cables and buckets and tires. 00:37:28.834 --> 00:37:35.035 - and busted pieces of equipment half buried in the ground, and going out from it in every direction, 00:37:35.035 --> 00:37:41.236 - this network of skidder trails, logging trails, with these three foot deep ruts just bleeding murky 00:37:41.236 --> 00:37:47.437 - water down the mountain. It was not a great way to start. And I said, you know what? I'm here. I'll 00:37:47.437 --> 00:37:53.638 - go take a walk. And so I started to walk the main trail, and it was incredibly steep. I was getting 00:37:53.638 --> 00:37:55.870 - covered in sweat, covered in ticks. 00:37:56.322 --> 00:38:01.206 - As I was walking, I was getting like a funny feeling. Something was wrong. And I couldn't figure out 00:38:01.206 --> 00:38:06.091 - what it was. And after about an hour, I was thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it. 00:38:06.091 --> 00:38:10.685 - And I realized that what was bothering me was that there were no healthy trees in this forest. 00:38:10.685 --> 00:38:15.860 - Which is weird, because I've never seen a forest before that doesn't have any healthy trees. And I started 00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:20.793 - looking around. I was like, no healthy trees, no healthy trees, no healthy trees. Couldn't find them. 00:38:20.793 --> 00:38:23.646 - So what I now know happened is that the previous landowner 00:38:24.098 --> 00:38:31.259 - had just told these loggers, go cut every tree on the mountain that's bigger than 10 inches in diameter, 00:38:31.259 --> 00:38:38.148 - which is pretty small. And they had done it. This is a practice that we call diameter limit cutting. 00:38:38.148 --> 00:38:45.173 - Really what it was was this unethical practice we refer to as high grading, which is where you go into 00:38:45.173 --> 00:38:51.993 - the forest, and you cut all of the most valuable high grade trees, and you leave the least valuable 00:38:51.993 --> 00:38:53.630 - low grade trees behind. 00:38:54.082 --> 00:38:59.509 - What it was was basically the inverse of what any responsible forest steward or forester or logger would 00:38:59.509 --> 00:39:04.937 - ever do. You're managing the forest very efficiently to be less healthy. And I think there's an argument 00:39:04.937 --> 00:39:10.364 - to be made that it would have been a greater kindness to this forest if they had just cut all the trees. 00:39:10.364 --> 00:39:15.792 - Because then at least there would have been enough light and enough space to regenerate a new generation 00:39:15.792 --> 00:39:20.702 - of trees that would have had a chance to be healthy. But as it was, it was just kind of stuck. 00:39:22.594 --> 00:39:27.863 - So I kept on walking, and I saw that even in places where there was enough light and there was enough 00:39:27.863 --> 00:39:33.029 - space that was created to regenerate some trees, that all of those young trees were getting browsed 00:39:33.029 --> 00:39:38.298 - to death by whitetail deer. There was deer overpopulation here, as there is almost across this entire 00:39:38.298 --> 00:39:43.567 - continent, which is a major threat to our biodiversity. I slid down over these cliffs that bisect the 00:39:43.567 --> 00:39:49.198 - land from west to east and right into a 30-acre infestation of an introduced plant called Japanese barberry. 00:39:49.198 --> 00:39:50.334 - Have you heard of it? 00:39:52.098 --> 00:39:59.153 - waist high, pure, 30 acres, no native plants. And I pushed through that patch of barberry and got back 00:39:59.153 --> 00:40:06.277 - to my truck and I said, forget this place. I am out of here. I will find a forest somewhere else that's 00:40:06.277 --> 00:40:13.263 - easier to love. And I left. And sure enough, I didn't want to think about it, but I would check on it 00:40:13.263 --> 00:40:20.798 - from time to time and it was still up on that website, still up on that website. And I started to ask myself, 00:40:21.122 --> 00:40:26.820 - if this forest was actually hopeless, or if there was something that I could do to help. And two months 00:40:26.820 --> 00:40:32.354 - later, I convinced myself to go back. And when I went back, it was summer. And I started finding all 00:40:32.354 --> 00:40:37.888 - this cool stuff. So I started finding that there were these plants that I love, like sweet fern, and 00:40:37.888 --> 00:40:43.476 - low bush blueberry, and pink kori dallas, and red columbine. Started finding that there were actually 00:40:43.476 --> 00:40:49.174 - some healthy trees there after all that were just so hidden by all these masses of unhealthy trees that 00:40:49.174 --> 00:40:50.270 - I hadn't seen them. 00:40:50.690 --> 00:40:56.299 - And that there were these rock outcrops covered in reindeer moss with these sweeping views of the Winooski 00:40:56.299 --> 00:41:01.698 - River Valley. And I was standing on one of those rock outcrops when I said to myself, I'm going to try 00:41:01.698 --> 00:41:06.992 - and buy this place. Didn't know how to do that. Never did anything like that before. And so I called 00:41:06.992 --> 00:41:12.339 - up my old boss, Mike, who sold forest land real estate. And I said, Mike, there's this piece of land, 00:41:12.339 --> 00:41:17.581 - and I want to make an offer. And how do I do this? How do I make an offer? How much should I offer? 00:41:17.581 --> 00:41:20.254 - And he said, well, let me ask you a few questions. 00:41:20.834 --> 00:41:29.586 - Is there any timber on it? And I said, no. And he said, any real estate potential? No. Is the access 00:41:29.586 --> 00:41:38.684 - good? No. Could it be a sugar bush? No. And he just kept on asking me these questions, kept on answering 00:41:38.684 --> 00:41:47.696 - no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And eventually he said, well, Ethan, this place sounds terrible. Just offer 00:41:47.696 --> 00:41:49.342 - them like nothing. 00:41:49.666 --> 00:41:56.314 - And don't be afraid of hurting their feelings. And that's how I became the owner of this piece of land. 00:41:56.314 --> 00:42:03.281 - And I'll tell you what, it's one thing to believe that all we've got to do to take care of these ecosystems, 00:42:03.281 --> 00:42:10.056 - to take care of this thing we call nature, is to leave it alone. And it's quite another thing when you're 00:42:10.056 --> 00:42:16.512 - standing on that log landing that is suddenly no one's responsibility but yours. In a forest with no 00:42:16.512 --> 00:42:18.046 - healthy trees, 30 acre, 00:42:18.466 --> 00:42:24.828 - area that's doomed to be infested by Japanese barberry and nothing else forever, a deer overpopulation, 00:42:24.828 --> 00:42:31.007 - a climate crisis, a biodiversity crisis, a mass extinction, watching thousands of years of soil roll 00:42:31.007 --> 00:42:37.185 - down the mountain through those skitterruts. And I had to ask myself in that moment if it would be a 00:42:37.185 --> 00:42:43.364 - greater kindness to leave that forest alone and hope for the best, or to do absolutely everything in 00:42:43.364 --> 00:42:47.646 - my power to try and make it healthy again. Now you may not know this, 00:42:48.066 --> 00:42:56.098 - But we are all standing on that log landing right now. And we have this fundamental choice, which is 00:42:56.098 --> 00:43:04.209 - to recognize where we are in these ecosystems that we are the stewards of, whether we like it or not, 00:43:04.209 --> 00:43:12.240 - and this responsibility that we have to care for them as best we can with the tools that we have. We 00:43:12.240 --> 00:43:17.886 - can choose to do that, or we can choose to do nothing. And in my case, 00:43:18.658 --> 00:43:28.730 - I chose to take action. And in this effort, I have to tell you that I have two superpowers. Superpower 00:43:28.730 --> 00:43:38.705 - number one is ADHD, which used correctly can be extremely powerful. And superpower number two is that 00:43:38.705 --> 00:43:46.430 - I am not a purist. And so I could ask myself, radically, what tools do we have 00:43:46.818 --> 00:43:53.322 - to help fix these problems and help put this ecosystem on a better path for a better future. I wish 00:43:53.322 --> 00:44:00.086 - that I could tell you that all that I had to do was just fill my pockets with wildflower seeds and just 00:44:00.086 --> 00:44:06.589 - go across the mountain, scattering them like this. I would have done that. I would have loved that. 00:44:06.589 --> 00:44:13.418 - But that's not what this forest needed from me. And instead, what my stewardship looked like was cutting 00:44:13.418 --> 00:44:14.654 - thousands of trees 00:44:15.106 --> 00:44:20.443 - finding every healthy tree that remained, and giving it a little bit more room to grow by cutting less 00:44:20.443 --> 00:44:25.936 - healthy trees that were competing with it. And in areas where there were no healthy trees at all, cutting 00:44:25.936 --> 00:44:31.169 - areas of trees to regenerate a new generation that had a chance to be healthy. I had to teach myself 00:44:31.169 --> 00:44:36.558 - to run an excavator so that I could restore those old eroding skid trails and build new, more resilient 00:44:36.558 --> 00:44:41.739 - trails. Teach myself to be a deer hunter so I could lower that population of white-tailed deer that 00:44:41.739 --> 00:44:44.382 - is such an existential threat to our biodiversity. 