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patreon, please visit for the wild

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dot world slash donate. Hello

0:50

and welcome to For the Wild

0:52

podcast. I'm Aiyana Young. Today

0:54

I'm speaking with Maya Kossla. What's

0:57

interpreted as destruction is

1:00

very often, very quickly, a

1:04

force of creation. Maya

1:07

Kossla is a wildlife biologist and

1:09

writer. She served

1:11

as Sonoma County Poet Laureate

1:14

2018 to 2020, bringing

1:16

Sonoma's communities together through poetry gatherings

1:18

and field walks after the 2017

1:22

fires. Sonoma County

1:24

Conservation Council, SCCC,

1:27

selected her as one of the 2020

1:29

environmentalists of the year. Her

1:32

poetry books include All Fires of Wind

1:34

and Light from 16 Rivers

1:36

Press, 2020 Penn Oakland

1:39

Josephine Miles Literary Ward,

1:42

Kiel Bone from Bearstar Press, a

1:45

Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize, and

1:48

Web of Water, Life in Redwood Creek.

1:51

Her writing has been featured in

1:53

documentary films including Village of Dust,

1:55

City of Water, about the

1:57

water crisis in rural India. Well,

2:02

Maya, thank you so much for

2:04

joining us today. In

2:07

preparing for this interview, I've been mentally

2:10

journeying back to the forest of Northern

2:15

California that I miss so much, and

2:17

it's a real pleasure to be able

2:19

to be transported there with

2:21

you today. Well, thank you. Thank you

2:23

for having me. So

2:26

I just want to start off by

2:28

saying I'm so impressed with your wealth

2:30

of knowledge on the forest of Northern

2:32

California, both from a

2:34

scientific and personal aspect. And

2:38

as many of the listeners know

2:40

this about me, I have just

2:43

found such a great deal of

2:46

love and wisdom and connection

2:49

and really familial

2:52

relationships with these forests. And

2:56

so I'm wondering, to ground our conversation,

2:58

if you can give us

3:00

an introduction to your relationship with the

3:02

forest. Specifically,

3:05

how do you exist in relationship with

3:07

these forests and what senses are

3:10

activated for you when among the

3:12

trees? Nice

3:14

big question to start with. Thank

3:17

you. I

3:20

have been working in

3:22

the forest for about eight

3:24

years in a more dedicated way.

3:27

But before that, I

3:29

think I started, if I was to say,

3:31

my very first interaction

3:33

with the forests of

3:36

Northern California was in Millwood National

3:38

Monument, where I was doing some

3:41

habitat typing of Redwood Creek, which

3:43

supports cover salmon and steelhead trout.

3:46

And that was a lot of hours

3:48

and hours of spending time in and

3:51

next to water in the middle of the

3:56

Millwood National Monument trees,

3:59

the giant. So

4:01

it was a great first

4:03

exposure and completely immersive

4:07

because there was this necessary work,

4:09

but also there was

4:12

another side that was sort of

4:15

bringing into focus some of

4:17

the more poetic aspects of

4:20

interacting with that world. And

4:22

subsequent to that, I've sort of immersed

4:25

myself in forests after fire. There was

4:27

always this question in Muir Woods, what

4:30

if a fire went through? Would you visit? How

4:32

would that change things? The fire is really

4:34

a part of this cycle. And

4:37

that was the question for a lot

4:39

of the visitors and during walks and

4:41

during guided tours. And of

4:43

course, not realizing that at

4:45

the time, I was about

4:47

to plunge into my own journey

4:49

of forests and how they behave

4:53

and make their incredibly

4:55

powerful stage by stage

4:57

comeback after wildfire. And

5:00

that's been, oh, I don't know. Sometimes

5:03

I think of it as probably

5:05

a thousand hours per year

5:07

somewhere in that neighborhood. Some

5:11

of it is immersive. Now a

5:13

lot of it is about just

5:15

field recordings, sound recordings, poetry and

5:18

poetry. And workshops

5:20

and even artistic

5:23

installations are working with others

5:25

who are interested in

5:27

artistic installations. So it's sort of covers

5:30

quite a wide range. Yeah.

