forests€¦ · making forests green again how dana walsh has devoted her career in the u.s. forest...

FORESTSWINTER/SPRING 2019A M E R I C A N

Forests in Focus PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS See the inspiring photography that

earned top honors in our annual

Forests in Focus photo contest

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2 OffshootsA word from our President & CEO

4 TreelinesPROJECT SHOWCASES: Read about our work planting trees for healing and nurturing in a Boston community and restoring fire-stricken land in the San Bernardino Mountains.

FROM THE FIELD: From Texas to Baltimore, follow what we’ve been up to in the field.

PROFILES: Learn about our partnership with Alliance Data and how two of our supporters are returning to their roots by being involved in conservation.

CHAMPION TREE SHOWCASE: The noble fir

ACTION CENTER: Learn the challenges facing the new congress as well as recent legislative victories for forests.

40 2018 Forests in Focus Photo Contest WinnersSee the stunning photography that earned top honors in this year’s Forests in Focus photo contest.

46 EarthkeepersMAKING FORESTS

GREEN AGAIN

How Dana Walsh has devoted her career in the U.S. Forest Service to restoring fire-stricken forests, particularly in the Sierra Nevada.

48 Last LookRead what our Facebook community had to say about our Forests in Focus People’s Choice nominees.

CONTENTSVOL. 125, NO. 1 WINTER/SPRING 2019

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COVER PHOTO by Everett Bloom

Features

AMERICAN FORESTS WINTER/SPRING 2019 | 1

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14A Wolverine RevivalBy Paula MacKayRead a personal narrative of work to conserve the wolverine population in the Northern Cascades as climate change poses a threat to their habitat.

24The Other ChampionsBy Whit BronaughFind out about superlative trees whose characteristics make them champions of a different order than the measures for our National Register.

32Seeking Ancient CypressBy Jessica DixonDiscover the mysterious, swampy ecosystems of the Wolf River’s Ghost Section and Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee and the cypress forests they cover.

2 | WINTER/SPRING 2018 AMERICAN FORESTS

WHEN I THINK ABOUT MY MOST sobering moments of 2018, many of them tie to our nation’s growing inequities defined by factors like income and race. From yawning income gaps to chill-ing examples of people being targeted on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation, we live in a time defined by these disparities.

So, what can forests do to make America a more equitable and inclusive country? It turns out a whole lot.

Let’s start with the troubling disparities in tree cover distribution in

our cities. I can still remem-ber the first time I saw a tree canopy map and how it cor-related with income in the Washington, D.C. area. The

correlation is nearly perfect — afflu-ent areas have lots of trees, and lower

income areas mostly do not.It turns out most cities

in the U.S. have this same pattern, with race also serving as a predictor of poor tree canopy. In Sacramento, Calif., for example, the city’s tree canopy gaps align closely with its communities of color.

This matters when you come to understand just how essential tree canopy is to the safety, health and happiness of people in cities. Consider this:

k Living in an area with low tree canopy can raise temperatures by 5-7 degrees during the day and up to 22 degrees at night, when health risks from heat stress are greatest for people living in homes without air conditioning. k Nationally, urban trees remove more than 17 million tons of air pollution each year and prevent 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms.

These, among many other health and happiness benefits of urban trees, are why American Forests is launching a new campaign for “Tree Equity” to assure that all people have these benefits. Our tree planting and tree care work in cities are carefully targeted to places where underserved neighborhoods are also underserved with trees.

But, the challenges in lower income areas that don’t have adequate tree

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Forests for AllBY JAD DALEY

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Volunteers from Bank of America gather before planting 200 seedlings in Detroit in May 2018.

cover go beyond just health and hap-piness. Economic opportunities are scarce in many of these communities, and people do not always have access to the right educational credentials and personal networks to break into the booming economy across our cities and nation more broadly.

That’s why American Forests is building on our Tree Equity campaign with a new “Career Pathways” initiative to create a ladder of opportunity from lower income neighborhoods into the urban tree care industry.

Powered by a generous grant from The JPB Foundation, and matched by support from Bank of America and other corporate funders, we are leading a national initiative that links community-based tree planting programs into profes-

sional apprenticeships and other career opportunities with private businesses like The Davey Expert Tree Company.

This is a perfect match: our com-munity tree planting partnerships are based in underserved neighborhoods where unemployment can run 3-4 times the national average. Davey, and other tree care companies, have thousands of jobs waiting to be filled in the currently tight labor market. By bringing these actors together, American Forests is creating a win-win for tree care com-panies and these new workers while assuring that the urban forest move-ment will have the skilled professionals in place to care for our urban trees.

But, it is not just urban areas where people are lacking economic opportuni-ties. Many rural areas also have high unemployment and limited opportuni-ties for new job growth. The powerful U.S. forest sector, the source of 2.4 million jobs already in areas like forestry and manufacturing, is a great way to turn trees into new jobs in rural areas.

Last fall’s American Forests maga-zine flashed this potential in action with our story on turning white oak trees into whiskey and wine barrels. This sustainably managed forest products business, led by our partner and industry leader American Stave Company, is an example of how rural regions can carefully leverage their forests in sustainable and locally appro-priate economic development.

We know that American Forests can’t impact all of the forces driving inequity in America, but we see a moral imperative to do our part. The examples I have described are just a few ways we can do good for America’s forests and people in one fell swoop. Much more is to come. Thanks for your support to make it possible!

The powerful U.S. forest sector, the source of 2.4 million jobs already in areas like forestry and manufacturing, is a great way to turn trees into new jobs in rural areas.

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EDITORIAL STAFF

Publisher Jad Daley

Editorial Director Lea Sloan

Managing Editor Ashlan Bonnell

Contributing Editor Michael Woestehoff

Editorial Assistant Liz Harper

Art Direction and Design Brad Latham

American Forests (ISSN 0002-8541) is published quarterly by American Forests, 1220 L St. NW, Suite 750 Washington, DC 20005. Periodicals

postage paid at Washington, D.C., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Forests, 1220 L St. NW,

Suite 750 Washington, DC 20005.

American Forests’ mission is to restore threat-ened forest ecosystems and inspire people to value and protect urban and wildland forests.

(202) 737-1944 www.americanforests.org

AMERICAN FORESTS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Richard Kabat, Chair Kabat Company, Washington, DC

Jeff Elliott, Vice Chair and Treasurer Iridian Asset Management, Westport, CT

Bruce Lisman, Immediate Past Chair Private investor, Shelburne, VT

Jad Daley, President & CEO (ex officio) American Forests, Washington, DC

William H. Bohnett President, Whitecap Investments LLC,

Jupiter Island, FL

Donna Dabney The Conference Board, New York, NY

Rod DeArment Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, DC

William Hazelton Chubb Group, New York City, NY

Jeffrey Prieto Los Angeles Community College District,

Los Angeles, CA

Elisa Rapaport Rapaport Family Charitable Trust,

Rockville Centre, NY

Jonathan Silver Greenbanc Global, LLC, Washington, DC

Robert Steinberg Steinberg Family Foundation, Greenwich, CT

Mary Wagner U.S. Forest Service (Retired), Ogden, UT

David M. “Max” Williamson Williamson Law + Policy, PLLC, Washington, DC

Volunteers plant trees in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco in September 2018.

treelines INFORMATION TO AMUSE, ENLIGHTEN AND INSPIRE

THE FOOD FOREST that was planted last fall on a triangle of land in Dorches-ter is about more than trees in this under-resourced area of Boston. It’s about healing from the past and launch-ing a bright new future for Boston green spaces.

With the support of our corporate partners — Alliance Data and its Epsilon business, American Tower and

Bank of America — Ameri-can Forests is working to fill a critical gap in Boston’s urban forestry capacity. We are helping local partners incubate a new citywide urban forestry nonprofit, Speak for the Trees Boston.

As recommended in the Vibrant Cities Lab’s step-by-step guide to implementing urban forestry, a community must have a strong anchor institution. An anchor orga-

nization convenes diverse stakeholders, advocates for sound policy, educates the public about the value of trees, de-velops tree canopy data, and plants and maintains trees where city agencies cannot. While Boston has many great conservation organizations — including some focused on urban food and trees, such as the Boston Food Forests Coali-tion — there was not a single group focused solely on tree canopy in Boston, a surprising fact for a city of its size.

One of the first projects of this new organization saw community members come together to create a green space on vacant land for healing, nurturing and health. Shoulder-to-shoulder with

a few dozen enthusiastic Epsilon vol-unteers, we planted fruit trees: Asian pear, persimmon, medlar and hardy kiwi, as well as perennial strawberries and blueberries.

Pivoting on an idea as old as the dawn of agriculture and as primal as growing what you eat and sharing it, the H.E.R.O. Hope Garden (Healing, Empathy, Redemption, Oasis) will be a place for neighbors to talk to neighbors as they plant or pick, finding commonalities that run deeper than diversity, that are about food and about life.

“When you garden and produce food from the seed that you’ve planted, there’s pride in knowing that you created and nurtured this thing that is yours,” said Judith Foster, community founder of the concept of H.E.R.O. Hope Gardens, of which there are now five.

“We want to bring back hope to the community,” said Foster. “You see all the violence that has been going on. There’s a lack of hope, there’s a lack of self-worth, there’s a lack of nurturing, if you will. So, we are hoping to build a spot where people can come and just reflect, get involved, get their hands dirty, plant something and watch it grow, nurture it and repair themselves, as we repaired this spot into something new.”

The mission of the project is on point with American Forests’ core values for urban forests work building a national movement and in cities like Boston, our newest Community ReLeaf city. This effort is bringing the concept of Tree Equity to underserved neighborhoods and building local capacity to grow and manage Boston’s

PROJECT SHOWCASE

Food Forests Nurture the CommunityHealing the Past, Growing the Future

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“The project is an example of how, when organizations come together, local communities become empowered. This is a garden for the community, by the community.... with a little help from their friends.”— DAVID MESHOULAM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER OF SPEAK FOR THE TREES BOSTON


urban tree canopy in the communi-ties that are most lacking in the many social, economic and environmental benefits trees provide.