00:44:44.770 --> 00:44:51.187 - There is a particular parody in one element of this restoration that I want to tell you about, which 00:44:51.187 --> 00:44:57.731 - is that I know that 30 years ago, these loggers came to my forest and they used these tools. They used 00:44:57.731 --> 00:45:04.339 - these skitters, these pieces of logging equipment, particularly these cable skitters, because they have 00:45:04.339 --> 00:45:10.947 - a cable winch on the back, made by this company, Timber Jack, in the late 1970s, early 1980s, and these 00:45:10.947 --> 00:45:11.646 - chainsaws. 00:45:12.034 --> 00:45:19.801 - And they created all of these problems that I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to fix. And 00:45:19.801 --> 00:45:27.568 - as I heal this forest, two of my most powerful tools are my 1981 timberjack cable skitter, whose name 00:45:27.568 --> 00:45:35.487 - is Red, and my chainsaw. There are so many things like this that if we are not purists, yes can be used 00:45:35.487 --> 00:45:41.502 - to harm and degrade ecosystems and used in a different way can help them heal. 00:45:42.594 --> 00:45:49.014 - And there's another thing that's like that, which is us. There is no doubt that we are the greatest 00:45:49.014 --> 00:45:55.434 - threat to ecosystems. There is no doubt that we have caused all of the problems that they face. And 00:45:55.434 --> 00:46:02.496 - I believe that there is no doubt that we are their best hope for a better future, that we have an opportunity 00:46:02.496 --> 00:46:09.044 - to actually become keystone species in these ecosystems, to be a force for good. And so I want to do, 00:46:09.044 --> 00:46:12.254 - I don't really have time. How much time do I got? 00:46:14.082 --> 00:46:21.807 - I'm going to do a five-minute reading. So I'm not going to say anything else about it, but thanks for 00:46:21.807 --> 00:46:29.531 - listening. And if you have questions, I have a panel with myself and some people who are much smarter 00:46:29.531 --> 00:46:37.862 - than me in a moment. But I want to do a reading from the end of the book about what an incredible opportunity 00:46:37.862 --> 00:46:41.118 - I think that this moment that we're in is. 00:46:43.362 --> 00:46:51.274 - It's a longer reading, so sorry about that. The storm clouds stamp their feet. They are corralled along 00:46:51.274 --> 00:46:59.033 - the shifting path of the big river, thundering between the walls of the valley. The clouds move west, 00:46:59.033 --> 00:47:06.945 - driven like cattle toward the mountains. As empty as it often feels, there is something beautiful about 00:47:06.945 --> 00:47:12.574 - a life lived in the aftermath. Here, in the junkyard of the Anthropocene, 00:47:13.122 --> 00:47:20.689 - We hold the fate of the world, all of its ecosystems, all of its peoples in our hands. In this moment, 00:47:20.689 --> 00:47:28.329 - we cannot allow this biosphere, our home, to sink further into dysfunction and disarray, or we can make 00:47:28.329 --> 00:47:35.823 - the radical and bittersweet decisions necessary to choose a different path. Inside of this catalyzing 00:47:35.823 --> 00:47:41.406 - moment, we have the opportunity to reimagine our relationship to ecosystems 00:47:41.698 --> 00:47:49.238 - and our relationship to each other to redefine what we are and what is precious to us. As empty as they 00:47:49.238 --> 00:47:56.778 - often feel, there is something beautiful about a landscape of forests that are just a fraction of their 00:47:56.778 --> 00:48:04.101 - true potential. The forests of our lives are still only at the beginning of their journeys. They may 00:48:04.101 --> 00:48:08.958 - yet become diverse and complex, rich with legacies, ancient again. 00:48:10.050 --> 00:48:17.338 - With our help, these forests may rediscover a capacity for life beyond imagining, an abundance that 00:48:17.338 --> 00:48:24.990 - this world has not known for generations. I pick up another acorn, another product of thousands of years 00:48:24.990 --> 00:48:32.642 - of adaptation and change, another precious thing chained to the legacies of the past and hurtling toward 00:48:32.642 --> 00:48:38.910 - an uncertain future. Perhaps it is doomed. Perhaps it contains endless possibilities. 00:48:40.642 --> 00:48:47.602 - Humidity cloaks the land, drawing tiny round beads of sweat from my skin. For a moment, the mountain 00:48:47.602 --> 00:48:54.631 - is cast in golden light. It smells sharp and strong. As I touch another acorn, a raindrop strikes the 00:48:54.631 --> 00:49:01.591 - back of my hand, rolling between the small bones of my fingers. Suddenly, droplets are stippling the 00:49:01.591 --> 00:49:05.726 - soil like falling stars, throwing up little clouds of dust. 00:49:06.850 --> 00:49:13.887 - I have nowhere to be, and so I kneel, watching the water run around the stumps and the upturned leaves, 00:49:13.887 --> 00:49:20.653 - drawing spider webs on the earth. Someday I will tell my children that the caves in the talus above 00:49:20.653 --> 00:49:27.419 - are a womb, the origin of all the black bears on the mountain, and that the springs in the Big Bowl 00:49:27.419 --> 00:49:34.321 - are the source of all of its waters. Someday I will walk these trails with my children and teach them 00:49:34.321 --> 00:49:35.742 - to reimagine forests 00:49:36.066 --> 00:49:43.796 - as communities of complexity and depth and expansiveness, communities that are fated to change, to celebrate 00:49:43.796 --> 00:49:50.959 - both the miracle of life and the miracle of death. Someday I will kneel beside these stumps, a young 00:49:50.959 --> 00:49:58.334 - forest blooming around me, and teach my children the imperfect truth of what it means to love a forest. 00:49:59.490 --> 00:50:06.932 - Someday, I will teach my children that this world is not ours to hold, but that we hold it anyway. That 00:50:06.932 --> 00:50:14.159 - each of us is a steward for one brief and precious moment in time. In our short lives, we must learn 00:50:14.159 --> 00:50:21.529 - to pair power and freedom with humility to embody relationship and responsibility, even when it breaks 00:50:21.529 --> 00:50:28.542 - our hearts. Someday, I will teach my children that despite everything, we are destined to thrive. 00:50:29.026 --> 00:50:35.738 - that we are destined to live in a world that is beautiful. In the years to come, the traces of this 00:50:35.738 --> 00:50:42.451 - moment will fade. This empty patch cut will have become a diverse young forest, the stump softening 00:50:42.451 --> 00:50:49.297 - and mixing with those of the oaks cut decades ago. I will walk through this young forest and remember 00:50:49.297 --> 00:50:56.278 - this autumn day when my hands were young. I will remember that each tall, perfect oak was once an acorn 00:50:56.278 --> 00:50:57.822 - between my fingertips. 00:50:58.338 --> 00:51:05.521 - that this forest is a child of responsibility, something that we could only have embodied together. 00:51:05.521 --> 00:51:12.849 - No one but me will ever truly know the pieces of myself that I've left on this mountain, the labor of 00:51:12.849 --> 00:51:20.032 - love that being the steward of this land has been. I will know, and that is enough. We owe too much 00:51:20.032 --> 00:51:27.934 - to the future to be imprisoned by the past. As the storm passes over me, I am grateful to be anything at all, 00:51:28.290 --> 00:51:34.913 - Grateful to be alive at a time when there is so much worth saving. I want to live in the world that 00:51:34.913 --> 00:51:41.801 - will arise from this moment. The world built by people who are brave and humble and resilient, who make 00:51:41.801 --> 00:51:48.424 - countless bittersweet compromises, who live their lives with the dream of a better world burning in 00:51:48.424 --> 00:51:55.047 - their chests. I want to live in a world that will be created by people planting acorns in the rain. 00:51:55.047 --> 00:51:57.630 - Sometimes this life feels like autumn. 00:51:58.306 --> 00:52:06.079 - the exhausted end of a boundless summer. Today, I choose to live in a world in which spring is just 00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:13.929 - breaking, a world that is just awakening, just beginning to discover what it truly is. I look toward 00:52:13.929 --> 00:52:21.858 - the broken ridge of the mountain and feel a powerful nostalgia, not for the past, but for the future. 