5:34

Gosh, forest fires

5:37

are such a point of

5:39

contention. And

5:41

I'm thinking about this

5:43

connection with the

5:45

forest is so clearly a deeply

5:48

emotional one I would

5:50

imagine for both of us. And with

5:52

such closeness, I think comes an intimate

5:54

understanding of change. And that

5:57

change is not always a bad thing. And

5:59

so. I think it's so

6:01

important to recognize the dynamism of

6:03

the forest and its deep-rooted ability

6:06

to adapt even beyond our own

6:08

comprehension. And

6:10

I'm wondering, how

6:12

do you mourn for some of the

6:14

human-rot changes to the forest while

6:17

also bearing witness to its adaptive

6:19

capacity? It's

6:21

so interesting. One of my recent

6:24

poems, once we have

6:26

mourned and looked away, there's a change

6:28

that comes into the forest without our

6:30

permission. We don't know

6:32

where it comes from. It's mysterious and

6:34

deep. And there we go. The

6:37

biodiversity starts to

6:40

fall into place stage

6:42

by stage. So there

6:45

is an initial state of mourning, I

6:47

think, when

6:51

I see that through

6:54

our own current

6:58

knowledge and capacities, we're

7:01

putting ourselves as homes and

7:03

communities in danger

7:07

and sometimes too

7:10

much danger because there's

7:13

so much, the last few years,

7:15

I've evacuated three times from home. And

7:18

that spires have

7:20

come in within two miles. Embers

7:23

have come in probably closer. And

7:27

so the fire is being seen from

7:29

human eyes and human

7:32

eyes are recognizing fire as a destructive

7:34

force. In forests,

7:38

fire is one of the cycles,

7:43

sort of like hurricanes,

7:45

volcanoes, big

7:48

storms, snow. It's one of the cycles

7:50

and in particular, what's interpreted

7:53

as destruction is very often, very

7:55

often, quickly

8:00

a force

8:02

of creation. What is determined

8:06

as a mortuary is very quickly

8:08

a nursery. And that, the

8:11

mortuary to nursery analogy

8:14

I take from Dr. Tim

8:16

Inglesby's work, he leads

8:18

firefighters in the United for Safety, Ethics

8:20

and Ecology. I've been informed by his

8:22

work and many other folks' works.

8:28

So it's really not destruction. And

8:30

a pretty

8:33

good sized group

8:35

of scientists have been documenting

8:38

this opposite of destruction, this beautiful

8:41

creative force that comes in after

8:43

wildfire. So

8:45

that a lot of things

8:47

that are interpreted as dead, like if

8:49

you see little bottle brush leaves on

8:54

the Sequoia simpa virus, the tallest

8:57

trees in the world, then, and

9:00

interpreted as, oh my gosh, it's sick, it's

9:02

dying, it looks different, it's all charred, and

9:04

here's these tiny leaves coming up. That's not

9:06

the case at all. It's

9:09

just making a comeback and five years

9:11

from now, it's going to be

9:13

doing fine. The real

9:15

matter at hand is time. Well, there's

9:18

two real matters at hand at least. One

9:21

is our own safety, because our

9:23

sense of time is that the

9:25

very compacted emergency-based sense

9:27

of time. Leave,

9:30

leave now, do whatever you can,

9:32

take whatever you can, but leave.

9:35

But the first sense of time

9:38

is one of eons. It's one

9:40

of centuries. It's one of a

9:42

gradual comeback, and if our

9:44

sense of time sort of overrides

9:47

that, I want to see the forest

9:49

come back now, I want to see,

9:53

you know, not so much ash on the ground,

9:55

but everything else on the ground popping up automatically

9:57

right now, now, now. If

9:59

we If we do that, if we

10:01

become impatient, then yeah, of

10:03

course it looks like the forest is dead. We're not

10:05

giving it enough time. But what

10:08

I've been doing through

10:12

the works, independently following a lot of

10:14

the works in

10:16

the forests by colleagues,

10:19

scientists, and friends, is

10:22

following the forests and

10:24

their progress five years after

10:26

fire, 10 years after fire. And

10:29

where they are left intact, where they

10:31

are left to themselves, I'm

10:33

finding all manner of

10:35

every species that's known to

10:38

occur before the fire. So

10:41

the question is, you know, they're eating,

10:43

they're breathing, they're sleeping, they're,

10:46

I've seen foxes massage themselves,

10:49

little faces, looks like they're massaging themselves, against

10:52

newly growing instant cedar leaves.

10:55

It's, I've seen Pacific fishers

10:58

spotted owls right

11:00

close to very,

11:03

very intensely burned forests, even

11:05

hunting there, because of course, initially, at

11:07

least before all the growth comes back,

11:09

the mammals are really easy to see.