These values are also shared by Epsilon, an Alliance Data company based in Wakefield, Mass. As noted by Danielle Ricketts, Alliance Data’s senior corporate affairs specialist, “Speak for the Trees’ unique approach in creating a multipurpose space for Dorchester residents is the kind of innovative collaboration that we seek to invest in and encourage others to do the same. We understand how com-

munity strength directly empowers our customers and associates, eliminating barriers and creating long-term eco-nomic sustainability. We’re eager to see how this transformation emboldens the stability of this and surrounding communities in Boston.”

David Meshoulam, executive director and co-founder of Speak for the Trees Boston, explained, “Members of the community introduced us to this empty plot as a space to transform. It was a foreclosed corner lot filled with grass and rubble where local neighborhood residents were already

growing their own food in shallow wooden raised garden beds. But, half of the space was not being utilized. We worked closely with local organiza-tions to bring to fruition their vision of planting fruit trees. The project is an example of how, when organizations come together, local communities become empowered. This is a garden for the community, by the community.... with a little help from their friends.”

Lea Sloan writes from Washington, D.C.,

and is American Forests vice president

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Mass. State Senator Nick Collins (navy coat) and Representative Liz Miranda (red coat) joined H.E.R.O. Hope Garden founder Judith Foster (red hat) and the team to install the new garden in Dorchester.

CALIFORNIA is no stranger to wild-fire. In the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California, one project is working hard to reforest areas that were previously burnt.

Mountain Communities Wildfire ReLeaf (ReLeaf ) is administered by the Mojave Desert Resource Conservation District (RCD) and works with several partners, including CalFire’s San Bernardino Unit. The project exists to oversee the reforesta-tion of private land within the San Bernardino Mountain communities, particularly land affected by the bark beetle devastation of 2003 and the wildfires of 2003 and 2007. Over 14 growing seasons, ReLeaf, CalFire and several additional partners have worked together to plant nearly 500,000 trees.

Cheryl Nagy, the project coordi-nator for ReLeaf, was a volunteer when the project started in 2004,

and became a staff member in 2006. ReLeaf helps the community where she and her family have spent much of their life, which was part of the reason she first became involved. Nagy coordinates hundreds of volunteers for ReLeaf ’s planting events and works to secure funding each year.

For as long as ReLeaf has existed, American Forests has been its sole funder.

In partnership with CalFire, seeds are ordered, planting is coordinated at the Southern California Edison nursery near Fresno, and delivery is scheduled in the San Bernardino Mountains. Henry Herrera, a Cal Fire forester, is the fourth such partner Nagy has had. Herrera also does environmental reviews and determines where reforestation is most needed to receive permission to plant from land-owners and to help organize plantings.

The seedlings that are ordered are grown for around a year and a half in

PROJECT SHOWCASE

Out of the Ashes BY LIZ HARPER


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The diversity of trees and wildlife in the area is an important aspect of the project. The areas where ReLeaf plants are meant to become healthy forests and be able to sustain themselves.

ReLeaf has had a visible impact on areas like this hillside on the Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation in the San Bernardino Mountains. As shown here by photos taken in 2012, 2015 and 2018, the trees planted by ReLeaf have thrived.

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a nursery before they are sent south. Then, the seedlings are stored in a cooler located on Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation until they can be planted.

The weather must be just right, a tricky determination in an area that experiences both intense wildfires and flooding. But once it is, Cal Fire crews and volunteers gather to plant the seedlings. Herrera and his crews help demonstrate the best way to use the given tools to plant the trees, then join in with volunteers to do the hard work.

The diversity of trees and wildlife in the area is an important aspect of the project. The areas where ReLeaf plants are meant to become healthy forests and be able to sustain themselves.

“When we’re in the field, check-ing those success rates, we’re also

checking not only that the trees have established themselves, but that they are able to sustain the life and the environment around them,” Nagy says.

The seedlings that have been planted over the last 14 growing seasons include a mix of Jeffery pines, ponderosa pines and sugar pines. In 2020, Douglas-fir will be added to that list. These species are all carefully chosen.

“We chose the species that grew in the area prior to the disaster, and species that do not come back on their own,” Herrera says. “We want to bring back a lot of the diversity and help those trees that just aren’t reproducing.”

As someone who has been pres-ent for the entire duration of the project, Nagy has a birds-eye view of the project that not many do. When

she conducts site visits, she’s able to witness how much healthier the landscape is becoming thanks to the work they are doing.

“You look at some of the areas where we planted last year and five or 10 years ago and see the size of the trees; They’re amazing,” Nagy says. “We’re seeing the habitats coming back. We’re seeing the birds, the squirrels, the deer, the mountain lions. They’re all coming back now.”

Liz Harper was an American Forests fall

editorial intern and is a senior at Ohio

University, studying journalism with a

minor in English and a specialization in

communication studies.


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GREEN KINGFISHER. Altamira ori-ole. Vermillion flycatcher. Before my recent trip to the southern tip of Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Fes-tival, I knew these creatures merely by their vibrant names. But, having now been on my first official birding expe-dition, representing American Forests alongside my colleague Eric Sprague, director of forest conservation, I can now — somewhat — confidently spot them in their natural habitat, the Texas thornscrub forest.

American Forests has intimate knowledge and experience in this ex-traordinary ecosystem, having worked in the Lower Rio Grande Valley for more than 20 years and helping to plant more than 2 million thornscrub trees over 4,266 acres. Birders have also been flocking to this area for many years; the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary this fall. American Forests helped mark the occasion by planting a tree in honor of the festival — a lasting symbol of the important connection between wildlife and their natural habitats.

American Forests has placed great focus and attention on the Rio Grande Valley for good reason. With increasing human development and encroachment, the region faces many challenges of protecting its remain-ing native habitats, such as the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, where American Forests is partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and connecting critical wildlife corridors through our partnership with the local organization Friends of the Wildlife Corridor. Through this work, we can ensure our feathered friends, and other keystone species, have a place they can still call home.

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FROM THE FIELD

LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS

Emily Russell, Director of Major Gifts

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Emily Russell, director of major gifts, and Eric Sprague, director of American ReLeaf, were at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in November, meeting with avian enthusiasts to discuss the crucial role of healthy forests among threatened bird species and promoting American Forests’ decades of work in this region.

I RECENTLY HAD THE CHANCE to help with an American Forests’ Community ReLeaf planting in Baltimore’s Carrollton Ridge neigh-borhood. Being a relatively new employee at American Forests, I was very excited to get my hands dirty and see first-hand the impact our pro-grams have in an urban community.

As we drove through the area, I couldn’t help but notice all of the beauti-ful Baltimore rowhouses. The historic architecture speaks to the culture of the city, but the neighborhood was really lacking green space. Luckily, we had a big group to help solve that problem.

More than 30 employees from American Forests, Bank of America

and Baltimore Parks and Recreation came out to help create and fill planter boxes and plant trees around the block. At the center of our inspirational day was Carrollton Ridge Community As-sociation’s president, Cynthia Tensley.

Cynthia has been a longtime Car-rollton Ridge resident, and it is evident she has the passion for continuing to make her neighborhood a warm and inviting space for everyone. She was happy to talk to anyone who would lis-ten about the history of the neighbor-hood and the close-knit community that has been created.

The neighbors took notice of our work as well. Many of them stopped by during the planting to ask about the work we were doing. They were very grateful and are really looking forward to having an outdoor community space to gather.

I left the planting physically tired, but mentally rejuvenated and inspired. Being able to interact with the resi-dents that will get to enjoy this space really inspires you to push through the fatigue and continue helping more communities like Carrollton Ridge. American Forests’ mission of creating healthy and resilient forests in cities creates benefits such as cooling the summer heat and filtering urban pol-lutants. But, as I saw that morning, it also creates a focal point that helps the community grow together and become even more invested in their neighbor-hood. I look forward helping American Forests continue this great work in communities all over the country.

BALTIMORE, MD.

Sarah Schmid, Corporate Giving Manager

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Ian Leahy, American Forests’ director of urban forests programs, shares with Bank of America volunteers about the effects this project will have on the neighborhood.

CORPORATE ANALYTICS and the great outdoors are a new perfect pairing thanks to Alliance Data, a leading global provider of data-driven marketing and loyalty solutions. A leader in their indus-try, Alliance Data is on a mission to unlock the value of data to provide insights and drive efficiencies in global conservation efforts. To help accomplish this goal, they decided to offset the envi-ronmental impact of the company’s print productions by partnering with Ameri-can Forests to plant trees in cities and large landscapes. Not only does this effort make a difference for the environment, but it also provides Alliance Data with a meaningful way to engage their associ-ates and revitalize the communities in which they live and work.

After partnering with American Forests in 2012, Alliance Data funded a

research study conducted by the Texas Trees Foundation to understand the impact of urban heat islands, which impacts metropolises, like Dallas and its surrounding region, where Alliance Data’s headquarters are located. As part of broader efforts to manage urban heat island effect, Alliance Data has been working to expand tree canopies in large metropolitan areas across the country

in cities, such as Dallas, Chicago, Columbus and San Francisco.

Through American Forests, Alliance Data partnered with Speak for the Trees Boston, a new nonprofit dedicated to improving the tree canopy in the greater Boston area. Together, the organizations collaborated to transform a formerly empty lot into a community garden, food forest and gathering space in Dorchester, Mass.