00:52:21.858 --> 00:52:27.454 - High above the storm, the light is swelling, calling everything upward, 00:52:27.810 --> 00:52:43.339 - toward a world that is just beginning. Thank you. So we're now going to invite the other panelists to 00:52:43.339 --> 00:52:50.494 - the stage to answer your questions. Thank you. 00:53:14.178 --> 00:53:22.004 - You really are. That's great. I can confirm when I speak English. And also write pretty well in it. 00:53:22.004 --> 00:53:29.831 - Oh, that's great. My grandfather-in-law grew up in Bellows Falls. Oh, really? Right in your neck of 00:53:29.831 --> 00:53:37.110 - the woods. Mm-hmm. Anybody need some water? Oh, that'd be great. If there were extra waters, 00:53:37.110 --> 00:53:39.614 - I'd blow it up. There is water. 00:54:08.290 --> 00:54:15.440 - So first of all, thank you, Ethan, for the time you gave us and the messages you shared. My name is 00:54:15.440 --> 00:54:22.876 - Chris Naggers. I am the director of oral conservation for the Indian chapter of the Nature Conservancy. 00:54:22.876 --> 00:54:30.455 - But I'm up here tonight to moderate the panel discussion with a bunch of people that I admire and respect 00:54:30.455 --> 00:54:37.534 - very much. So for this portion, we invite members of the audience with questions to make their way 00:54:37.762 --> 00:54:46.731 - along the stage left to the mic stand up here, ask your question for the panel and see what they have 00:54:46.731 --> 00:54:55.964 - to say after you've had your question answered, make your way out there and on to the back of your seat. 00:54:55.964 --> 00:55:04.670 - So, are we ready? Yeah. Thanks. Apparently the audience participation part didn't progress at all. 00:55:05.218 --> 00:55:13.962 - Would you like to introduce ourselves first? Who we are? Yes or no? Alan asked me to moderate this panel. 00:55:13.962 --> 00:55:22.376 - I immediately said yes. I have a day later one. I don't exactly know how to do this. But I'm going to 00:55:22.376 --> 00:55:30.790 - stand away from your mics. Smart. And if we could go from, no, Ed, you don't want to go first? I can, 00:55:30.790 --> 00:55:34.750 - I guess. Well, too bad. You're going first? OK. 00:55:36.162 --> 00:55:43.581 - I'm Edward Oldman. I'm here on behalf of the Indiana Chapter of Society of American Foresters. I'm the 00:55:43.581 --> 00:55:50.785 - chair of the Indiana Chapter of Society of American Foresters. Similar to Chris, I was voluntold to 00:55:50.785 --> 00:55:57.988 - be on the panel. And I was like, yeah, sure, no problem. And then about the minute after I hit send 00:55:57.988 --> 00:56:03.102 - on that email, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. So that is me. 00:56:03.810 --> 00:56:09.544 - I'm Bryan Stone, and I'm here representing Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. I serve as the Indiana chapter 00:56:09.544 --> 00:56:15.118 - chair for that organization. I also serve as the outreach coordinator for the Turn in a Poacher program 00:56:15.118 --> 00:56:20.477 - with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. For my day job, I'm probably the odd one out here 00:56:20.477 --> 00:56:26.050 - and don't know what I'm doing. I'm an English professor at Indiana State University. I have an interest 00:56:26.050 --> 00:56:31.838 - in researching the early conservation movement and the role that literature and art played in shaping that. 00:56:33.890 --> 00:56:42.408 - I'm Dan Borat. I am with the Indiana Wildlife Federation, and we are a statewide advocacy group that 00:56:42.408 --> 00:56:50.841 - promotes all things wildlife, and forests play a big role in wildlife. Thank you. I'm Alan Purcell. 00:56:50.841 --> 00:56:59.865 - I work for the Sam Schein Foundation, and I realize it doesn't tell you anything. Sam Schein was a wealthy 00:56:59.865 --> 00:57:03.070 - industrialist who loved conservation. 00:57:03.458 --> 00:57:11.036 - And during his lifetime, protecting thousands of acres and left an endowment that was very substantial 00:57:11.036 --> 00:57:18.614 - and wanted to see his wishes carried on. And so the foundation I work for only gives money and support 00:57:18.614 --> 00:57:26.339 - to conservation organizations. Thank you all very much. Hopefully with that, we have some more questions 00:57:26.339 --> 00:57:31.710 - finally. So again, make your way down to the mic stand next to Liz here. 00:57:33.986 --> 00:57:44.990 - Would you like me to get started? We got someone coming. So of all the species that have been lost in 00:57:44.990 --> 00:57:55.778 - this place over the past several centuries, in your opinion, which was the greatest agent of change 00:57:55.778 --> 00:58:03.006 - that is no longer in our forest ecosystems? What a great question. 00:58:05.282 --> 00:58:13.206 - Can I answer for moss different than Indiana? Two of them that I read about in the book that I am very 00:58:13.206 --> 00:58:20.977 - interested in, one of which is the beaver, which is an amazing species. Shout out to, if you want to 00:58:20.977 --> 00:58:29.055 - feel like, read a book about how beavers are just going to save the world and solve all of our problems, 00:58:29.055 --> 00:58:31.902 - read the book Eager by Ben Goldfarb. 00:58:32.482 --> 00:58:39.115 - There's another book that I'm reading right now actually that's an interesting sort of cultural history 00:58:39.115 --> 00:58:45.812 - of beavers and beaver trapping, which is called Beaverland. It's by a fellow Vermont author. In Vermont, 00:58:45.812 --> 00:58:52.254 - we have this incredible history where we think that we had these valleys that were incredibly shaped 00:58:52.254 --> 00:58:58.695 - by beavers for thousands of years. We think that we had about 300 beaver dams per square mile in our 00:58:58.695 --> 00:59:01.438 - valleys, which a square mile is 640 acres. 00:59:01.986 --> 00:59:08.446 - Beaver dam every two acres. And beavers were an influence on our landscape hydrologically. They provide 00:59:08.446 --> 00:59:14.720 - their what we call keystone species. They provide habitat for all of these other species. They build 00:59:14.720 --> 00:59:20.994 - soils. They store carbon. They provide flood resilience and all of these other things, water quality 00:59:20.994 --> 00:59:27.268 - improvements. And there's really cool species. Obviously, we have beavers here again, largely due to 00:59:27.268 --> 00:59:30.622 - these restoration efforts and reintroduction efforts. 00:59:31.042 --> 00:59:37.776 - But probably not at the level that they were present historically. The other one that I talk about in 00:59:37.776 --> 00:59:44.511 - the book is the passenger pigeon, which I know we know we had here. I think there's some debate about 00:59:44.511 --> 00:59:51.179 - exactly their role on the landscape, but historical accounts point to them existing on our landscape 00:59:51.179 --> 00:59:58.046 - in these mega flocks of billions of birds. And John James Audubon points to them, he talks about in his 00:59:58.402 --> 01:00:05.454 - in his writings about riding through this beautiful forest of big oaks and stuff. And then the next 01:00:05.454 --> 01:00:12.717 - time he came after the passenger pigeons had made choice of this place, there were trees that were two 01:00:12.717 --> 01:00:20.051 - foot in diameter, broken off. The understory was smothered in inches of their guano. And they were just 01:00:20.051 --> 01:00:26.398 - their sheer mass of a passenger pigeon mega flock landing in an area, nesting in an area. 01:00:26.498 --> 01:00:32.654 - could cause a tremendous amount of change on the landscape. That's the other one I think about. There's 01:00:32.654 --> 01:00:38.868 - actually an account of passenger pigeons. This is one I thought of, too. There's an account of passenger 01:00:38.868 --> 01:00:45.083 - pigeons by an early traveler on the Buffalo Trace between the Falls of the Ohio and Sins. And he records 01:00:45.083 --> 01:00:51.357 - this very thing. He says there was an area that he crossed approximately 50 acres in size that the timber 01:00:51.357 --> 01:00:54.494 - had been utterly destroyed by the passenger pigeons. 01:00:54.882 --> 01:01:02.570 - that they, by their sheer mass, had broken trees in half, and that the pigeon dung, as he put it, was 01:01:02.570 --> 01:01:10.410 - 12 to 18 inches deep. So that is difficult to imagine. But these were stand-replacing events. They were 01:01:10.410 --> 01:01:18.023 - taking stands of timber and destroying them not by just breaking the tree down, but they put so much 01:01:18.023 --> 01:01:23.902 - ammonia and nitrate on the ground that it essentially killed any other plant. 01:01:24.354 --> 01:01:30.902 - that was there, and the whole system had to start over. It's amazing. When you really start to talk 01:01:30.902 --> 01:01:38.039 - about forests, you start to really understand the role of tree mortality and disturbance in these ecosystems 01:01:38.039 --> 01:01:44.783 - as not something that would visit them and is this huge tragedy, but something like even what is being 01:01:44.783 --> 01:01:51.396 - described with these passenger pigeons. You're like, wow, what habitat would that have created? What 01:01:51.396 --> 01:01:53.950 - opportunities would that have created? 