11:12

So the sense of mourning then

11:14

transforms into a sense of wild

11:16

sense of discovery and a need

11:21

for more immersion and a

11:23

need for more learning. I'm

11:25

also saying this as a companion to

11:27

the fact that culture

11:29

of burning is, has been known. I

11:33

don't know if you've seen that film, Elemental,

11:36

that was recently produced by Ralph

11:38

Blomer, it's a group up in

11:41

Oregon and filmed and

11:43

directed by Tripp Jennings. And

11:45

there's a line in Elemental

11:48

that says, this is

11:50

just, this is the beginning,

11:52

it's coming right back. There's

11:54

many lines like that, but you

11:56

know, we can dwell on the mourning, or

11:59

we can, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G,

12:01

right? The, that sad

12:03

morning. Or we can come

12:06

back and keep revisiting year

12:08

after year and seeing this

12:10

incredible biodiversity unfurling,

12:13

life unfurling. This

12:18

is such a, there's so

12:20

many strong threads that you pulled

12:22

on thinking

12:25

about deep time versus

12:27

our human

12:29

impatience. And I see

12:33

that in so many ways when it

12:35

comes to our

12:39

desire for fast-paced solutions

12:41

or what we think of,

12:44

you know, what we think we

12:46

need to do in terms of the

12:49

urgency of climate change and habitat

12:52

destruction. And I think

12:55

that even feeds into our desire for

12:57

instant gratification, whether it's from full after

13:02

a burn or Amazon prime, like

13:04

it's all coming from the same place

13:06

of this quick

13:10

feedback or quick shifts because

13:15

our lives are actually quite short. And

13:18

so I can, I can understand, I

13:20

have a lot of compassion for us that

13:23

we want to see things moving quickly.

13:26

And maybe in that there's a type

13:28

of security or safety. And

13:31

I think maybe that also stems from

13:33

wanting to control the forest or control

13:35

the land rather

13:38

than working with the

13:40

land's rhythms. And I

13:43

want to kind of explore

13:45

what that means in

13:47

terms of forest policies, whether that's before

13:49

a burn or after a burn. I

13:52

know when Trump was in office, and I might butcher

13:54

this a little bit, but I think in the farm

13:56

bill, or maybe

13:59

it was a climate change. Bill, there is

14:01

something about that

14:03

the forest, especially in California, needed

14:05

to be logged so they didn't

14:07

burn. And then there was also,

14:10

you know, the salvage

14:13

logging where once a forest has

14:15

been burned, cut all

14:17

of the trees down because the

14:19

forest is now a liability. And

14:23

so I'd like to explore

14:25

these policies with you. And

14:28

I'm just interested to hear how

14:31

you think these are

14:33

created the short-term thinking.

14:37

And what are the negatives

14:41

when we choose policies like that

14:43

versus if we are able to

14:45

have patience when it

14:47

comes to forest management? Yeah,

14:51

you know, just the thought, it's

14:54

sort of, I don't

14:56

want to sound too light-hearted about

14:58

it, but has everyone, anyone

15:00

ever thought of grass management? Grass

15:03

burns too. You know,

15:05

we never hear the term grass management.

15:08

And that's because grass has no value,

15:11

commercial value. Forest

15:13

management has been born

15:15

and brought up by an interest

15:18

in commercial value. And so anything

15:20

that goes hand-in-hand with forest management,

15:23

you've got to be really aware

15:25

of the fact that there

15:28

is a commercial aspect there. So

15:31

that, I'm not

15:33

saying it's the fox guarding the chicken

15:35

coop, not quite, because a lot of

15:37

forest managers are very well-meaning, very

15:40

reliable people. On

15:42

the other hand, the idea that

15:44

all forests

15:49

have to be wide and

15:51

open-spaced with

15:53

lots of light coming

15:55

in between and they're

15:57

too dense, they're too crowded. you

16:00

know, it's a judgment

16:02

call. And it's a judgment call

16:04

that several folks who

16:07

have not been contested in the

16:10

literature, including William

16:12

Baker, Mark Williams, Chad

16:15

Hansen, Dennis Odian, these

16:19

scientists have been calling into question

16:21

the idea that all forests have

16:23

to be widely spaced. Sure,

16:26

some mature forests have

16:28

that wide spacing. That's absolutely right.