“Empowering organizations, like American Forests and Speak for the Trees, to partner with municipalities to plan and use trees and green infrastruc-ture in development will help deliver

social and economic benefits to cities across the country,” said Danielle Rick-etts, senior corporate affairs specialist at Alliance Data. “We recognize that our natural environment is under increasing strain, and we’re proud to help introduce Speak for the Trees into the Boston market, where it’s obviously needed and has the potential to have a huge impact.”

The H.E.R.O. Community Nurturing Garden in Dorchester is designed to be a community greenspace that connects youth and adults to nature while also pro-viding opportunities to grow and share food. The trees planted in the garden will contribute to a healthier environment, help mitigate high temperatures and sequester carbon that would otherwise remain in the atmosphere.

“We always want to be thoughtful about what we’re doing,” Ricketts says. “We don’t want to just put trees in the ground. We want to completely understand the full impact of where we’re planting, what we’re planting and the effects it’s going to have 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road, as well as the environmental and economic impact.”

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PARTNER PROFILE

Alliance Data

Employees from Epsilon, an Alliance Data company based in Wakefield, Mass., joined American Forests, Speak for the Trees and members of Dorchester community nonprofits to help plant the newest H.E.R.O. Hope Garden.


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JOIN THE SEQUOIA CIRCLE

Your annual leadership gift of $1000 or more helps American Forests plant keystone species — like the giant sequoia — and protect and restore native forest ecosystems.

Learn about the exclusive benefits for Sequoia Circle members at americanforests.org/sequoiacircle or by contacting Emily Russell, Director of Major Gifts, at [email protected] or 202-370-4522.

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DONOR PROFILE

Bruce and Carol Barge

BRUCE AND CAROL BARGE consider themselves lucky to have spent their childhoods growing up in forested, rural areas — Bruce in Minnesota and Carol in Colorado.

“We took it for granted, living out in open space and nature,” Carol says. “As we’ve gotten older, we’ve realized we can’t take it for granted.”

Realizing the importance of preserving forests like those they grew up in, the Barges describe their interest in conservation as “coming back to their roots.”

Bruce and Carol have been American Forests Sequoia Circle members since 2014, and, being avid nature lovers, they’re also involved in other local and national environmen-tal causes. This past fall, they hosted a reception in support of American Forests at their home in Napa Valley, Calif.

Conservation through tree planting appeals to Bruce and Carol, in part, because of the long-term results.

“Planting trees is making a contribution that will provide benefits for decades and even centuries into the future,” Bruce says. “It produces very tangible benefits.”

Because of its impact on future generations, Bruce advocates for more young people getting involved in conservation, for both environmental and economic reasons. He considers the field of conservation critical in tackling issues like climate change that will increasingly impact people worldwide.

Carol exudes this same passion. In 2015, she and Bruce took part in a local effort to protect 519 mature oaks in their home-town of Napa that were at risk of being removed for real estate development. Today, those oaks are still standing.

“If you can preserve those trees rather than have a sapling planted in their place, that makes a difference,” Carol says.

In recent years, the Barges have become more involved in conservation and want to continue that work, especially locally in the Napa Valley and Sonoma region.

“There’s so much science around what plants and trees do to help the environment,” Carol says. “Tree planting is so straight-forward, the payoff is so immense, and that tree gives back to the environment for decades.”


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Carol and Bruce Barge at their home in Napa Valley, Calif., accompanied by their dog, Carly.

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THE START OF A NEW CONGRESS, like the start of the new year, is an important time to count blessings and dream big for the coming year.

The 116th Congress began on the heels of a remarkable legislative success in December: the 2018 Farm Bill passed with strong bipartisan support and brings important federal tools and re-sources to strengthen America’s forests.

This legislation will create jobs and timber, restore water quality and improve wildlife habitat by investing in collabora-tive approaches to managing our national forests through the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFL-RP). Previously, the CFLRP reached its authorized funding cap, so no new projects could be added. This provision doubles the allowed spending cap to $80 million a year and extends the program authorization for five more years.

The bill also delivers conservation results on private forestlands in criti-cal conservation areas, by increasing investments in outcomes-oriented public-private projects through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). This program provides funding to conservation groups and farmers to work together to cut pollution and improve water quality, in part by restoring forested lands.

It also focuses new attention on forested buffers — which are critical for water quality — thanks to Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and his commitment to making the Conserva-tion Reserve Enhancement Program work better for landowners. These improvements will establish a new level of transparency and account-ability and ensure states, like Penn-

sylvania, can meet their forest buffer goals — planting 900 miles of forested buffers a year — in partnership with the federal government.

The bill also sparks innovation. There are key provisions from the Timber Innovation Act, that will provide funds for research and devel-opment of wood-building construction as well as wood innovation grants. Additionally, it reauthorizes authorities directing U.S. Forest Service and state counterparts to tackle forest health, wildfire and drinking water protection.

Simply put, this legislation is a win-win for Americans and America’s forests. The challenge for the new Congress is to tackle the issues that this bill did not address. At American Forests, we are dreaming big. We see a future where resilient, healthy forests thrive. To get there we need to signifi-cantly increase the federal commitment to address pest and disease infestation, rebuild stronger forests across the country, and ensure our forests are a part of a climate solution. With the support — and voices — of members like you, we will succeed!

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ACTION CENTER

A New Congress and Recent Legislative Victories


CHAMPION TREE SHOWCASE

Noble firSCIENTIFIC NAME: Abies procera

LOCATION: Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Wash.

NOMINATED: 1999

NOMINATED BY: Dr. Robert Van Pelt

HEIGHT: 251.67 feet

CIRCUMFERENCE: 316 inches

CROWN SPREAD: 44 feet

TOTAL POINTS: 579

PLANT A SEED FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

Learn more about the Evergreen Society by visiting

americanforests.org/EvergreenSociety or by contacting

Jennifer Broome, Vice President of Philanthropy,

at [email protected] or 202.370.4513.

AND INCLUDE AMERICAN FORESTS IN YOUR ESTATE PLANS.

Our Evergreen Society members are lifelong friends who, through their wills, trusts, retirement plans or life insurance, help American Forests plant legacies, one tree at a time.

AF_Evergreen-Society-Ad_1.indd 1 10/23/18 1:06 PM

DID YOU KNOW?

Noble firs are high-altitude trees native to the Cascade Range and Coast Range mountains of the northwest. Trees that are a fraction of this champion’s age are popular choices for Christmas trees. B

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A Wolverine RevivalBY PAULA MACKAY

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A Wolverine Revival

ON THE EVE OF THE 2015 SUPER BOWL,

five words, like five toes, made an indelible track in the landscape of my mind. Easy Pass trap just triggered. Let the wolverine games begin.

I received the text from U.S. Forest Service biologist John Rohrer, who had been live-trapping wolverines in Washington’s northern Cascade Range every winter since 2006. Over the past decade, he and Scott Fitkin — a wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife — had captured 14 individuals in the rugged Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.

They equipped each wolverine with a satellite telemetry collar, allowing modern technology to record the movements of these athletic carnivores through some of the wildest terrain in the Lower 48. Scientifically, the North Cascades Wolverine Study put wolverines back on the map of the Pacific region, with fur trappers having erased them by

the early 1900s. Now the collaring project was coming to an end. And so were my chances of meeting a wolverine face-to-face.

John Rohrer examines a wolverine captured on Super Bowl Sunday, 2015.Z

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My husband, Robert Long, and I had ventured east over the mountains from Seattle in hopes of actually seeing one of the wolverines we study with noninvasive (non-capture-based) tech-niques. We knew the odds weren’t in our favor; we’d be in Eastern Washington for only a few days, and Rohrer and Fitkin had yet to work up a wolverine this season. Fortunately for us, their luck was about to change.

Just before dawn on Super Bowl Sunday, we rendezvoused at Fitkin’s home in the Methow Valley, where a layer of fresh powder muffled the surrounding forest. I could hear my teeth chattering in the morning quiet, probably more because of nervousness than the penetrating cold. During snow-free months, the jaw-drop-pingly scenic drive between the valley and the Easy Pass trailhead takes about an hour. But from late November into May, much of this stretch of the North Cascades Highway is closed to auto-mobiles due to dangerous avalanches.

In other words, welcome to wolverine country.

Seated on the rear of Rohrer’s snowmobile, I winced at the sight of the first avalanche slide looming just ahead. We dismounted our machines to assess the situation: the slope was a steeply angled sea of giant, glacier-blue snowballs, creating a surface so slippery I had to walk on all fours. Fitkin, however, was characteristically undaunted. Riding solo, he revved his engine hard and started to climb up, up, up the slide until — uh oh — he was coming back down, in reverse.

“Didn’t expect so much ice,” Fitkin said with a calm grin as he arrived by our side. We shoveled out a route for our sleds and were on our way again.

As we were crowning the second slide, a snow-mobile appeared from the opposite direction. The driver, part of Rohrer’s crew, had been sent out earlier to see who or what had triggered the trap.

“It’s a wolverine,” he yelled over the roar of our motors. Robert edged his sled in next to ours and gave me a high five.

Another half hour and we were trudging through the Easy Pass parking lot toward the nearby trap. Sounds like a lion, I thought to myself as we approached the wooden box — the wolver-ine’s low rumble resonating through the ground. The box was sturdy enough for a lion, too, con-structed from logs much thicker than my thigh.

Rohrer and Fitkin hoisted the trap’s door just enough to allow Forest Service wildlife biologist Cathy Raley to peek in with a flashlight, which already bore toothmarks from a feisty wolverine. Raley said the marks were made by Logan, a subadult male captured three times during winter 2013–14. At the first capture, in December, the team

A Wolverine Revival


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Map depicts sample activity areas for collared wolverines in the North Cascades.

Cathy Raley and John Rohrer converse at the Easy Pass trap site.

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Keith Aubry in 2006, processing the study’s first wolverine capture (Melanie).