01:01:54.082 --> 01:02:00.602 - And time and time again, we see that tree mortality, natural disturbances in these ecosystems are actually 01:02:00.602 --> 01:02:06.939 - like these incredibly important and life-giving parts of what it means to be a forest and what it means 01:02:06.939 --> 01:02:13.093 - to be an ecosystem on this landscape and places that have created habitat for thousands of different 01:02:13.093 --> 01:02:19.186 - species of organisms. And I would jump in on that, too, just thinking of agent of change kind of in 01:02:19.186 --> 01:02:20.222 - a different way. 01:02:20.418 --> 01:02:25.805 - the passenger pigeon was extinct. There was public outcry about it, and a lot of people were upset. 01:02:25.805 --> 01:02:31.247 - So you read the newspaper accounts. Was it Martha, the last passenger pigeon that died in captivity? 01:02:31.247 --> 01:02:36.634 - And the effect that that had on the American public really woke them up to what was going on and to 01:02:36.634 --> 01:02:39.166 - the fact that there needed to be changes made. 01:02:40.834 --> 01:02:47.581 - And they helped build Chicago. One reason passenger pigeons were decimated to the degree they were in 01:02:47.581 --> 01:02:54.328 - Indiana was we needed to feed the people in Chicago, and they were the cheapest source of protein the 01:02:54.328 --> 01:03:01.140 - world's ever seen. But they were, I mean, the two best answers, in my opinion, have been said, beavers 01:03:01.140 --> 01:03:07.358 - and passenger pigeons. I mean, icon transformational species that literally shape landscapes. 01:03:12.130 --> 01:03:20.241 - Mr. Ethan talked about the forest being a developing ecosystem and dynamic and changing over time. We 01:03:20.241 --> 01:03:28.431 - have a lot of change going on now, both with animals and with plants. There are armadillos in Missouri 01:03:28.431 --> 01:03:36.542 - now, there are iguanas in Florida, and there are plants that are now in this part of the country that 01:03:36.542 --> 01:03:41.790 - never used to be because of climate change. How do we know what's 01:03:42.946 --> 01:03:52.737 - supposed to be joining our force and what we have to get rid of. That I'm going to jump in and start 01:03:52.737 --> 01:03:58.942 - off on this one. I feel like that is a loaded question that has 01:03:59.842 --> 01:04:06.066 - Challenged foresters and ecologists for four years and it's something that it you know We were talking 01:04:06.066 --> 01:04:12.290 - about diving into old texts and stuff, you know We have literature going back to original surveys when 01:04:12.290 --> 01:04:18.454 - we were first settling You know central hardwoods that we look into and it gives you an idea but it's 01:04:18.454 --> 01:04:24.617 - a very different forest and what we walk in today and there's also a lot of change as you talk about, 01:04:24.617 --> 01:04:26.974 - you know, you mentioned armadillos and 01:04:27.106 --> 01:04:33.581 - Missouri, but we got armadillos in Indiana, you know, so they're showing up here, too. And I think one 01:04:33.581 --> 01:04:40.057 - of those is trying to draw that line on what was there and what was in the past and what's there today 01:04:40.057 --> 01:04:46.658 - and the encroachment, but also acknowledging what encroachment can be balanced through natural processes 01:04:46.658 --> 01:04:53.134 - and what encroachment isn't natural or native. You know, obviously we can rule out the invasive plants 01:04:53.134 --> 01:04:55.774 - and things like that. But, you know, with 01:04:56.546 --> 01:05:03.757 - ecological changes and stuff. We're seeing warmer climate plants are moving further north. We're seeing 01:05:03.757 --> 01:05:11.176 - cooler climate plants moving out of our ecosystems and being able to acknowledge that change is happening, 01:05:11.176 --> 01:05:18.387 - but taking accounts of what was naturally here, what was naturally in the surrounding native landscapes 01:05:18.387 --> 01:05:22.686 - years ago, 100 years ago. And as we move that out and try and 01:05:23.362 --> 01:05:30.496 - encourage those native communities to still be here while still treating and removing the non-native 01:05:30.496 --> 01:05:37.842 - encroachment? I think that we often think about that. So we use these terms like there are species that 01:05:37.842 --> 01:05:45.047 - are native, there are species that are non-native, there are species that are invasive. I think it is 01:05:45.047 --> 01:05:50.910 - important to understand that when we say that we really want these native species, 01:05:51.298 --> 01:05:57.753 - And we don't want these non-native species or these non-native invasive species. It's not a value judgment. 01:05:57.753 --> 01:06:03.850 - So what we're recognizing with these native species is that these are the species that have been here 01:06:03.850 --> 01:06:09.946 - for thousands of years. And so when we say, oh, it's a native species, it's probably OK. Or, oh, it's 01:06:09.946 --> 01:06:16.162 - a non-native species, maybe it's not OK. What we're really saying is that we know that these ecosystems 01:06:16.162 --> 01:06:20.286 - are like these really complex and intricate cultures of all of these 01:06:20.450 --> 01:06:27.315 - different organisms that have these co-evolved relationships with each other. They've been engaged in 01:06:27.315 --> 01:06:34.719 - this process for millennia. And these species that were not part of this process, what we call the non-native 01:06:34.719 --> 01:06:41.584 - species, don't have that complex web of relationships. And so that does two things. One thing that it 01:06:41.584 --> 01:06:48.651 - does is it doesn't provide habitat for all of those other native species that have complex relationships 01:06:48.651 --> 01:06:50.334 - with the native species. 01:06:50.466 --> 01:06:55.756 - In some ways, when we have these non-native plants in our garden, there's this whole movement to plant 01:06:55.756 --> 01:07:00.943 - native. And that's about not planting species that are invasive and can become problematic, but also 01:07:00.943 --> 01:07:06.285 - just about providing more good opportunities for our native species. We have these pollinators. We have 01:07:06.285 --> 01:07:11.678 - these insects. We have these other organisms that have very complex relationships with plants. And let's 01:07:11.678 --> 01:07:17.276 - give them some more habitat, rather than putting these non-native plants that they don't have a relationship 01:07:17.276 --> 01:07:19.998 - with on the landscape. And then the other part of it 01:07:20.194 --> 01:07:26.610 - is not putting in species that are what we call invasive, which is a subjective assessment. We have 01:07:26.610 --> 01:07:33.155 - a lot of non-native plants that are not invasive. They are not problematic for our biodiversity. They 01:07:33.155 --> 01:07:39.764 - are not displacing native species. And so while it could be better if they were a native species, they 01:07:39.764 --> 01:07:43.806 - could be providing more habitat. They're also not problematic. 01:07:44.802 --> 01:07:50.993 - And then we have just a few, really, by comparison, of these plants that are sort of like a wolf in 01:07:50.993 --> 01:07:57.308 - the hen house, where they're just, our species have no ability to compete with them. They never would 01:07:57.308 --> 01:08:03.622 - have had to evolve an ability to compete with them because they haven't been exposed to them in their 01:08:03.622 --> 01:08:09.937 - entire evolutionary history. And so in these ecosystems, something that we can do to help them out is 01:08:09.937 --> 01:08:13.342 - to remove these invasive plants that are fundamentally 01:08:13.826 --> 01:08:20.357 - haven't been here, we're just introduced by people, and displace our native species that are so important 01:08:20.357 --> 01:08:26.704 - for so many different things, and also just have the right to be here, as they have been for thousands 01:08:26.704 --> 01:08:33.173 - of years. Yeah, I think everything they've said is absolutely right. I think one other interesting thing 01:08:33.173 --> 01:08:39.458 - to think about is, as we discussed, beavers and passenger pigeons are transformational species on the 01:08:39.458 --> 01:08:42.046 - landscape. They're no longer here, right? 01:08:42.146 --> 01:08:48.609 - Things have changed in our landscape. Disruptions have changed. Something I think you see, and I may 01:08:48.609 --> 01:08:55.135 - be the least qualified person on the stage to talk about this because I'm not a forester, but we live 01:08:55.135 --> 01:09:00.702 - in a world now where some of our longer lived, more important tree species, excuse me, 01:09:01.954 --> 01:09:07.662 - aren't thriving because they're being outcompeted in succession, right? So you can think about where 01:09:07.662 --> 01:09:13.484 - we are right here. You go outside, if you were to clear cut everything, you know it's not gonna be the 01:09:13.484 --> 01:09:19.248 - first thing to come and dominate our oaks. Oaks are vital for wildlife, which is the angle I'm coming 01:09:19.248 --> 01:09:24.900 - at with. You're gonna be outcompeted by sassafras, sycamores, so on and so forth, right? So we also 01:09:24.900 --> 01:09:31.230 - have to manage our native species, which are good to give these other species the opportunity to thrive because 01:09:31.394 --> 01:09:38.802 - in the world we have given them by exterminating passenger pigeons and almost exterminating things like 01:09:38.802 --> 01:09:46.281 - beavers, that dynamic of change has been disrupted. So we have to act as disruptors, as you were saying, 01:09:46.281 --> 01:09:52.478 - to manage our landscapes. We have to fill the role that we have destroyed, in essence. 