16:31

You walk into ancient redwood forests

16:33

and you will see wide spacing

16:35

between big mature trees. That's

16:38

true. But what about

16:40

the little youngsters coming up, they come up

16:43

crowded and they outcompete each other and then

16:46

and then they space out

16:48

as time goes on. Again, back to

16:50

time. And what

16:53

about the areas that were

16:55

managed with cultural burning? Cultural

16:57

burning, which is very

16:59

much close at heart to me because

17:01

cultural burning is part of what

17:03

many East Indian tribes do

17:06

in the mountains in India, burning

17:09

every year, you know, that

17:11

sets up the forest dynamic where

17:14

there is some sort

17:16

of the low close to the ground, very

17:18

what we call bushy. That's

17:20

a bad term. It's more like shrubs

17:23

and herbaceous plants that are tall and

17:25

maybe some short trees. They

17:27

sort of get trimmed and burned and the

17:30

understory gets clearer. But is this

17:33

the case for all forests? Anyone

17:35

will tell you that you

17:38

don't find quails there. You

17:40

don't find fishers

17:43

there. Where they are is where

17:45

the shade is, where the ferns are, where the

17:47

mosses are, where the lichens are. That's

17:50

where you find, you're not finding

17:52

them in these cleaned up widely

17:54

spaced forests. So this exclusive idea

17:58

or imposition, if you will. that

18:00

all forests have to be widely spaced. And that's the

18:03

only answer we

18:05

have to work against fire

18:07

and climate change. Not

18:10

only is it taking out way

18:13

too many mature trees, live

18:15

and dead, both. As I said

18:17

before, you know, some people will think that

18:20

the little growths on

18:22

the limbs of trees and on the

18:25

top branches is the

18:27

sign that the tree is giving out

18:29

and about to blink out. It's exactly

18:31

the opposite. Redwoods survive like

18:34

that. That little, those little bottle

18:36

brush leaves are the

18:38

key to Redwood post-fire survival. So

18:42

actually hammering forests

18:45

with what you mentioned, salvage

18:48

logging after fire, but also

18:50

sending actions before fire is

18:55

imposing our value

18:57

system on forests

18:59

without necessarily taking into account

19:01

that both the

19:04

so-called widely spaced,

19:06

beautiful, big

19:08

stature forests, and

19:11

the tiny little one trees, forests

19:14

with smaller trees coming back in

19:16

after fire, both of them existed.

19:19

And there's a lot of evidence for

19:22

that. I mean, that's how little ones, you

19:24

see little ones carpet the forest

19:27

floor at the beginning

19:30

stages after fire. There's all

19:32

this conifer regeneration and

19:34

other regeneration. And

19:36

of course, mammals and small birds

19:39

are attracted to it and everybody else

19:41

is attracted to that because now everybody

19:43

has food because the small mammals are

19:45

back. So all

19:47

those little ones are pretty crowded and you

19:50

can't say they're unnatural just because they crowd.

19:52

That's just how they grow. Seeds

19:55

fall to the forest floor and they grow.

19:57

And then at some point, if they get

19:59

out competed, Some of

20:01

them survive and the rest, maybe

20:04

not. But to impose this idea that,

20:08

you know, we've got to widely space, create

20:11

wide spacing around all these forests, it

20:14

goes hand in hand with the

20:17

commercial forest management because for

20:19

anyone to survive doing that, they've got to

20:21

take out some of the biggest trees. It's

20:24

just going to happen. I've seen it over

20:26

and over again. I've been monitoring for over

20:28

10 years. You've got

20:30

to take out some of the biggest trees in order

20:32

to be able to make some kind of profit

20:35

on it, break even even,

20:38

you know, so. So

20:40

of course, a lot of big trees

20:42

are taken out in the

20:44

name of what they call thinning or

20:47

fuels management. So there's the policy

20:49

side of it. And of course, got laws, you

20:52

know that, oh, now we've got this idea

20:54

that, oh my gosh, we've got too many

20:56

dead trees. There's all these beetle kill trees,

20:58

there's all these fire related dead trees. Well,

21:02

the problem with taking out all the dead

21:04

trees, or even leaving very

21:06

few per acre, is that

21:09

those are the housing complexes, I call them,

21:12

I call the standing dead trees, the low income

21:14

housing of the wild, because

21:17

everybody lives there. Everybody makes homes

21:19

out of it. There's cavity nesters of all

21:22

shapes and sizes, birds and mammals that all

21:24

make their homes in there. So

21:26

now, if dead trees are being removed,

21:28

those are the housing complexes being removed.

21:31

And of course, you know, the idea is that being

21:34

circulated is that they burn

21:36

faster and will give

21:39

rise to just a much

21:42

bigger fire acreage. And

21:44

that's actually been proved to

21:47

be untrue. One of

21:50

the examples of that is Dr. Sarah Hart

21:52

did a 12 year study.

21:55

I think she's from Colorado. She

21:57

did a 12 year study of dead trees.