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noted several puncture wounds to Logan’s head and body, apparently inflicted by another wolverine. By March, his wounds had healed completely.

“No collar, and this isn’t Logan,” Raley pro-nounced, two fiery orbs peering back at her from inside the box.

Raley could identify previously captured wolverines based on their distinctive chest and throat patterns; she’d perused thousands of photos since initiating the collaring project with research wildlife biologist Keith Aubry in 2005. Aubry, now an emeritus scientist at the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, had observed a slow but steady increase in reli-able wolverine reports from the North Cascades beginning in the mid-1990s — piquing his inter-est as an expert in rare carnivores.

“We had evidence of wolverine occurrence, but we had no idea about the status of their population,” says Aubry. “Here was an opportunity to learn about an elusive and little-known carnivore.”

Gazing through the trap’s doorway, I could make out the weaselly form of a wolverine — smaller than I’d pictured given the animal’s larger-than-life reputation. Though wolverines are the second largest member of the mustelid family (surpassed only by sea otters), they typically weigh less than 40 pounds. This individual, another male, looked to be no bigger than your average border collie. But wolverines are notoriously tough for their modest stature and are known to defend their food from more sizeable predators, including gray wolves and grizzlies. Fittingly, Rohrer and Fitkin planned to call our visitor “Lynch” if he was new to the study, in honor of Seattle Seahawks legend Marshawn Lynch.

Next, we went into full MASH mode. The experienced crew carved a makeshift operating table out of snow and erected a tarp overhead for cover. Then, the always-respectful Rohrer gave us a pep talk about safety and inclusiveness before running through his checklist one final time. Medical supplies? Check.

Tracking collar and ear tags? Check. Data forms? Check. We were ready to roll. Rohrer sedated the wolverine with a jab stick, and gently lifted him to the snow-table about 10 minutes later. From F

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Above: A wolverine visits a camera station paired with a scent dispenser. Left: Special K visits a camera station in 2016. Facing page: Robert Long deploys a scent dispenser in the North Cascades.

A Wolverine Revival


this moment forward, I felt like I was the one deeply immersed in a dream.

Sprawled out before me was the most iconic wan-derer of the wild north. The wolverine’s huge feet, designed to carry him across frozen landscapes in search of food and mates, were equipped with crampon-like claws — essential tools for scavenging carcasses in hard-packed snow. His long, burly body, which measured nearly 45 inches from nose to bushy tail, was insulated with dense, dark brown fur, complemented by lighter lateral stripes along each of his sides. Combined with his broad head and short, rounded ears, the animal’s stocky frame evoked that of a small bear, for which wolver-ines are often mistaken when seen from a distance. But most striking of all was the wolverine’s smell — a powerful muskiness that permeated the air and settled into my nasal passages. Even when I went to bed that night, my fingers still held the scent.

For the next 45 minutes, my assignment was to check the vital signs of the sedated wolverine while others assessed his health and tailored his tracking gear. In addition to monitoring his heartbeat, I would have to keep a close eye on his body temperature.

“And how do I do that?” I asked the research assistant who was giving me instructions.

“We have plenty of Vaseline,” he replied. I watched Rohrer examine the wolverine’s

formidable teeth and jaw, capable of cracking the femur of an elk as though it were a pretzel stick. “Broken incisor and a well-worn canine — not a young animal,” he said. Also, not an animal you’d want to upset with a rectal thermometer.

I glanced at my clock: time for my first read-ing. After placing the stethoscope’s eartips into my ears, I positioned its chest piece along the fold of the creature’s hairy armpit. There it was: the heartbeat of a wolverine, not all that different from my own. I counted 32 beats in 15 seconds — within normal bounds. But his temperature was slightly elevated at 102.4°F.

“Pack some snowballs around his groin area,” somebody suggested. I scraped slush from the ground and whispered, “Sorry, buddy,” as I proceeded to cool down my patient.

Before I knew it, Rohrer was carrying the wol-verine back to the box, his neck newly adorned with a telemetry collar. Now, there was little for us to do but wait for him to sleep it off. For the next two hours we stood around in the snow, chatting about football and wolverines and the universe in between.

“Go baby, go!” The relief on Rohrer’s face mir-rored my own as the revived wolverine leapt from the open trap and ran into the forest. The process had gone like clockwork and our captive was free. Miraculously, we had even finished in time T

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Top right: The wolverine's paw is designed for long-distance travel on snow and ice. Below: The author monitors the heartbeat of the sedated wolverine.

A Wolverine Revival


to make it back to Fitkin’s house for the second half of the Super Bowl. Turns out we had a much better day than the Seahawks, who infamously passed the ball rather than letting Marshawn Lynch run it with only one yard to go for the winning touchdown. The pass was intercepted by the Patriots.

Lynch lost out on the wolverine-naming front, also. Our photos confirmed that the animal we’d trapped had already been dubbed Special K when he was first (and last) captured by the project in February 2012. The team couldn’t collar him back then because he didn’t respond sufficiently to the sedative. Special K was photographed by a remote camera in the summer of 2012, and then disappeared until Super Bowl Sunday.

Rohrer and Fitkin ended up trapping Special K five more times that winter, at three widely distributed sites. The tenacious wolverine was apparently no worse for the wear. His telem-etry data revealed that his activity area from March–December 2015 was a remarkable 1,000 mi2—not quite breaing the (2010) record set by his presumed father, Rocky, at 1,155 mi2. That’s about the size of Yosemite National Park.

Genetic tests of hair and tissue samples col-lected from Special K and other wolverines who have recolonized Washington suggest that these

animals came from British Columbia. Their return is good news from a conservation perspec-tive, as the Cascade Range once again hosts all of its native carnivores — save the grizzly bear, which is the focus of an active recovery plan.

To date, three successful reproductive dens have been documented in the state — two in the North Cascades and one further south in the William O. Douglas Wilderness near Mount Rainier. Indeed, wolverines are definitely on the move, with multiple animals confirmed west of the crest and at least three adults now occupying Washington’s southern Cascades region. To get there from the north, they had to cross Interstate 90 near Snoqualmie Pass, a 15-mile section of which is being retrofitted with wildlife crossing structures. Tragically, this critical mitigation comes too late for a 37-pound male wolverine who was killed by a vehicle on I-90 in June 2018.

Sprawled out before me was the most iconic wanderer of the wild north. The wolverine’s huge feet, designed to carry him across frozen landscapes in search of food and mates, were equipped with crampon-like claws — essential tools for scavenging carcasses in hard-packed snow.

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Wolverines require persistent spring snow for their reproductive dens in the North Cascades.

Since 1990, American Forests has

planted 6.6 million trees in the Northern

Rockies and Cascades.

Since 1990, American Forests has partnered with

the U.S. Forest Service to plant 630,000 whitebark

pine (the highest-elevation pine found in the

Northern Rockies and Cascades) across more than

2,550 acres in the U.S. and Canada — accounting

for more than 40 percent of all whitebark pine

restoration since 2006.

American Forests also contributes to research on

the implications of climate change, water supply

benefits and direct seeding, supported cone

collections, and the sowing of rust-resistant

seedlings in nurseries in this region.

In 2013, American Forests helped the U.S. Forest

Service remove and reforest 3 miles of forest roads

along LeClerc Creek in the Colville National Forest.

This project improved core habitat recovery areas

for three endangered or at-risk species: grizzly

bear, woodland caribou, and bull trout. Canada lynx

have also been sighted in the area.

NORTHERN ROCKIES AND CASCADES

AMERICAN RELEAF PRIORITY ECOSYSTEMS


Despite the wolverine population’s ongoing expansion, our research community remains cau-tious about the future, which holds no guarantees for a wide-ranging, snow-dependent carnivore.

“People are so excited that wolverines are back,” says Raley, “but we don’t know if they’re going to stay.”

Raley worries that the narrow north-south band of wolverine habitat in the Cascades is vulnerable to development and disturbance given Washington’s rapid growth and the increasing number of people keen to live or play in the mountains.

Climate change is another wild card for wol-verines. Throughout North America, wolverines require persistent spring snow for their repro-ductive dens. Scientific models predict reduced snowpack and earlier spring snowmelt in the

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Special K prepares to exit the Easy Pass trap.


decades to come, leading the U.S. Fish and Wild-life Service to propose listing wolverines in the Lower 48 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (a final determination is pending.)

Some people wonder why climate change is a concern for wolverines in Washington if their population — presently estimated at 25–50 animals — is growing. Aubry points out that the current recolonization event and global climate change are operating in two very different time frames and warns that climate change will impinge on wolverines before the end of the century if existing trends continue.

“One of the ways they could wink out is if they become isolated from their source population, and then you have inbreeding depression and other potential population problems,” Aubry says.

Meanwhile, with the 10-year collaring study now complete, we are exploring ways to monitor Washington’s wolverines over the long-term. Remote cameras, coupled with hair-snagging devices, provide a cost-effective means to survey animals across vast areas like the Cascades — though wolverines are much more likely to frequent baited stations in winter, when it’s difficult or impossible for researchers to access stations for rebaiting.

To help address this problem, Robert got creative in his role as a senior conservation scientist with Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. He collaborated with wildlife biologist Joel Sauder (Idaho Fish and Game) and engineers at Microsoft Research to develop an automated scent dispenser that releases a programmed amount of liquid lure on a daily basis, eliminating the need for winter revisits. The scent dispensers

promise to be a game-changer for our monitoring efforts in the Cascades and were recently used in a multi-state wolverine survey conducted across Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington.

And Special K? As far as we know, he contin-ues to roam the North Cascades, having last been photographed in 2016. Maybe he even has kits out there somewhere — carrying his genes into the future and trying to fill the void created by humans in the not-too-distant past.

Paula MacKay is a freelance writer, field biologist

and communications consultant for conservation.