01:09:56.610 --> 01:10:02.470 - I'm so sorry. Can I just add one other thing? Because the other element to your question, of course, 01:10:02.470 --> 01:10:08.447 - is asking this question about assisted migration. So the assisted migration is where we're recognizing 01:10:08.447 --> 01:10:14.249 - that our climate is changing faster than our species ranges can shift. So we're talking about these 01:10:14.249 --> 01:10:20.051 - species, as they came back following glacial retreat, we're talking about, historically, they might 01:10:20.051 --> 01:10:22.430 - have moved one to two miles per century. 01:10:23.330 --> 01:10:29.335 - And now they're having these climates that are moving orders of magnitude more quickly. And so this 01:10:29.335 --> 01:10:35.460 - other question that we're asking is like, how do we help forests, you know, expand the ranges of some 01:10:35.460 --> 01:10:41.526 - of these tree species such that we can have trees that are well suited to this climate as it changes 01:10:41.526 --> 01:10:47.531 - really quickly? That process of deciding which species to do that with and how to move them and how 01:10:47.531 --> 01:10:51.134 - far to move them is something that really smart researchers 01:10:51.298 --> 01:10:56.982 - are figuring it out. For the most part, we're not like plucking tree species from Florida and planting 01:10:56.982 --> 01:11:02.611 - them in Indiana. Mostly what we're doing is this process that we call assisted range expansion, which 01:11:02.611 --> 01:11:08.296 - is where we're taking species that are already here but at the northern end of their range and through 01:11:08.296 --> 01:11:14.146 - management and also to a certain extent probably through planting to help them expand their range further 01:11:14.146 --> 01:11:16.574 - north so they can respond to those changes. 01:11:20.642 --> 01:11:30.867 - My question was before mine because it leads into mine. I am a very new non-scientist owner of a small 01:11:30.867 --> 01:11:40.992 - parcel of forest. Thank you. My question has to do with triage. It's a young forest just out in Brown 01:11:40.992 --> 01:11:42.878 - County here close. 01:11:43.586 --> 01:11:49.942 - it can be really overwhelming to look out and see the burning bush and see the multiflora rose and see 01:11:49.942 --> 01:11:56.113 - the honeysuckle. And then that's just the first layer, right? Because then you start worrying about 01:11:56.113 --> 01:12:02.531 - exactly what you just mentioned about the types of trees that are here and what trees, I mean, and it's 01:12:02.531 --> 01:12:08.764 - two of us and neither of us know what we're doing. So, you know, my question really is just where do 01:12:08.764 --> 01:12:10.430 - we put our energies first? 01:12:15.906 --> 01:12:27.831 - It's overwhelming, right? But I guess the first thing is don't get overwhelmed, right? It is a process. 01:12:27.831 --> 01:12:39.297 - You're going to have successes and failures and everything rolled into one. But focus on the things 01:12:39.297 --> 01:12:41.246 - that are doable. 01:12:41.410 --> 01:12:47.030 - Right? Um, burning bush is really easy to pull out. That is maybe the one good thing about it is so 01:12:47.030 --> 01:12:52.763 - shallowly rooted, but get rid of the things to the degree you can that you know are the most prolific 01:12:52.763 --> 01:12:58.552 - at reproducing. Right? Because if you don't get rid of them, they're just going to continue to go. Um, 01:12:58.552 --> 01:13:04.229 - and don't be afraid. I think you mentioned not being a purist. I think this may elicit some negative 01:13:04.229 --> 01:13:08.894 - responses, but I'm pretty comfortable with it. Don't be afraid of herbicide. It's, 01:13:09.314 --> 01:13:17.321 - It's necessary, right? It is necessary in a invaded environment to have real success. So use all the 01:13:17.321 --> 01:13:25.327 - tools available to you and focus on those things that are the most aggressive. I'm going to approach 01:13:25.327 --> 01:13:34.206 - this from an analogy on a completely different plane. I got a one-year-old at home. She's turning one tomorrow. 01:13:34.306 --> 01:13:41.652 - And there's plenty of opportunities for my wife and I to sit there and be like, this is a lot of work. 01:13:41.652 --> 01:13:48.997 - And plenty of opportunities for us to be like, was this a good decision? Do we want another one? Where 01:13:48.997 --> 01:13:56.129 - are we at in this stress level world? But also, all it takes is for that one moment where she hears 01:13:56.129 --> 01:14:03.902 - a little song on a commercial and starts dancing, or says a word or something to make your stress disappear. 01:14:04.130 --> 01:14:10.476 - And I think that taking time to not be so focused on the work that's necessary on the property, taking 01:14:10.476 --> 01:14:16.822 - that walk through the property and finding those mosses or, you know, when springtime comes, you know, 01:14:16.822 --> 01:14:21.566 - go out there with a wildflower book and find those wildflowers and stuff and 01:14:21.730 --> 01:14:28.336 - take time to find those little wins in places. And as you continue to do this work, whether it's invasives, 01:14:28.336 --> 01:14:34.453 - whether it's timber stand improvement, whatever the tasks at hand are going to be, and you're going 01:14:34.453 --> 01:14:40.814 - to see those little wins compound more and more and those appreciations. And maybe it's journaling them 01:14:40.814 --> 01:14:47.053 - down and writing them and using them as the backing that you need to help continue the positive work. 01:14:47.053 --> 01:14:51.518 - But it's easy to look at the mountain ahead of us that we have to climb. 01:14:52.098 --> 01:14:58.546 - But we don't stop and turn around and be like, wow, look at the view that we've already crossed. And 01:14:58.546 --> 01:15:05.249 - I see that so often in forestry. You've got two acres of straight invasives in front of you or whatever, 01:15:05.249 --> 01:15:11.697 - stilt grass. And it's like, I could bale this and sell it for horse feed or turn around and be like, 01:15:11.697 --> 01:15:19.230 - oh, look, there's this one little wildflower here that's really pretty. So taking the chance to acknowledge the wins. 01:15:19.426 --> 01:15:27.372 - I think that a lot of us, so when I was, especially when I worked for the state of Vermont, part of 01:15:27.372 --> 01:15:35.557 - this conservation community that was the state agencies and these non-profits and our big struggle was 01:15:35.557 --> 01:15:43.742 - always like, how do we get the people to come to our events and to read our resources and to watch our 01:15:43.742 --> 01:15:46.046 - stuff and to engage with us? 01:15:46.818 --> 01:15:54.174 - sign up for our email list, volunteer with us. And so what I often tell people when they're asking for 01:15:54.174 --> 01:16:01.530 - like, how do I get this help? I would tell you that those organizations have been waiting to hear from 01:16:01.530 --> 01:16:08.672 - you. And a lot of them are just in this room, right over here, and they have resources for you, and 01:16:08.672 --> 01:16:13.886 - they have mentorship for you, and they have walks for you, and they have 01:16:14.082 --> 01:16:20.654 - ways to pair you up with different experts and avail yourself of those opportunities. We're just so 01:16:20.654 --> 01:16:27.488 - blessed to have these land trusts and these conservation organizations and landowner organizations that 01:16:27.488 --> 01:16:33.534 - provide so many amazing things. So I would say that that's, avail yourself of that as well. 01:16:39.810 --> 01:16:47.848 - I guess my question is more about advocacy. And I think that a lot of our forests, especially in this 01:16:47.848 --> 01:16:56.122 - region, are endangered by very well-meaning people who love the forest and want to care for it and don't 01:16:56.122 --> 01:17:04.161 - know how. And I guess how do we get the message of people in the forestry community or people who are 01:17:04.161 --> 01:17:09.598 - really into this that loving a forest is more than leaving it alone? 