22:00

you know, dead trees versus not dead

22:02

trees and areas that were dominated by

22:04

standing dead trees. And

22:06

over and over and over she found that

22:10

the areas that were dominated by, you

22:12

know, standing dead trees, you know, burn

22:14

a whole lot differently from those

22:16

which were all live trees. So

22:19

it's these value judgments that

22:22

are being given and then what tangles

22:24

up with commercial extraction because

22:26

just that's just the way it's been

22:28

in the forests all this time. I

23:38

think the question of economics is one

23:40

that really rules

23:42

forest management, of course. It's

23:45

not about what's

23:48

best ecologically and

23:51

I'm thinking about

23:55

places I've been, especially

23:57

in the Sierras and the

24:01

forests that are east

24:03

of the

24:05

I-5 freeway for those of

24:07

you who have driven around

24:10

Northern California specifically and

24:12

I remember feeling so devastated

24:17

seeing big fires

24:19

roll in and then large

24:22

trees some of which were still

24:24

alive being taken

24:26

and just clear cuts then you think

24:28

about all of the erosion that

24:30

then happens and the soil that becomes

24:33

even more damaged

24:36

by post fire logging

24:39

and I think it's interesting too

24:41

that there's no value placed

24:43

on standing dead

24:46

trees for habitat and

24:48

I'm thinking about deep time

24:50

again and when a forest

24:52

is able to regrow the fires

24:55

bring new shoots and mushrooms like morels

24:57

and then the deer come in and

24:59

they eat the morels and they poop

25:01

and the soil gets the

25:03

fertilizer from the animals that are living in

25:06

these places and able to walk

25:08

through more easily and and then

25:10

when you strip all that away just

25:12

thinking of the forest soil and what

25:14

is able to regrow there over time

25:16

if we can you

25:19

know just thinking about the depletion between

25:21

logging and then pre fire

25:23

logging post fire logging and so on and

25:25

so forth it's like what are we setting

25:27

up the forest to be able to do

25:29

it's almost like we're taking

25:32

away some of their immune immunity

25:35

strength to regrow in a healthy

25:37

vibrant way and

25:40

so yeah just considering

25:42

all of the ways that

25:44

it's detrimental to log

25:47

post fire and I think

25:49

it's really challenging because for those

25:51

of us who are just

25:54

living our lives and we aren't

25:56

necessarily really engaged in policies or

25:59

forest management But

26:02

we're seeing these things not really knowing

26:04

why they're happening or maybe believing that

26:07

it is better to clear

26:09

cut these forests because we're scared, because

26:11

our homes are there. And so

26:14

I think it's hard for people

26:16

to know how to

26:18

stand and request from

26:21

their local governments or state governments

26:23

or even national governments of how

26:25

to manage these forests in

26:28

a better way. And so

26:30

I guess maybe I'm getting

26:32

to a question around how

26:35

do those of us who live in these areas

26:38

build relationships with

26:41

fire and forests and how do

26:43

we engage, whether

26:45

if that's on a political level or

26:48

a management level? Like, how do we

26:50

have our voices heard? Because I don't

26:52

want us to be listening

26:54

to this and thinking, oh, well, we

26:56

don't have any power here. We just

26:58

need to sit back and watch it

27:00

all burn and watch it all be

27:02

clear cut. And we don't have any

27:05

say in how these

27:07

places that surround us are

27:09

tended for the future. Yeah,

27:13

so, wow, thank you

27:15

so much for touching on so many things

27:17

about connected to helplessness, I

27:19

guess. I see incredibly

27:22

powerful films like Elemental and in

27:24

fact, by the way, Bring

27:26

Your Own Brigade, that very

27:29

clearly documents in one instance

27:32

how fast of fire, how

27:34

much faster a wildfire

27:36

can move through a

27:38

thinned or even clear cut forest.

27:40

So that's not only is the

27:42

carbon gone, but also

27:44

we've got the carbon

27:47

emissions related to that leading to

27:49

more climate change impacts because once

27:51

the carbon is gone, at

27:54

least a good fraction of it is going

27:56

straight up into the atmosphere, no matter which

27:58

type of processing is done. And

28:01

that's climate change for tomorrow,

28:03

worse wildfires for tomorrow. So

28:05

that carbon accounting is

28:07

not being done during

28:09

this clear-cutting operations, but also

28:11

the fact that the

28:13

next fire can actually move much quicker.

28:16

And that's exactly what has happened in

28:18

some of the tragic fires. And

28:21

yes, one eye is

28:23

turned to tragedy in

28:25

the beginnings of both those very

28:28

recent powerful films. However, I want

28:31

to turn my eye to where

28:34

do these homes clearly

28:37

survive? Dr. Jack Cohen, who

28:39

has done some of the seminal studies of

28:42

homes, structures surviving wildfire,

28:44

has said specifically you don't have

28:46

to live in a concrete bunker

28:48

in order to be able to

28:51

have your home survive a wildfire.

28:54

It's such an, it's

28:56

imprinted, that message is imprinted

28:59

into my brain as a sense

29:02

of hope. Not that you

29:04

want to plant yourself right in the middle of

29:07

where historic wildfires

29:09

have been, you

29:12

know, going, have found their path

29:14

fast and furious. No, not necessarily.

29:16

Don't be building right into that.

29:18

But on the other hand,

29:20

there's a sense of optimism. I

29:23

know two people I went ahead

29:25

and jumped into

29:27

some post fire, local post

29:29

fire monitoring as

29:31

soon as the 2020 Walbridge

29:33

fire in West of Healdsburg was

29:36

over. And found

29:38

all these animals coming back in.

29:41

Tremendous, beautiful, you know,

29:43

bird diversity, mammals. And

29:48

specifically my area of focus

29:51

was two homes. One

29:54

that stood standing after the wildfire

29:56

surrounded by redwoods. The

29:58

other one that did not. stand after

30:00

Wildfire, I did also buy the Wildfire also

30:03

surrounded by redwoods. What was the difference?