For the past two decades, she has studied wild

predators with her husband, Robert Long, with

whom she co-edited “Noninvasive Survey Methods

for Carnivores” (Island Press, 2008).

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Robert Long (left) and Keith Aubry working in the field in the North Cascades.

The author takes to the trail in wolverine country, North Cascades.

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The Other Champion Trees BY WHIT BRONAUGH


IN AMERICAN FORESTS’ NATIONAL CHAMPION TREE PROGRAM, size isn’t everything: It’s the only thing. By definition, every adult tree, champion or not, is at least 13 feet tall. Even the tallest human has to look up to the smallest

tree. It’s no wonder that their size is what strikes us first. But, there are many other superlatives that can be celebrated without using a measuring tape or craning our necks.

1,500 years oldThe approximate age of The National Champion Rocky Mountain juniper, located in Cache National Forest in Utah.

THE OLDEST TREE

Our fascination with big trees runs deeper than height, girth and crown spread. Trees grow continu-ously throughout their lives, so bigger trees are usually older trees. Their longevity demands our respect, awe and humility. While most canopy trees outlive the oldest humans, some trees live to be truly ancient. Peter Brown, Director of Rocky Moun-tain Tree-Ring Research, has tabulated 15 North

American tree species, all conifers, that can live more than 1,000 years. Foxtail pine, coast redwood, Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine and western juniper can live into their 2,000s, and the oldest giant sequoia lived to the exceedingly ripe old age of 3,266. But, there is one tree that far outlasts them all.

The oldest living tree in the world is Methuselah, an intermountain bristlecone pine that sprouted in the White Mountains of California during the Early Bronze Age around 2,833 BCE. This champion survivor was already 1,000 years old before the last woolly mammoth died, before we domesticated horses and before we invented the alphabet. The Ancient One, as it is referred to, turned 2,000 during the Iron Age, 3,000 during the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and 4,000

during the construction of Notre-Dame in Paris. Methuselah’s 4,851 annual rings, covering 64,870 full moons and more than 1.7 million sunrises, encompass all of written human history. Imagine what Methuselah would say if it could talk.

The cold, dry conditions of the White Moun-tains severely limit the growth of Methuselah’s

rings to a hundredth of an inch or less each year (although, with global warming, it has grown faster in the last 50 years than ever before). Under more favorable conditions, most trees grow much faster, but which one is the champion of speedy growth?

THE FASTEST GROWING TREE

The General Sherman giant sequoia is often touted as the fastest growing tree because each year it adds


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2,833 BCEYear in which

Methuselah sprouted, the oldest living tree

in the world.

While Methuselah may be the oldest, pictured here is the National Champion Intermountain bristlecone pine.

The General Sherman giant sequoia is often touted as the fastest growing tree because each year it adds three-quarters of a ton of wood.


three-quarters of a ton of wood. But, that’s absolute growth. Whether it’s people or trees, we are most impressed by growth relative to one’s size, usually measured in the upward direction.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the fastest upwardly growing tree in America may be the naturalized royal paulownia, a native of China. It can grow as much as 20 feet in its first year under ideal conditions. Its super power, shared with only a handful of the 60,000 tree species in the world, is its use of C4 (instead of C3) carbon fixation. This modification of photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide more efficiently so that the stomata — those little pores on leaves used for gas exchange — can remain closed longer, thus saving water so important to growth.

Among American native trees, the poplars and cottonwoods stand out with a growth potential of up to 8 feet per year, depending on the species and growing conditions. No wonder hybrids of these trees were chosen by tree farmers — they can turn a profit in little more than a decade. The rapid growth of cottonwoods is also evident in the National Register of Champion Trees: the Fremont, eastern, black and plains cottonwood champions are among the 11 largest broadleaf champions in America, even though cottonwoods only live about a century.

THE HARDEST WOOD

Most of the growth of a tree eventually becomes wood that serves as the support structure for the living tissues. The strength of a tree, and the properties of its wood, depend largely upon the wood’s density. To establish a champion of wood density the standard procedure is to compare woods with the Janka hardness test. Place a steel ball, 11.28 millimeters in diameter, onto the wood and press down until half the ball is embedded (making a circle with an area of 100 square millimeters). The pounds of force (lbf ) required to make the hemispherical indentation in the wood is its Janka hardness value.

The hardest wood in America, and fourth hardest in the world, is found in the rough bark lignum-vitae, a small tropical tree that extends north into the Florida Keys. It has a Janka hard-ness of 4,500 lbf, about three to four times harder than most oaks. Second place goes to desert ironwood at 3,260 lbf. This Sonoran Desert tree has wood that is likely twice as hard as any wooden floor you’ve walked on.

The Other Champions

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4,500 lbfThe Janka hardness of the rough bark

lignum-vitae — the hardest wood

in America.

Left: National Champion Rio Grande cottonwood, pictured here, boasts a circumference of 352.2 inches, a height of 115 feet and a crown spread of 80 feet. Right: The success of the rapidly-growing cottonwood is evident in the National Register of Champion Trees, including this champion black cottonwood.


Coulter pines have the heaviest cones, weighing more than 8 pounds.


While the coconut is the biggest tree fruit, the slender fruit pods of the northern catalpa, pictured here, can be twice as long.

Giant sequoias have the thickest bark, measuring up to 2 feet.

Coconut palm trees boast both the largest leaf size and the largest fruit.

THE HEAVIEST WOOD

As you might expect, the hardest woods are very heavy, but the correlation is not perfect. Desert ironwood does come in second in the weight category at 75.4 pounds per cubic foot. However, the champion heaviest wood is that of the aptly named leadwood, found in southern and eastern Florida. The biggest one is only 30 feet tall and 2 feet in diameter, but its wood is 84.5 pounds per cubic foot. That’s more than 35 percent heavier than water, so you’ll want to pick a different tree if you need to make a raft.

THE LARGEST LEAF, FLOWER AND FRUIT SIZE

You wouldn’t have much of a tree without a lot of wood holding it up, but you wouldn’t have any wood without leaves to make the food that grows the wood, flowers to reproduce the tree, fruits to dis-perse the seeds, and bark to protect the living cam-bium. The champion of leaf size is the coconut palm with fronds up to 18 feet long. Florida royal palm leaves are not far behind, relative to most trees, with 12-foot leaves. The tree with the biggest simple leaf (not divided into leaflets like the compound leaves of palm, hickory or ash) is the bigleaf magnolia with leaves up to 36 inches long and 12 inches wide. Bigleaf magnolia also has the biggest flower of any North American tree or plant, with blossoms a foot in diameter. The biggest tree fruit is the 1-foot

diameter, look-out-below coconut, although the slender fruit pods of the northern catalpa can be twice as long. Among conifers, sugar pines have the longest cones (up to 23 inches), and Coulter pines have the heaviest (more than 8 pounds), while giant sequoias have the thickest bark (up to 2 feet).

THE NORTHERNMOST TREE

Trees can generally grow as far east, west or south as the continent extends but in the north there is a limit that few trees can reach, and none surpass.

The Other Champions


Winter cold, however, is not the problem. More than a handful of tree species thrive in the region of Snag, Yukon Territory, Canada, which holds the

lowest recorded tempera-ture in North America at -80°F. Trees endure such bitter cold with special chemicals that cause water to freeze into a glass-like solid (a process called vitrification, if you want to sound impressive). This prevents the formation of deadly ice crystals that can puncture cell walls.

Instead, the northern limit of tree growth is largely determined by sum-mer cold that restricts pho-tosynthesis and growth to less than 10 weeks. Beyond the northern treeline, all available energy has to be put into leaves, which make the food, and roots, which

store the food. There’s little left over to make wood to support a taller plant, so the “trees” are restricted to the stature of shrubs. Treeline in North America reaches its most northern point on the Tuktoyaktuk

Peninsula in the extreme northwestern corner of the Northwest Territories, but isolated clumps of small trees may be found at a similar latitude north of the Brooks Range in Alaska. About a dozen tree species are found in these areas although the only ones to reach tree size are tamarack, white and black spruce, balsam poplar, quaking aspen and Alaska paper birch.

Which of these is the champion northernmost tree? Tree-sized white spruce have been found within a few miles of the Beaufort Sea in northern Yukon Territory. But according to the renowned Arctic ecologist, E. C. Pielou, balsam poplar is the most northern tree. If so, it wouldn’t look like much next to the 421-point champion in Sequim, Wash., but it would be a champion survivor out on the northern edge of what is possible for trees. Which-ever is the true northernmost champion, its reign won’t be for long as global warming pushes treeline northward. If you don’t require the champion northernmost tree to actually be tree-sized, then the crown goes to feltleaf willow. The biggest specimen, in Thompson Pass, Mich., is only 91 points, but, as a shrub, its range extends to the north side of Banks Island, some 530 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Of course, the growing season problem of northern treeline is mirrored in the high elevations of mountains. Since treeline is higher at lower latitudes, the highest growing trees in the U.S. are

This treeline is located at roughly 12,000 feet above sea level in the Sawatch Range in Colorado.

40,000 106 acres

6,600 tons

80,000

genetically identical trunks

year old root system

These are some of the eye-popping statistics attributed to the quaking aspen called The Pando, or Trembling Giant, located near Fish Lake in Utah.


found in Colorado and the southern Sierra Nevada of California. The champion is out there, blasted into a twisted, stunted form, just 12,000 feet above sea level. It could be an Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir or Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine in Colorado, or a foxtail, whitebark or limber pine in the Sierra Nevada. The challenge to find it is yours.