01:17:09.922 --> 01:17:15.932 - I think that this is a, it comes in a lot on our public lands here. I think a lot of the people who 01:17:15.932 --> 01:17:22.121 - work on our public lands are constantly beleaguered by people who think they're doing the right thing, 01:17:22.121 --> 01:17:28.131 - as well as we have a lot of landowners in the area who maybe have two to five acres, maybe 10 acres 01:17:28.131 --> 01:17:34.441 - at a large scale, who are very afraid to touch it. They don't know what they're doing. The idea of going 01:17:34.441 --> 01:17:37.566 - in there with a chainsaw sounds terrifying to them. 01:17:37.986 --> 01:17:47.666 - expand this message beyond this room to people who need to hear it? It's a great question. So one thing 01:17:47.666 --> 01:17:57.346 - I would say is that I think what you know one thing that is very important for us to understand is that 01:17:57.346 --> 01:18:06.654 - our job as people who care about forests is not to like figure out the one way to take care of them 01:18:06.654 --> 01:18:07.678 - correctly. 01:18:08.354 --> 01:18:14.112 - and then to just apply it everywhere. That actually, there's a diversity, in addition to wanting to 01:18:14.112 --> 01:18:20.043 - cultivate a diversity of different tree species, and a diversity of different sizes and ages of trees, 01:18:20.043 --> 01:18:26.376 - and a diversity of different types of forests across the landscape, and ages of forests across the landscape, 01:18:26.376 --> 01:18:32.307 - as a means to cultivate forest resilience, like resilience in a changing climate. This is what we call 01:18:32.307 --> 01:18:37.374 - risk spreading. It allows us to not just create habitat for lots of different critters, 01:18:37.570 --> 01:18:43.819 - that utilize these different things, different tree species, different structural conditions, different 01:18:43.819 --> 01:18:49.887 - forest ages and types and expressions, but also to do risk spreading, not to put all our eggs in one 01:18:49.887 --> 01:18:56.016 - basket so that we're not vulnerable to an uncertain future, right? And another type of diversity that 01:18:56.016 --> 01:19:02.144 - is often overlooked is a diversity of different approaches, right? The fact that we actually wanna do 01:19:02.144 --> 01:19:06.110 - a lot of different things. And so one thing that's interesting is 01:19:06.498 --> 01:19:12.864 - I feel like a lot of times, in a lot of different communities, certainly in the conservation community, 01:19:12.864 --> 01:19:19.352 - we can be like this parable that I'm now going to butcher about the blind men describing what an elephant 01:19:19.352 --> 01:19:25.534 - is. Do you remember this one? Where there's the one blind man, and he's touching the elephant's leg, 01:19:25.534 --> 01:19:31.655 - and he's like, an elephant's like a tree trunk. And another one's touching its tusk, and it's like, 01:19:31.655 --> 01:19:36.062 - oh, an elephant is like a rope. There are a lot of people out there who 01:19:37.378 --> 01:19:43.913 - have figured out that there's something good about managing forests and there's something good about 01:19:43.913 --> 01:19:50.513 - not managing forests, and they're both right. But both of those are just describing one piece of what 01:19:50.513 --> 01:19:57.047 - we need to do, right? So it's not even that we need to necessarily all of us, like, change our minds 01:19:57.047 --> 01:20:03.582 - about these things. We just need to zoom out and go a little deeper and understand what we're really 01:20:03.582 --> 01:20:06.494 - trying to do here, which is to fundamentally 01:20:06.850 --> 01:20:14.657 - create a landscape that is functional and vibrant and that also supports us in our communities as well. 01:20:14.657 --> 01:20:22.314 - For me, that's the most powerful message to share. To also understand that, by the way, doing nothing 01:20:22.314 --> 01:20:29.971 - is also a choice, and it's one that we should make very carefully because it's also a choice that can 01:20:29.971 --> 01:20:36.126 - degrade ecosystems. We are not absolved of responsibility simply because we don't 01:20:36.738 --> 01:20:42.840 - pick up a chainsaw, right? We are responsible for them in this moment right now, whether we like it 01:20:42.840 --> 01:20:48.942 - or not. And that carries with it, whether we choose to take that responsibility and utilize it very 01:20:48.942 --> 01:20:55.288 - actively or very passively. And I think, I mean, it speaks to like the complexity of the situation too, 01:20:55.288 --> 01:21:01.451 - right? And how there is no one size fits all approach. And have folks heard what's happened with the 01:21:01.451 --> 01:21:02.366 - roadless rule? 01:21:02.978 --> 01:21:10.121 - In the last week, the rescinding of the roadless rule to allow building of roads through, so for example, 01:21:10.121 --> 01:21:17.331 - to give the green light to the Ambler Road Project in Alaska, that's going to cut through critical Caribou 01:21:17.331 --> 01:21:24.339 - migration corridor for energy development. We know that our national forests are intended as multi-use. 01:21:24.339 --> 01:21:31.145 - And so speaking on BHA's behalf and our perspective on that, we're opposed to just the rescindion of 01:21:31.145 --> 01:21:32.830 - that rule, like blanket. 01:21:32.930 --> 01:21:39.314 - and just opening up forests for the building of roads. There are certainly some areas where preservation 01:21:39.314 --> 01:21:45.515 - is the best approach. That would be the best management approach. When we look at our forests here in 01:21:45.515 --> 01:21:51.777 - Indiana, though, we might see something different. Different type of forests make up than the Tongass, 01:21:51.777 --> 01:21:57.979 - for example. What we see in the Hoosier as a forest that was cleared in the 19th century. Indiana was 01:21:57.979 --> 01:21:59.134 - once 80% forested. 01:21:59.234 --> 01:22:04.529 - And that was cleared by the turn of the century. And we've seen these efforts to rebuild our forests 01:22:04.529 --> 01:22:10.034 - and to allow them to come back. And they've been, in large part, successful. And I think it's an amazing 01:22:10.034 --> 01:22:15.538 - thing. But management's necessary here. But there are definitely other places where, and so management's 01:22:15.538 --> 01:22:20.886 - necessary here for the sake of wildlife, as well as for the forest, for that natural community, where 01:22:20.886 --> 01:22:26.443 - we see out west, perhaps, there are places where that's not the case, where that active management could, 01:22:26.443 --> 01:22:27.806 - in fact, hinder wildlife. 01:22:29.410 --> 01:22:37.691 - Yeah, I mean, yes. Yes, everything they said. But what you said before has really resounded with me. 01:22:37.691 --> 01:22:45.973 - We are nature's greatest threat, and we're its last best hope, I guess. We are in a position now, we 01:22:45.973 --> 01:22:53.598 - have put ourselves in a position where if we do nothing, we do bad. So we need to intervene. 01:22:54.050 --> 01:23:01.316 - It's this interesting situation where we're gonna pick winners and losers. That's the nature of this, 01:23:01.316 --> 01:23:08.867 - right? I like rough grouse. I grew up in Pennsylvania. It was my state bird. I love rough grouse. They're 01:23:08.867 --> 01:23:15.990 - all but extirpated from this state, and there's things we can do to slow their true extirpation and 01:23:15.990 --> 01:23:22.686 - bring them back, and that's management, right? So there are things we have to do, but things, 01:23:22.786 --> 01:23:30.493 - will die in that process. Things will be removed from the equation in that process. And that's where 01:23:30.493 --> 01:23:38.353 - we are. That's the reality. You're right. There are still some places on Earth where true preservation 01:23:38.353 --> 01:23:46.213 - is probably the best course. Unfortunately, Indiana is not that place, in my estimation, that has been 01:23:46.213 --> 01:23:51.326 - so impacted that we're in this situation where we have to act. Hi. 01:23:51.586 --> 01:23:58.504 - Thanks for coming, you guys. This has been great. I'd like to follow up on the question of how do we 01:23:58.504 --> 01:24:05.354 - know what trees used to be there, and also on Ethan's mention of native communities, which I hadn't 01:24:05.354 --> 01:24:12.409 - heard of. So I'll tell you up front, I'm a misplaced Idahoan, which I was surprised BHA is in Indiana, 01:24:12.409 --> 01:24:19.464 - but anyway. So I'm from the West, and I have a Western mindset. I'm a science geek, and I have a soils 01:24:19.464 --> 01:24:20.286 - background. 01:24:21.762 --> 01:24:30.370 - But it sounds like native communities are ecological sites. And ecological sites, and I've looked at 01:24:30.370 --> 01:24:39.064 - some of them for Indiana. I'm more familiar with them in the West. But ecological sites tell you what 01:24:39.064 --> 01:24:47.757 - trees were there. I think ecological sites started in the West, because I know Joel Brown at NRCS was 01:24:47.757 --> 01:24:51.422 - the instigator behind it. And the idea is, 01:24:52.194 --> 01:24:59.405 - They were based on range sites, which are based on soils. And we would make fun of, they were called 01:24:59.405 --> 01:25:06.759 - habitat types in the West, because it's a ponderosa pine forest. Well, it could be something else next 01:25:06.759 --> 01:25:14.256 - week. But a Wyoming big sagebrush 12 inch precip zone is always a Wyoming sagebrush 12 inch precip zone, 01:25:14.256 --> 01:25:21.182 - even if you mow all the sagebrush off. And so ecological sites have state and transition models. 