30:07

And so for me, and

30:09

in this case, the difference had a

30:11

lot to do with watering around the

30:13

home irrigation and the fact that they

30:16

had some water just a few hours,

30:18

they left the irrigation on and it was

30:23

watering not just around the house but I think the

30:25

roof as well. So here

30:28

you go, there's there's a difference

30:30

there there's the possibility of a

30:32

structure stand remaining standing after the

30:35

same Wildfire. There were two houses that were

30:37

just basically next door to each other. And

30:40

so the other home also surrounded

30:42

by redwoods but of course structurally

30:44

very different and not having that

30:47

irrigation set up to where it

30:49

would irrigate

30:51

the land immediately adjacent. So

30:53

I I really feel

30:56

strongly about talking about some of

30:58

those positive stories because what's

31:01

being built up more and more is the

31:03

fear of Wildfire. The

31:05

trees are going to bring your

31:07

house down during a Wildfire and

31:10

what's been shown over and over is

31:13

that where there's a crown fire over

31:15

100 feet from homes,

31:18

those homes have a capability,

31:20

capacity to stay standing

31:23

if careful measures are

31:25

taken. What are those measures?

31:28

Where are these stories of post-fire

31:31

survival? I'm seeing one or two crop

31:33

up and I feel

31:35

like focusing on those stories to

31:38

help us beef up against

31:40

the sense of intense

31:43

fear that blames forests over and

31:45

over again. Especially where

31:47

the blame leads to so

31:49

much deforestation that it actually

31:51

makes climate change and future wildfires worse.

31:53

So and the other thing you were

31:56

talking about is you were talking about

31:58

the snags being left in place. You

32:01

know, the snags, oh my goodness, look at

32:03

that standing there tree, it's going to burn

32:07

out. It's an aesthetic value. It's an

32:09

aesthetic, it's an imposed value.

32:12

Those snags being housing complexes

32:14

and, you know, of

32:16

course the woodpeckers started off, there's bugs,

32:18

then there's woodpeckers following the bugs, then

32:21

there's all these

32:23

other cavity nests just following the

32:25

woodpeckers, even the larger mammals, sort

32:28

of not bears, but definitely some

32:31

of the small ringtails and flying

32:34

squirrels, ground squirrels, excuse me, the

32:36

tree squirrels and even

32:38

Pacific fishers. So

32:41

these animals can come in and use

32:43

these snags, the cracks in the trees,

32:45

the faults, the flaws in

32:47

the trees, the reason people take trees down, oh

32:49

no, look at that, it's going

32:52

to be sick, it's going to die, we

32:54

better take that down. All

32:56

that stuff is being used. So on

32:59

one hand I want to see the positive

33:01

stories of homes and

33:03

structures surviving wildfire, on the other hand I

33:05

want to see the positive stories of

33:08

all these animals that rely on these

33:10

standing dead trees and also the living

33:12

trees with flaws and cracks in

33:15

them where they can make their little spaces

33:17

and raise their young. So

33:19

as much space as we give ourselves, we

33:22

can give to the other members

33:26

of the earth. I

33:28

guess there's a question that's coming

33:30

up for me around fires

33:33

and soil and thinking

33:36

about the arguments people make, like

33:38

oh well, the fires of today

33:41

burn hotter and faster and instead

33:44

of rejuvenating the soil or opening

33:47

the seeds of redwoods or other

33:49

species that need fire to

33:52

proliferate, that these hotter

33:56

fires are actually killing

33:58

the soil and they're killing

34:01

the microorganisms and the mycelium.

34:03

Do you... okay so

34:07

it's hard because part of

34:09

you's like you know how much

34:11

can we trust the

34:14

anti-forest fire rhetoric because

34:17

I think so much of blaming

34:19

the forest and of blaming fire

34:23

is to blame and otherize the earth

34:28

and that is what colonialism

34:30

and capitalism has done so

34:32

well is to sever us

34:34

from the living earth

34:37

and to say it's it's

34:39

bad it's evil it's dangerous

34:41

it's not in rhythm

34:44

with us like we need to

34:46

control it we need to harness

34:49

the power of it and

34:51

be the dominant ones and

34:54

so you know when I hear

34:56

things like oh fire is actually really

34:58

bad ecologically because like

35:00

I said you know one thing people are saying

35:02

is that it's burning up the health

35:04

of the soil do you

35:08

think that in some cases that is

35:10

true or do you think like how

35:12

do you dissect comments like that? It's

35:15

a great question thank you. I

35:17

focused a lot on post-biporists coming back

35:19

in where there's a lot of mature

35:21

trees and maybe I

35:24

should also focus on

35:27

areas where there aren't

35:29

that many mature trees where they've been

35:31

taken out. In fact when I think

35:33

about it sometimes on a way on

35:35

the way to one of the sites

35:38

that I regularly visit basically

35:40

all over California from Sequoia in the south all

35:42

the way to Lassen in the north I'll

35:45

pass an area where there's

35:48

very small trees left in

35:50

place and quintessential image is a

35:54

big tree it's been

35:56

burned okay so there's a

35:58

really large stump that's also been

36:00

burned. But it was obviously cut before the fire

36:03

because it's a stump that has

36:05

already been burned over. So it's

36:07

a huge stump. And then in the backdrop,

36:10

there's a lot of small trees and

36:13

they've all been charred to the nubs.