THE TREE COVERING THE LARGEST

GEOGRAPHICAL AREA

An individual tree’s success may be measured by its size, age or number of offspring. But, the success of a tree’s species is measured by its population size and geographic distribution. The champion Ameri-can tree for geographic area, and possibly number of individuals, is the quaking aspen. It ranges from Alaska to Newfoundland, Canada, covering 110 degrees of longitude (nine time zones), and from north of the Arctic Circle to central Mexico, some 49 degrees of latitude. That’s more than half the distance between the equator and the north pole.

Quaking aspen not only covers more of the globe than any other North American tree, it also represents a challenge to the crowns of both General Sherman and Methuselah. Perhaps you’ve heard of Pando (meaning ‘I spread out’), also called the Trembling Giant. This individual, but clonal, quaking aspen, composed of about 40,000 genetically identical trunks all connected by a vast root system, grows near Fish Lake in Utah and covers 106 acres. At an estimated 6,600 tons, it is nearly five times heavier, and bigger in volume, than General Sherman. And, its root system may be 80,000 years old, making it 16 times older than Methuselah! If that age is correct, Pando began its life right around the time our Homo sapiens ances-tors first left Africa, when we still shared the planet with other human species.

There are many other superlatives of trees one could consider to recognize additional champi-ons. Which is the most huggable? The most beau-tiful? The most inspirational? The most loved?

A matter of opinion, you say? Exactly.So, get out there, whether into the back of

beyond or your own backyard, and based on the superlative of trees that inspires you the most, find and crown your own champion tree.

Whit Bronaugh is a nature enthusiast, author,

photographer, scientist and educator. He recently

completed his first novel, “The Amazon Triangle.”Top and bottom: The largest American tree for geographic area, and possibly number of individuals, is the quaking aspen.

The Other Champions

S E E K I N G A N C I E N T

Navigating the swampy waters of western Tennessee

BY JESSICA DIXON

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MARK BABB, owner of Ghost River Outfitters, hoists my kayak up the muddy bank, avoiding the exposed roots of a downed tree. I stand up and steady myself on a branch as he pulls the kayak around the tangle of roots and back into the Wolf River, a Mis-sissippi tributary, completing the portage with routine ease. A na-tive Memphian, he has paddled this river all his life.

Babb and a friend, both fire-fighters, founded Ghost River Outfitters in 2004. For years, they’d get off work at the fire department and spend a day on the river, often venturing into their favorite part of the Wolf: The Ghost River Section. Friends kept asking to join, so they’d buy another boat.

“Word just got out,” Babb says. “People would call, and if we were available, we’d drive up.”

Ghost River Outfitters still operates by word-of-mouth, now run mostly by Babb and his son, attracting people like me who crave wild spaces. The Ghost River Section, a nearly nine-mile stretch of river from LaGrange to Moscow, Tenn., spans five ecosystems, and my excitement grows with each bend in the river. Yager Bridge — the put-in point in LaGrange — spans an upland forest populated by oak, hickory and ash.

The trees at Reelfoot Lake are fully leafed from May through September.D

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S E E K I N G A N C I E N T C Y P R E S S

The Ghost River Section is not a journey for novice paddlers. Locals have traversed this stretch of the Wolf for generations, but in the 1990s, Wolf River Conservancy members installed trail markers to help adventurers who suddenly find themselves in a river turned swamp.

It is a Tuesday, and we are alone on the river. The outfitters here are family-owned, and they share a sense of responsibility for this pristine part of the river, which escaped channelization.

“A lot of paddling has a reputation for partying, but we cater to more experienced paddlers who respect and appreciate nature,” Babb says.

The cypress swamp itself has remained untouched, but other parts of the river did not escape human impact.

“I could tell you,” Babb says, “as soon as 20 years ago, it was not uncommon for me to pass people on the bridges with their pickup trucks full of trash, throwing it into the river and waving because they didn’t think anything of it. You don’t

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Gafford leads Dixon into the Ghost River Section: an eerily beautiful cypress swamp.

So far, there’s no need for strict regulations or enforcement — the Conservancy, outfitters and local geocachers and canoe clubs treat this other-worldly place like a beloved community elder, worthy of respect and some help with yard work.


Left: Cypress knees, a symbol of the swamp, provide a unique obstacle for kayakers. Below: Spirit Lake, a currentless expanse, lies on the far side of the Ghost River Section.

see that anymore. This effort to clean up the river and let it restore itself has changed a lot of people’s attitudes.”

So far, there’s no need for strict regulations or enforcement — the Conservancy, outfitters and local geocachers and canoe clubs treat this other-worldly place like a beloved community elder, worthy of respect and some help with yard work.

“My fear is one day we may lose that and have to come up with regulation that can be enforced to pro-tect it, because it’s too easy to damage,” Babb says.

To help me understand the ecosystem, Babb has invited along Jim Gafford, a white-bearded river guide with the Conservancy, which has been protecting this area since the mid-1980s, saving it from a logging attempt in 1995.

I ask how Gafford became involved with the Conservancy, and he brushes aside the esteem woven into my question.

“I had always been active in volunteering and paddling,” Gafford says. “So, in 2011, when I saw an advertisement for river guides with the Wolf River

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Conservancy — and they enticed me with beer and pizza — I just showed up, and I have not regretted it.”

Gafford paddles his one-person canoe ahead of me, drifting just past earshot and waiting for me to catch up, telling me about this land he so clearly loves. He points out Virginia sweetspire due to bloom later this year, motions to an old maple with its rose-colored seed pods hanging like a delicate chandelier above our heads, and I sense he would be equally happy greeting these familiar

friends alone. He is utterly self-sufficient in his conversation with the river, and I am lucky to listen.

After a granola bar pit-stop around mile four or five, the river banks start to drop, urging flood waters to overflow their channel and saturate the wooded land on either side. Here, in the bottomland or wetland forest, we begin to see water-loving species like American hornbeam, catalpa, sycamores, river birches and the tree I’ve traveled to see: bald cypress.

The first cypress trees, with their knobby knees poking above the water’s surface, thrill me, hinting at what is to come.

The river’s left bank begins to fall away, and chutes extend into the forest.

“If you pick the wrong chute,” Gafford says, “that eventually gets to dry land, and you won’t have a way out. The river just kind of disappears unless you hit the right areas.”

Only one of those channels will lead us where we want to go: the cypress swamp.

“I grew up in Memphis,” Babb says, “and just like most Memphians, what we used to take for granted — you could just drive out in the country and camp and enjoy nature — became less

and less available. Now, we just have tiny pieces where we can do that.”

We continue paddling toward what looks like a dead end surrounded by tall grasses. A small, hand-painted sign instructs us to “Turn Here.” We do, entering the swamp with hushed voices,


“I grew up in Memphis,” Babb says, “and just like most Memphians, what we used to take for granted — you could just drive out in the country and camp and enjoy nature — became less and less available. Now, we just have tiny pieces where we can do that.”

Below: The bald cypress growing in Reelfoot Lake have stood their ground since a series of earthquakes flooded the forest in 1811-1812.


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hearing only the lapping against our boats, our paddles breaking the water’s surface.

Tall grasses and spatterdock open into a vast, disorienting maze of bald cypress trees, their knees bumping the sides of my kayak as I steer around wide trunks and thin branches just starting to push their needles. With innumer-able channels and the eerie cypress silhouettes, I understand how the Ghost River Section earned its name. These bald cypress and water tupelo are likely hundreds of years old; their bases fan out near the water’s surface, several feet lower than the high-water mark indicated on their trunks.

A blue heron navigates the sky more grace-fully than I steer my kayak, landing in the swamp with us, just out of sight. I ask what wildlife Babb and Gafford usually see along the river: herons, fish, turtles, otter, water snakes. Sometimes a deer. The bald eagles are coming back.

Left: Sunrise at one of Reelfoot Lake State Park's fishing piers. Below: Strong winds and rapidly dropping temperatures combine to create these dramatic ice formations, which typically appear for a brief time in winter.

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After about half an hour of tricky paddling, we emerge into Spirit Lake, a still expanse surrounded by cypress and tupelo casting stark reflections on the water. With no current to help us along, I start to find the edge of comfort, laying my paddle across my lap to rest my wrists. By the far side of the lake, I am grateful for the swiftest current yet, funneling the water into a channel once more, flanked by grassy banks and signs of civilization.

Moscow’s Bateman Bridge marks the end of our trip, but my journey continues.

The next day, I drive from Memphis to Reelfoot Lake, two hours northeast of the city. Reelfoot Lake formed when earthquakes in 1811-12 caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards, flooding a bottomland cypress forest. Though it has 14,000 acres of boatable water, the lake is shallow — only five feet deep — and covers remnants of a sunken forest dotted with ancient Native American ceremonial mounds.

The lake’s shoreline is rimmed by trees; some of the big pre-quake trees are 300-500 years old. A handful of cypress stand in the lake, gnarled and stunted, still alive but no bigger than they were in 1812.

Much of the Mississippi River floodplain was turned into farmland, so Reelfoot Lake provides a portal to the days before development. Most of the land around the lake is a wildlife refuge; 244 acres are state park land. Ranger Jerry Hall drives me around the lake in a small pontoon boat — the Atlantian forest of tree stumps beneath the surface precludes speed boats and jet skis.

Before we set out on the pontoon, Hall received a call about a wounded bald eagle. With around 35 active nests, they often field such calls.

“How do you catch a bald eagle?” I ask.Hall pauses, his expression wry: “We got big thick

gloves and a little bit of courage.”We approach one of the surviving trees in the

lake, bearing a large osprey nest. As we slowly motor by, Hall relying on decades of experience

Top: While not on their historic migration route, pelicans have visited Reelfoot Lake for about the last 15 years. Bottom: The pelicans' new migratory route now brings them to Reelfoot each fall, in October and November.

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and a few buoys to avoid submerged trunks, an osprey emerges, gliding across the lake in search of dinner. Situated along the Mississippi River, Reelfoot Lake hosts incredible flocks of birds each year, from pelicans to hummingbirds.