01:25:21.506 --> 01:25:29.729 - Do you use them in Indiana? Because I wrote up a thing. I'm a huge fan, if you can't tell. I wrote up 01:25:29.729 --> 01:25:37.952 - a handout about it for the Purdue forest owners thing. And I'd be happy to pass it on, if you can put 01:25:37.952 --> 01:25:43.998 - it in the newsletter. Do you guys use them? I mean, yes, I'm evangelizing. 01:25:44.258 --> 01:25:51.503 - Ecological sites, there's a lot of... Ecological sites, if you want to know what used to be on your 01:25:51.503 --> 01:25:59.039 - place. And in Indiana, they actually have diagrams for where your soil is on the landscape, and they're 01:25:59.039 --> 01:26:05.342 - based on... Ecological sites are based on texture and position on the landscape. Yeah. 01:26:06.626 --> 01:26:13.913 - Right. And they're one step beyond soils. They start with soils. Every soil is assigned an ecological 01:26:13.913 --> 01:26:21.200 - site. But the soils don't have the state and transition models. And then how do you get from what you 01:26:21.200 --> 01:26:28.630 - have now to what you want? Is it fire? Is it taking out the invasives? Anyway, ecological sites. I hope 01:26:28.630 --> 01:26:29.630 - you use them. 01:26:36.130 --> 01:26:42.478 - It's difficult to know what Indiana exactly looked like, because Indiana has been so altered over the 01:26:42.478 --> 01:26:48.702 - years. The West is different. You know, the West had so much public land set aside early that there 01:26:48.702 --> 01:26:55.424 - are vast areas that are still essentially what they were at one time. When Indiana became a state, actually 01:26:55.424 --> 01:27:01.648 - when the... what we now know as the Northwest Territories, and that act was passed by Congress, one 01:27:01.648 --> 01:27:05.694 - of the requirements of that was that the land would be surveyed. 01:27:06.210 --> 01:27:13.858 - by surveyors who would lay out a system of townships and ranges and section lines. And in their journals, 01:27:13.858 --> 01:27:21.074 - they were required by law to write a couple of things. One was they had to record witness trees. So 01:27:21.074 --> 01:27:28.433 - when they set a corner, they had to say, well, this corner was so far from a tree and they would name 01:27:28.433 --> 01:27:34.494 - the species of this size. And they would often along that section line describe the 01:27:34.882 --> 01:27:41.741 - trees that they saw also. There were times when they didn't see trees even. They described grasslands 01:27:41.741 --> 01:27:48.735 - or prairies or what they, in the southern part of the state, barrens is what they recorded. The purpose 01:27:48.735 --> 01:27:56.132 - of that was that as settlers came to Indiana, they could read the surveyor's notes and decide for themselves, 01:27:56.132 --> 01:28:01.982 - was that going to be good farmland or not, based on the trees that were growing there. 01:28:03.394 --> 01:28:10.518 - But that gives us today, 200 years later, a record, a rough record, but it gives us a record of what 01:28:10.518 --> 01:28:17.712 - the vegetation types were at that time. And there are a few little quirks about it that we have to be 01:28:17.712 --> 01:28:24.906 - cautious, but it gives us some good information. Ethan mentioned that a natural community engages its 01:28:24.906 --> 01:28:32.382 - processes too. And so we often see in their notes that they would record that there were areas with fire. 01:28:32.546 --> 01:28:39.522 - I mean, there were very few people in Indiana at this time. And so the question is, why were we having 01:28:39.522 --> 01:28:46.565 - fires out on the landscape? And a lot of this is thought to have been, initially, Native Americans were 01:28:46.565 --> 01:28:53.405 - using fire to manage the land. And so to adequately, I think, go back to a template of what we need, 01:28:53.405 --> 01:29:00.246 - we have to think about, what does the land want? And what does the land want to grow? We can look at 01:29:00.246 --> 01:29:02.142 - those land surveyor's notes 01:29:02.242 --> 01:29:08.696 - and we can try to bring those processes back. And our forest types are really habitat, I mean, disturbance 01:29:08.696 --> 01:29:14.788 - dependent. They love disturbance and they thrive on disturbance. And as he mentioned, we think of in 01:29:14.788 --> 01:29:20.820 - our time and place, we think of our forest as being static. That is a myth. Our forests are dynamic 01:29:20.820 --> 01:29:26.912 - and they're changing all the time. And we have to come to grips with that, that dynamism in a forest 01:29:26.912 --> 01:29:27.998 - is an okay thing. 01:29:28.226 --> 01:29:34.323 - It's okay for the forest to change, and it's okay for things to die, and it's okay for disturbance to 01:29:34.323 --> 01:29:40.301 - happen, because that's what that forest wants. Anyone else? I hadn't heard of that ecological sites 01:29:40.301 --> 01:29:46.279 - thing. I'm going to look it up. Natural communities was the one I... I'll look up ecological sites, 01:29:46.279 --> 01:29:52.257 - you look up natural communities, and then we'll trade. Yes. When I started WebSol survey, I thought 01:29:52.257 --> 01:29:56.382 - there was going to be an article on the news. I use it all the time. 01:30:08.898 --> 01:30:15.845 - said a few things that made me get up, but getting people more involved. So I'm a clinical herbalist, 01:30:15.845 --> 01:30:23.133 - and I own the only herbal apothecary in the state of Indiana. And some of my friends are conservationists. 01:30:23.133 --> 01:30:30.081 - And they had posted a whole list of like six different opportunistic plants, right? Invasives, I call 01:30:30.081 --> 01:30:36.892 - them opportunistic. But I said, well, what are you guys going to do with them? He said, well, we're 01:30:36.892 --> 01:30:37.982 - trying so hard. 01:30:38.274 --> 01:30:45.285 - to get people to come out to our weed wrangle so we can get rid of them. And I was like, I sell and 01:30:45.285 --> 01:30:52.437 - use every one of those in my apothecary. And I sell out of them, right? So what we started in some of 01:30:52.437 --> 01:30:59.589 - the counties throughout Indiana is where herbalists and wild food foragers are teaming up with people 01:30:59.589 --> 01:31:06.741 - like you. And so we have now had more people coming out than what they've ever expected. They have to 01:31:06.741 --> 01:31:07.582 - cap it now. 01:31:08.290 --> 01:31:14.457 - So they have to cap it because people are coming out, they're getting rid of the invasives, but they're 01:31:14.457 --> 01:31:20.623 - also learning how to use the invasives for both wild food and medicinal purposes. So have you done that 01:31:20.623 --> 01:31:26.909 - or have you thought about doing that in your areas? Like garlic mustard, we weren't shoving it in plastic 01:31:26.909 --> 01:31:33.194 - trash bags this year. We were teaching people how to eat it and how to use it for its medicinal purposes. 01:31:33.194 --> 01:31:36.574 - I can't tell you how much Japanese barberry that I sell. 01:31:36.834 --> 01:31:43.602 - that I just dug up, right? Because it is highly invasive, right? But people are also buying in a capsule 01:31:43.602 --> 01:31:50.047 - called berberine, if you've heard of it, right? So people are making so much money off of isolating 01:31:50.047 --> 01:31:56.621 - its alkaloids, when we can use the whole plant and teach people how to do it, because it's so simple. 01:31:56.621 --> 01:32:03.582 - So you get, I watched your YouTube video on that, and I was like, get out! I wish I was with him right now! 01:32:04.034 --> 01:32:10.274 - so that I could harvest all this with him, because it's such a medicinal plant with all the Berberus 01:32:10.274 --> 01:32:16.699 - family plants, but that one is a stinker, so I get it. And then Japanese knotweed. I mean, I go through 01:32:16.699 --> 01:32:22.939 - Japanese knotweed, like so much of it, to where I sell out of it and have to harvest it for the next 01:32:22.939 --> 01:32:29.241 - year. So those were ideas of things that we have been seeing in our state, where you combine skilled, 01:32:29.241 --> 01:32:33.566 - very trained herbalists with conservationists, and we've seen amazing 01:32:33.730 --> 01:32:40.803 - results with that. So I wanted to know if you've done anything like that or any of you. Yeah, yeah, 01:32:40.803 --> 01:32:48.442 - I have. I haven't. I think so with the. It's with the herbalist, with the herbal, the herbal, the medicine, 01:32:48.442 --> 01:32:55.657 - medicinal and edible value of these plants. I think it is a beautiful thing. And I think it's I think 01:32:55.657 --> 01:33:00.254 - it's wonderful. And then and then the nuance, of course, is like 01:33:00.642 --> 01:33:09.861 - holding these two truths up at the same time, which is that we can use this plant for this amazing thing. 