36:16

They've been charred all the way out

36:19

by the fire. And my

36:21

attention was drawn to this

36:23

juxtaposition between this big,

36:27

once tree, turned

36:30

into a stump during maybe

36:32

one or another thinning project long

36:35

before the fire. Who knows how many years before the

36:37

fire? And then the little ones were left and the

36:39

poor little ones didn't make

36:41

it at all. And the reason this, I was

36:43

inspired by another

36:46

colleague, Doug Bevington, who

36:49

was searching for images to see, do

36:51

you see this offer? Do you see

36:53

this thinned landscapes with the largest trees

36:56

removed and what's happening? And

36:58

I am seeing big,

37:00

big, big, what they call

37:02

high severity, like very, very little survival

37:05

of standing trees, high severity

37:07

fire in these areas.

37:09

And over and over again, I will

37:11

search around and sure

37:14

enough, I'll find one or

37:16

more, either

37:18

like a big log, like so

37:20

big, it's fallen over, right? So

37:22

it's taller than I am. The

37:25

diameter is way, way more

37:27

than my height. Or

37:30

I'll see this stump that's

37:33

been burned over and it was obviously removed before the

37:35

fire. Or I'll see both, I'll see a bunch of

37:37

both. And so I've developed this

37:39

habit of taking a photo of that with

37:41

this backdrop of tiny trees. And I can send

37:44

them to you. I've just got, I'm

37:46

just collecting them right now. It

37:48

seems to me fair because

37:51

the thinning was done in the name of

37:53

forest health. And we need to go

37:56

in there and see who's coming back there,

37:58

what's growing there. I

38:01

need to give that a fair shake

38:04

too, because I don't focus there

38:06

primarily because it's silent. But

38:08

that's just my impression right at that moment.

38:11

Maybe it will come back. There

38:13

is really no functioning forest that I can

38:15

see the elements that I like, like

38:18

a beautiful creek with ferns

38:20

and mosses, lichens on the

38:22

trees, some swath of live

38:24

trees, sort of close to

38:27

the heart of the flow of the

38:29

creek in this riparian corridor, oaks

38:32

coming back, little re-sprouts coming

38:34

down up from the ground, the

38:36

root re-sprouts, those little

38:39

signs. I'm not seeing them in those

38:41

areas. So I sort of, my

38:43

tendency is to just give up on those areas

38:45

really quickly. But that

38:47

is an area that burned fast and

38:50

fierce. That is an area that burned

38:52

hot. And that

38:54

is an area that needs help. But those are

38:56

areas that were already interfered with. And

38:59

I don't know whether the soil is dead or

39:01

not. I would have to come back.

39:03

I mean, you want to trust it a

39:05

little bit and see if I

39:07

can come back five years from then and

39:10

see what happens. For the

39:12

most part, however, those areas are

39:14

clear-cut. Not only

39:16

are they clear-cut, but it's

39:19

down to the bare soil at

39:21

the end of the clear-cut. And

39:24

what that means from my standpoint

39:27

is that the mycelial

39:29

network, subterranean mycelial network

39:32

is also being fragmented

39:34

by this mechanical operation. And that's

39:37

been proved in the literature over and over.

39:40

So if

39:42

it wasn't clear-cut, maybe we would have

39:44

a chance to see whether

39:47

things come back. But years after a

39:49

clear-cut, I've seen four or

39:51

five years after a clear-cut, nothing is

39:53

coming back. There's even trees

39:55

being planted and they're dying. And

39:58

because they need help in the... beginning,

40:00

little seedlings need help. They

40:03

need the shade, the moisture

40:05

provided by the logs, etc.