It is just past peak bald eagle season when I visit in April, but I strain to see one Hall has spotted in a shoreline tree. Egrets and herons are less elusive, lifting their spindly legs as they poke around the cypress knees at the water’s edge.

The rangers here lead guided canoe and kayak trips in spring and fall — humid Southern sum-mers are better suited for pontoons — so visitors can explore the lake’s more remote areas.

Ranger Hall drives around as much of the lake as he can before a storm blows in, steering us back toward the nature center, which houses a sanctuary for injured birds — typically eagles, hawks and owls — that can’t be rehabilitated. One of the eagles lets out a squeaky whistle, leaving me searching for the source.

“They use red-tail hawk cries for eagles in mov-ies,” Hall explains.

I part from Ranger Hall and wander the lakeside boardwalk, wondering what lives these trees have seen drift by below their branches. After I return home, I will learn that in the last three years, people here noticed burned cypress needles — the pesticide Dicamba is thought to have become airborne in the fog. No trees have

died, but the potential long-term effects are unclear, so the Rangers and the community are watching closely, working to do right by the trees.

The oldest of these were vibrant saplings, needles growing in the sun, long before this land would be called Tennessee. I imagine they know these plainspoken men are part of a commu-nity of locals who love the land. Who quietly do their work to protect these places — sometimes paid and some-times not — asking only for people to get on the water, out amongst the trees, and marvel. It is an easy thing to do.

Jessica Dixon is a writer and curious

soul living in Denver.


Top and bottom: The pelicans' new migratory route now brings them to Reelfoot each fall, in October and November.

Situated along the Mississippi River, Reelfoot Lake hosts incredible flocks of birds each year, from pelicans to hummingbirds.

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40 | WINTER/SPRING 2019 AMERICAN FORESTS40 | WINTER/SPRING 2019 AMERICAN FORESTS

2018 FORESTS IN FOCUS PHOTO CONTEST

WINNERS1

AMERICAN FORESTS WINTER/SPRING 2019 | 41AMERICAN FORESTS WINTER/SPRING 2019 | 41

1 GRAND PRIZE WINNER

“Desert Canvas”PHOTOGRAPHER: Everett Bloom (CA)

LOCATION: Joshua Tree National

Park, Calif.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE:

“Star trails during a full moon. This is about 4 hours of photos. The tree is illuminated from behind by a car’s headlights, and I definitely like this more than the usual front illumination. I try not to light paint anymore since it’s annoying to people who are enjoying the parks after dark and is not necessary if you have some moonlight combined with a long exposure.”

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER:

Everett is a nature enthusiast who enjoys photography that captures the beauty of the natural world. He hopes to one day use photography to promote conservation efforts.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“I love this picture! I actually had to make sure it wasn’t a composite because the placement of Polaris, the star around which all others revolve, is so perfect. The backlighting of the Joshua Tree puts the exposures of the tree and the uni-verse in perfect harmony. I love the way the branches glow. This is a superb image

and one that I enjoy looking at over and over again!”

— Chuck Fazio, American Forests Artist-in-Residence

2 WINNER: FOREST LANDSCAPES

“Cape Flattery”PHOTOGRAPHER: Nick Hanyok (MD)

LOCATION: Cape Flattery, Wash.


“I am constantly amazed by nature, and this shot takes me back to a time I was in

complete awe. I took this with my D750 at Cape Flattery on Thanksgiving Day. What’s so amazing to me is how the clus-ters of trees are perfectly placed on top of the rock stacks, constantly battered by the waves and wind — completely natural and raw, yet peaceful and majestic. The entire hike to this point was cloudy and rainy. Once we reached the end though, the sunlight pierced through the fog and clouds, the rain stopped, and, for me, the view at that moment stopped time. Mother nature gave a show that day I’ll never forget.”


Nick has always loved photography, ever since he was a kid to be exact, running around with a polaroid and a 35mm. He has followed his passion through travel photography over the years, and in 2016, he began Nick Hanyok Imaging. He helps businesses and marketing agencies on the east coast through commercial work and captures love stories of elegant and adventurous couples from California to Maryland with his lifestyle work. See more of Nick’s work at www.nickhanyo-kimaging.com, or follow him on Facebook and Instagram at @nickhanyokimaging.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“The photographer made the right decision to photograph Cape Flattery, the furthest northwest tip of the United States, on a day when rising mist and

the pounding surf captures nature in motion. The photograph is taken during early morning, as the sun dramatically backlights the billowing mist. The three dominant rock outcrops forming a triangle are excellent composition. The almost monochromatic color adds to the powerful mood of the picture.”

— Lou Mazzatenta, Former National Geographic Photo Editor and Photographer

3 WINNER: BIG, BEAUTIFUL TREES

“The Watchman”PHOTOGRAPHER: Arthur O’Leary (OH)

LOCATION: Muckross Abbey, County

Kerry, Ireland


“This was taken in an old Irish monas-tery. These Yew trees are a long-lived species once believed by the monks to symbolize eternity.”


Arthur is an amateur photographer specializing in nature and landscapes, but with an interest in all photography. He currently resides in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife, Brooke. They travel

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as much as possible in their free time. Arthur looks forward to continuing to grow in his craft so he may share his pas-sion for travel and lifestyle photography.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“Having recently visited this tree in Killarney National Park in Ireland, I had a special connection to this image. This Yew tree is located in a historic abbey totally isolated from any other trees. It’s definitely a testament to the power of nature. The image is a great portrait of the tree showcasing its twisting trunk

and ancient surrounding.”

— Brian Kelley, Photographer and American Forests Visual Archivist

4 WINNER: FOREST CLOSE-UPS

“Sapling”PHOTOGRAPHER: Peggy Yaeger (KY)

LOCATION: Daniel Boone National

Forest, Ky.


“I love taking photos of things that show detail and that people might overlook. . We were on our way to hike to Dog Slaughter Falls in Daniel Boone Forest in Southeast Kentucky, when I spotted this sapling sidelit by the early morning light, glowing with the promise of new life.”


Peggy is a retired primary school teacher in Corbin, Ky., and she and

her husband love to hike and explore the natural beauty of Kentucky and Tennessee. Photographing nature, especially the forest floor and fauna, is her passion. She belongs to the local photography club APS, which has helped her enhance her skills and eye for photography.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“I love the forest close-ups category because it gives such a different perspec-tive to the vast, breathtaking landscapes we so often see in nature photography. This photo especially details the new life growing on the forest floor, from

the leaves reaching toward the sun to the water droplets reminding us of the necessary elements to create a thriving

natural world.”

— Emily Barber, Marketing Manager, American Forests

5 WINNER: FOREST WILDLIFE

“Cubby Hole”PHOTOGRAPHER: Dave Shaffer (WI)

LOCATION: Northern Wisconsin


“One morning this past Spring, I heard the telltale sound of tiny claws on thick bark. I quietly approached and saw a mother bear sleeping beneath a pine and her two little cubs noisily play-ing in the branches above. I sat down a safe and respectful distance away. Soon the entire family was sleeping.

I waited and waited. After a while mom woke and stirred about the area, soon she came to rest at the base of the tree. In a flash the two little cubs woke and raced down the tree to be with mom. She sat up, and her two precious cubs latched on. Mom seemed so proud, it was as if she was show-ing them off to me. I felt so blessed to be given the opportunity to bear witness to these magical moments.”

ABOUT THE

PHOTOGRAPHER:

Dave has long been devoted to spending time alone in wild places. His passion for unspoiled nature and wildlife has allowed him to bear witness to countless magical moments, such as the one captured here. Dave enjoys sharing these special


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moments in nature with others through his photography. More of Dave’s work can be found on Facebook a Bear Witness Images or at www.bearwitnessimages.com.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“The picture of the proud bear mother nursing her cubs jumped out at the judges immediately and rose to the number one slot in short order. It is such a wonderful moment in nature with her striking such a regal pose while clutching the cubs as they nurse. It was a very strong category, but the judges felt strongly that the moment and the pose pushed it to the top spot. All judges agreed that this was a striking photo-graph of a very unique and rare moment

in nature. Bravo.”

— Jonathan Newton, Staff Photographer, Washington Post

6 WINNER: CREATIVI-TREES

“Suspended”PHOTOGRAPHER: Morgan Lytle (SC)

LOCATION: Fair Play, S.C.


“While out hiking one day, I came across this suspended leaf. I captured

the image using Olympus OM-D EM-1 and Olympus 12-60mm lens. I then played with some texture effects in Corel Paintshop.”

ABOUT THE

PHOTOGRAPHER:

Morgan has been enjoying photography for close to 20 years. Many of her images can be found in private collections and small galleries around the Southern United States.

While she has crossed over into off-road photography, her love still lies in creating artistic images.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“While the colors are subtle, the contrast and composition are superb and make this photo a visual tone-poem. The photographer has used her creativity (as per the category) to place an image that captures crisp, lyrical light illuminating the edges of the leaf, its veins and the branches on which it is caught — against a back-ground that looks like a watercolor

painting, layered with imprints that suggest leaves.

— Lea Sloan, VP of Communications, American Forests

7 WINNER: FORESTS & PEOPLE

“Scale”PHOTOGRAPHER:

Stacy Smith Evans (VA)

LOCATION: Shenandoah National

Park, Va.


“I took this photo two years ago dur-ing a weekend trip to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was a sunrise-less morning at the moun-tain overlooks, so my husband and I drove to Big Meadows to look for deer. We arrived just as a heavy fog rolled in behind this huge oak tree with outstretched branches running nearly parallel to the ground. I knew I wanted to illustrate the tree’s size, so I asked my husband, who is 6 feet tall, to stand under it. I like to say I added a husband for scale.”