01:33:09.861 --> 01:33:18.733 - And also, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good thing to have everywhere. Right. And I think 01:33:18.733 --> 01:33:28.126 - that one thing that I see a lot of is folks who have a big Japanese barberry problem across a huge acreage. 01:33:28.322 --> 01:33:34.027 - for instance, or Japanese knotweed, and are like, well, I'm going to leave that right there in the woods 01:33:34.027 --> 01:33:39.678 - because it's medicine, which is not what we want to do. So the nuance is, can we find a way to be like, 01:33:39.678 --> 01:33:45.328 - when we're removing these plants, in certain situations, in certain places, let's get a bunch of people 01:33:45.328 --> 01:33:51.087 - together, let's harvest a bunch of food and a bunch of medicine, and also understanding the circumstances 01:33:51.087 --> 01:33:54.782 - where we do a different approach, and where that won't be enough to 01:33:55.010 --> 01:34:00.604 - You know to restore these ecosystems but there's nothing wrong with with finding value in these things 01:34:00.604 --> 01:34:06.252 - and if we can find value in these things and also like remove them while also recognizing that you know 01:34:06.252 --> 01:34:11.683 - probably just doing that isn't going to be enough to solve the problem everywhere. I think that's a 01:34:11.683 --> 01:34:12.606 - beautiful thing. 01:34:30.914 --> 01:34:37.055 - walks all over the state of Indiana, and the invasives are insane. I can walk on every property and 01:34:37.055 --> 01:34:43.442 - already know what I'm going to find with the invasives. And yeah, I think it's sort of like co-teaching 01:34:43.442 --> 01:34:49.645 - also that there is something that we can use that also doesn't mean that it's good in every context, 01:34:49.645 --> 01:34:55.848 - which is a nuanced reality that's hard for us to sometimes express. And then I think the other thing 01:34:55.848 --> 01:34:58.366 - that is important to acknowledge is that 01:34:59.202 --> 01:35:06.549 - There will always be these plants on the landscape. We are not going to control them to death, nor are 01:35:06.549 --> 01:35:13.682 - we really trying to. I think that if eradication is our goal of these plants, we will fail. And the 01:35:13.682 --> 01:35:21.100 - goal is what we call control. Control is where we're doing our best to control these plants and to keep 01:35:21.100 --> 01:35:26.878 - them from being a threat to our biodiversity, to our ecosystems, as best we can. 01:35:27.138 --> 01:35:34.393 - Right. And this will be a constant process. So even if we don't worry like even if we control these 01:35:34.393 --> 01:35:41.938 - plants through every means that we have we will still have these plants on our landscape as well. We're 01:35:41.938 --> 01:35:48.830 - not we're not going to eradicate them. I think I outside of garlic mustard and and watercress. 01:35:49.826 --> 01:35:56.369 - I've thrown them all away. I didn't know these had any value, so this is great for me to know. But what 01:35:56.369 --> 01:36:02.786 - I think I would say, I don't want to speak for you guys, but I'm relatively confident in this. All of 01:36:02.786 --> 01:36:09.141 - us would rather something be utilized than thrown away, but we want to get it out. We want it out of 01:36:09.141 --> 01:36:15.809 - the natural ecosystem we're trying to keep as natural as we can. But if someone's going to use it, that's 01:36:15.809 --> 01:36:19.710 - a whole lot better than shoving it in a plastic trash bag and 01:36:20.034 --> 01:36:27.232 - take it to the incinerator. Another partner there too is the culinary community. I know I've been at 01:36:27.232 --> 01:36:34.572 - like wild game cook-offs where you would score extra points if you were using invasives because you're 01:36:34.572 --> 01:36:41.841 - being incentivized to remove them, right? And so there's that too. I think to add to what everybody's 01:36:41.841 --> 01:36:49.822 - already said, I think that there's also a point that we have to remember that though these plants may have been 01:36:50.050 --> 01:36:57.573 - are they adding to the community, the natural community itself? And that's, I think, one of the balancing 01:36:57.573 --> 01:37:04.882 - points. And I've worked in forestry. I've also worked in row crop agriculture. And it's a conversation 01:37:04.882 --> 01:37:12.121 - I've had with both sides of the coin. We have to feed America, but is a 100-acre field of corn adding 01:37:12.121 --> 01:37:18.366 - to the ecological community? And being able to make that balance and understanding, OK, 01:37:18.562 --> 01:37:23.885 - what impact are we trying to go after, which one is the better gain, the gain of the natural community, 01:37:23.885 --> 01:37:29.053 - the gain of the individual human's health, you know, and how much do we need of each? And being able 01:37:29.053 --> 01:37:34.376 - to keep that balance in check and focusing from the conservation aspect of keeping that, you know, like 01:37:34.376 --> 01:37:39.596 - Ethan said about the term control and not eradication, you know, yes, it'd be awesome if I could snap 01:37:39.596 --> 01:37:42.718 - my fingers and all invasives would be eradicated and I would 01:37:42.818 --> 01:37:48.624 - do it in a heartbeat. I'd snap here all night long. But that's not happening. And being able to focus 01:37:48.624 --> 01:37:54.886 - on the greater gain. And I'm going to take it back to earlier there was a comment made about using herbicide. 01:37:54.886 --> 01:38:00.579 - And it's a conversation I've had with hundreds of people. I had a conversation with a landowner not 01:38:00.579 --> 01:38:06.726 - too long ago where she asked me, she said, hey, my husband really likes using herbicide on these invasives. 01:38:06.726 --> 01:38:10.142 - I don't like it. Can you explain to me if it's good or not? 01:38:10.274 --> 01:38:17.294 - We had about a 20-minute conversation, and she then ended it with, well, I think I'm just going to tell 01:38:17.294 --> 01:38:24.044 - him that he can spray whenever I go shopping. And I had to laugh because she was like, I understand 01:38:24.044 --> 01:38:30.929 - the greater good. I just can't bring my personal ethics to be OK with it. And I think that's where we 01:38:30.929 --> 01:38:32.414 - have to be willing to 01:38:32.642 --> 01:38:39.424 - agree with the greater good, but remember of where our ethics are personally and what, you know, what 01:38:39.424 --> 01:38:46.073 - we can forego and what we have to be able to turn a kind of a blind eye, per se, too. So, but yeah, 01:38:46.073 --> 01:38:52.922 - that balancing of all the ecosystems and all the parts involved in that ecosystem. Assume good intent. 01:38:52.922 --> 01:38:59.837 - Like, we're all, all of us are trying to do good by our natural communities here. We may have different 01:38:59.837 --> 01:39:02.430 - mechanisms. Assume good intent and let 01:39:02.978 --> 01:39:11.577 - people get to where they get to. Well, thank you all so much. Thank you for that thought-provoking question, 01:39:11.577 --> 01:39:19.545 - and thank you to the panelists. This concludes our panel discussion time, and we'll transition on to 01:39:19.545 --> 01:39:22.622 - the next phase. Thank you all so much. 01:39:31.074 --> 01:39:37.505 - Judy Brown, coordinator for the Let the Sunshine In program in Indiana. And on behalf of all of our 01:39:37.505 --> 01:39:44.001 - sponsors, we wanted to, well, we wanna thank our sponsors again for making this evening possible. We 01:39:44.001 --> 01:39:50.625 - wanna thank our panelists. We wanna thank Ethan for joining us this evening. We also like to thank all 01:39:50.625 --> 01:39:56.542 - of you for coming out this evening and enjoying this really thought-provoking conversation. 01:39:56.706 --> 01:40:05.366 - We do have a couple of door prizes. We have two of Ethan's books that we'd like to give away. And we 01:40:05.366 --> 01:40:14.197 - do have some empty seats. And so what I will ask is for Ethan to pick a number between 1 and 126. Just 01:40:14.197 --> 01:40:22.686 - randomly pick one. Three. OK. So number three is Danielle Archer. And is Danielle here? All right. 01:40:26.466 --> 01:40:38.943 - Another one? 94. 94. It's Brian Burr. Is Brian here? Yep. Yep. All right. All right. All right. 01:40:38.943 --> 01:40:52.199 - Once again, we wanted to thank everyone for coming. And Ethan has signed those books, by the way, the 01:40:52.199 --> 01:40:55.838 - ones that we just gave out. 01:40:56.194 --> 01:41:01.797 - If you do have books that you would like for Ethan to sign, there's a room around the corner if you 01:41:01.797 --> 01:41:07.400 - want to bring your books and Ethan will be there at a table and we'll sign the books. And again, if 01:41:07.400 --> 01:41:13.058 - you want to just come over, we also have a lot of the sponsors have tables so you can come and check 01:41:13.058 --> 01:41:18.829 - out the tables, chat with Ethan a little bit before you head home. Again, thank you all for coming and 01:41:18.829 --> 01:41:20.286 - have a safe journey home.