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44 | WINTER/SPRING 2019 AMERICAN FORESTS44 | WINTER/SPRING 2019 AMERICAN FORESTS


Stacy Smith Evans is a landscape and portrait photographer based in North-ern Virginia. Her favorite subjects include the cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C., and the mountains and forests of nearby Shenandoah National Park. Though she loves to travel to new places, she has always called Virginia her home. Please visit www.stacysmithe-vans.com to view her latest work.

WHY WE LOVED IT:

The power of this photo is its inher-ent story and could suggest a thousand captions. The grand presence of the tree makes it a stand-in for Tree of Life or Tree of Knowledge. The man leaning against it, not more than a quarter its age, seems to be the wiser for his contact with the magnificent spreading form, per-haps seeing things he did not see before, or in ways that he hadn’t

seen them. The black and white treat-ment is perfect to convey the photo’s

mystical qualities.

— Lea Sloan, VP of Communications, American Forests

8 WINNER: ASPIRING PHOTOGRAPHERS

“Young Tree Growing in Fence Post, Kaua’i”

PHOTOGRAPHER: Isis Clark Hunter (HI)

LOCATION: Upper Kapahi

(looking North towards Anahola),

Kaua’i, Hawai’i.


This is the first contest Isis has entered. Isis and her dad, Paul, were specifically out looking for photo subjects for the contest. She spotted this cute little lichen-covered tree growing right out of the old fence post on a country road. Isis stood on the tailgate of the pickup truck to get the photo framed perfectly. The photo was edited in Light Room and taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, with an EF 70-300MM Lens f/4-5.6L IS USM (focal length 95mm, ISO 100).


Isis is 11. She enjoys photography, gymnastics and making YouTube videos as “Kauai Cookie.”

WHY WE LOVED IT:

“This image has a great sense of atten-tion to detail from the photographer. Here, we have a fence post, a ‘dead’ tree so to speak, with new life sprout-ing from it. I love the poetry in this moment of new life coming from the old. There is lovely separation between the new tree and the background that allows us to take in the vast landscape while not becoming distracted or losing the sense of place. This photog-rapher already has a great eye and will only continue to improve!”

— Kristen McNicholas, Associate Photo Editor, Your Shot National Geographic

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KEEPING GREEN FORESTS GREEN (and healthy) has been a priority for Dana Walsh for more than a decade. Currently a silviculturist in Eldorado National Forest, Walsh has worked for the U.S. Forest Service for the entirety of her career and, in recent years, has found herself on the cutting edge of climate-informed forest restoration.

After graduating from Sierra Col-lege in 2002 with an associate’s degree in forestry, Walsh attended Humboldt State University to continue her stud-ies. During that time she was a student trainee for the Forest Service. Upon graduating in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in forestry, Walsh started working for the Forest Service, where she has been for the last 12 years in a number of capacities.

“The more I learned about forestry, the more I was enthralled with it and knew that it was something that I wanted

to work in, study and continue to learn about,” Walsh explains.

Working in Eldorado National Forest puts a good chunk of her life in the Sierra Nevada, although she is some-

times called to work in other areas of the country. A recent trip had her work-ing on fire restoration efforts on the South Oregon coast for four months, giving her a chance to use her skills in a different location, but she’s always glad to return home to California.

“The Sierra Nevada are a beautiful, wonderful landscape to begin with,” Walsh says. “Plus, I really like restora-tion forestry, and the ecology of the Sierra Nevada aligns really well with what needs to be done to make it a resilient system.”

For a significant period of time, Walsh’s work focused on restora-tion in forests unaf-fected by forest fire, making them healthier and more resilient. Thick for-ests that exist due to years of fire sup-pression can be managed to make them less susceptible to fire, an important task as wildfires become increasingly more prominent and powerful. Deciding how to manage forests is a multifaceted question that doesn’t always have one answer.

“I am a big proponent of using multiple different tools,” Walsh says. “So, I don’t think that any one method should be done everywhere. I think there’s good reason for different tools

earthkeepers

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“I went from working on all of these thinning fuel-reduction projects with a fire component to restore ecosystem function and health for several years to the King Fire burning up or burning over almost every project that I’d worked on in the first 10 years of my career.”

Making Forests Green AgainBY LIZ HARPER

Walsh in the Stumpy Meadows area of the King Fire overlooking the Rubicon Canyon, where areas had been mechanically site prepped on the Georgetown Ranger District of the Eldorado National Forest in the spring of 2018.


to be used, depending on what your objective is for the future.”

Management treatments that help advance forests toward resiliency vary, and Walsh’s work dealt extensively with fuel reduction through a variety of methods. Ladder fuels are reduced with the removal of trees in overly dense areas. Surface fuels can be eliminated through mastication or through piling and burning. Prescribed fire is used as a treatment on its own and as a follow-up to other fuel-reduction efforts. Such components of forest management are complex to begin with and they tend to intersect during implementation.

However, with the onset of the King Fire in 2014, her focus changed.

“I went from working on all of these thinning fuel-reduction projects with a fire component to restore ecosystem function and health for several years to the King Fire burning up or burn-ing over almost every project that I’d worked on in the first 10 years of my career,” Walsh says.

A number of projects Walsh was working on at the time weren’t fully implemented and, thus, suf-fered when the 97,771-acre wildfire burned through El Dorado County. Only com-pleted projects performed well though, according to Walsh, with resilient forest structure remaining even after the fire came through.

Following the King Fire, Walsh found herself working in the world of post-fire forest restoration efforts. Knowing that they couldn’t restore the entire fire area, Walsh and her colleagues focused on certain aspects of the land within the burn area to determine which areas to restore and which to leave to natural restoration.

One important aspect of the assess-ment and decision-making process is determining how to manage the res-toration to best benefit the forest. The original dominant forest type is a fac-tor as well, in addition to accounting for a stand’s vulnerability to climate change and future wildfires. Areas that are likely to naturally regenerate aren’t as high priority as areas that won’t.

“We wanted to look for where we could be successful and where it made the most sense to restore,” Walsh says. “We really looked at different topographic positions and different vulnerabilities to design the reforesta-tion and the projects.”

In some cases, the original dominant forest type of an area has disappeared due to competing species and over-growth. In areas where fire suppression caused conifers to overtake popula-tions of California black oak, the ideal situation would return that area to hardwoods rather than conifers. Walsh

didn’t want to actively restore those areas in hopes that the California black oak makes a reappearance.

Areas restored through active man-agement can create a resilient condition that Walsh says should be able to sustain itself and survive future fires. That is, after all, the goal of all the restoration work she’s done both in green forests and forests affected by wildfire.

“What keeps me going is the hope that we still have the ability to get ahead of some of these stand-replacing fires and create conditions where these land-scapes will be resilient,” Walsh says. “We need to speed things up a lot, and I think there is some motivation and momen-tum going on in the Sierra Nevadas right now to do so.”

Liz Harper was an American Forests fall

editorial intern and is a senior at Ohio

University, studying journalism with a

minor in English and a specialization in

communication studies.

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The Trestle Project, a forest health and fuels reduction project, is currently being implemented on the Placerville Ranger District of the Eldorado National Forest. This photo shows stand conditions immediately following a thinning that was designed to better emulate historic stand structures that would have been present under a natural fire regime (i.e. without fire suppression) and which are designed to make these stands more resilient to wildfire and insect attack.

last lookFEEDBACK FROM OUR FOLLOWERS


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this year’s Forests in Focus People’s

Choice Contestants!

1.“Great example of why you don’t al-

ways need to try for a perfect profile!

Great angle and lighting!” — Robert M.

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of the pines overlooking the melt-

ing pond. Great shot!!” — Jennifer T.

3.“I grew up in Wyoming along the

upper Green River where moose

were a part of the river. Always loved

seeing them and have great respect for

them. Love this photo.” — Merna W.

“A moost see!” — Scott B.

4.“Trees capture my soul…truly

remarkable shot! The contrasts are

sharp, vivid…the ageless canyon walls…

the living tree! ❤ ❤ ❤ ” — Joni B.

5.“It’s always so special when one

unexpectedly comes upon a scene

like this — and with camera in hand!

Lucky you! Love it!” — Ashia G.

For more amazing photography,

follow us on Facebook, Twitter

and Instagram.

2. Pine Trees with Blue Ice Melt by Tiffany Soukup

3. Hiding in the Green by Kinley Bollinger

4. Bottom Up by I-Ting Chiang

5. Fox and the Fish by Laurel Coffman

1. Black Throated Green Warbler by Joshua Galicki

PEOPLE’S CHOICE WINNER

For every loan LightStream funds for its customers, LightStream plants a tree through American Forests in one of our country’s fragile habitat communities. LightStream is the nation’s premier online consumer lender, providing financing for practically any purpose, at low rates and no fees.

© 2018 SunTrust Banks, Inc. All rights reserved. SunTrust and LightStream are federally registered service marks of SunTrust Banks, Inc. Lending services provided by SunTrust Bank, member FDIC.

Wherever your loan may take you, together we’ll improve life on our planet.

CLIMATE

WATER

WILDLIFE

PEOPLE

One Tree Planted for Every Green Electricity or Eco-Gas Customer.*

To learn more about our programs go to www.sfeenergy.com/earth-save, or call us at 1-877-316-6344*See agreement terms and conditions for details

Since 2013, SFE Energy has been a loyal supporter of American Forests and a proud provider of Green Electricity and Eco Natural Gas Programs. In fact, most of our energy customers choose “green”.

When you enroll in a SFE Green Electricity and/or Eco-Gas program, we, together with American Forests, will plant a tree on your behalf. So far, we have planted a whole forest of over 150,000 trees… and we’re just getting started!

SUMMITT_AF_BC_MagAd.indd 1 8/9/18 10:18 AM

forests€¦ · making forests green again how dana walsh has devoted her career in the u.s. forest...

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