40:08

One of the regeneration studies, um,

40:10

conflict regeneration studies, I just helped with

40:12

as a sort of independent, I

40:15

helped Tanya Chi out in the field. She's

40:18

a scientist I work with

40:20

sometimes. And,

40:22

you know, we were seeing so

40:25

much regeneration in areas

40:27

that hadn't been cut for a

40:29

long time. There's a soil buildup,

40:31

there's this slight sponginess underfoot, whereas

40:34

in those areas that burned hot and fast,

40:38

that had a lot of evidence

40:40

of previous recent cuts, pre-fire thinning,

40:43

we were not seeing that come back. Now,

40:45

I mean, those are small

40:48

examples. All of

40:50

what I've said are small examples. Is

40:52

that happening everywhere? I don't

40:54

know. I think it's worth looking

40:56

at, but they are areas and we do have

40:59

the data, for example, you know, how

41:01

fast does a fire go? That's

41:03

easily available. Where

41:05

does a fire go the fastest? That's

41:07

easily available. We don't have

41:10

to sit, stand by and be helpless. We

41:12

can take a look at those things and

41:15

there's no need to sort of relegate forests

41:19

to the

41:21

forces that are at work right

41:23

now, which is primarily

41:25

the extraction industry saying, and understandably

41:27

so in some ways, without

41:30

any opposition, gosh,

41:32

we better take what we can. The

41:34

fires are just burning it. So, but

41:36

the question is, what does that mean? Does that mean

41:39

all the old growth? Apparently

41:41

that's counted now. I mean, the

41:44

Mossad Grove of Yosemite National Park

41:46

is being taken down as we

41:48

speak. And I'm not

41:50

just talking about, I'm not talking about the

41:52

older trees, the very, very old trees, but

41:56

really big trees, well over 20 inches

41:58

in the and diameter

42:01

are being taken down. I documented

42:03

it very recently. In

42:05

the name of, oh my gosh, a wildfire will hit

42:08

it and we need to do a fuels reduction. So

42:12

since that's actually been disproved in

42:14

the literature, like

42:16

it's sort of hit or miss, if

42:19

you take it down, we don't know if it's

42:21

gonna go through an intense

42:23

fire or not, it's sort of hit or miss.

42:25

It's not really the proof. So

42:28

then, you know, there is a lot

42:30

that we can do, I feel. It's

42:47

a good thing to stay in this time, I just say,

42:49

do what you can. It's a good thing to stay in

42:51

this time. Oh,

43:24

there's so much to this. And I'm

43:27

thinking about how the forests are

43:29

really really,

43:39

really, really, really, really, really,

43:42

really, really, really, really, really, thinking

43:45

about how the

43:48

forests are really, it

43:52

gets hard to put a blanket

43:54

solution on all forests.

43:58

Like I think about, with salmon

44:01

habitat restoration and adding in coarse

44:03

woody debris. And

44:05

there's these grants from the

44:07

government or projects from Cal

44:09

Fire or whoever, and

44:11

it's very much like, okay, every 100 feet you've

44:14

put a log jam in. It's like,

44:16

well, that doesn't make sense for every creek.

44:18

It doesn't make sense for every river. And

44:21

I think that way about pre

44:24

or post fire management, that

44:28

each little section of

44:30

forest is so different and has

44:32

a different history based off extraction. And

44:36

when we think of managing into the

44:38

future, it's really hard

44:40

to have these sweeping statements that I

44:44

think are being sold

44:46

to us by government agencies or

44:48

big organizations that are contracted out

44:51

to do this work. And

44:53

I also think, of course, it's

44:56

used to log more.

44:58

It's like these excuses

45:00

or justifications. And

45:02

it makes me think

45:05

of the debate

45:07

over restoration versus

45:10

conservation or proforestation

45:13

versus climate

45:15

change mitigation. And I think

45:19

because we are in a

45:21

type of post logging world at this

45:23

point, and what I mean by that

45:26

is if you think of the Pacific

45:28

Northwest, California, up to Alaska, what

45:30

98% of the old growth

45:32

forests have already been logged. So

45:35

we're working with such a

45:37

small amount of intact forest.

45:39

And of course, the bigger trees most

45:43

likely are the most monetarily

45:46

valued. And

45:48

so when I think

45:50

about how do

45:52

we manage at this

45:55

point where, you know, some of these plots

45:58

have been logged. three,

46:00

four, five times over and

46:03

are regrowing plantation forests. And

46:06

so hearing about your experiences

46:08

where you're looking at forest

46:10

with, you post fire with large trees

46:12

and then I think, okay, well, what is, what

46:15

are forests that have been plantation

46:18

forest burned? Like, what

46:20

are the differences between forest

46:23

and the ways they've been treated?

46:25

And then I think also, yeah, of course,

46:27

if you are a large logging company or

46:31

forestry company and you own hundreds

46:33

of thousands of acres of either

46:35

plantation forest or something like

46:38

a plantation forest, you

46:40

want to quote, protect your

46:42

investment. And it's not

46:45

about an investment for seven generations

46:47

or an ecological investment, it's a

46:49

timber investment. And

46:51

so I don't know if I have

46:53

a direct question. I'm kind of just

46:55

in the mud of the complications of

46:57

industry versus ecology

47:00

and all of the

47:02

different levels that

47:04

so many forests, I mean,

47:07

it's like, how do you even say forest at this point? Because,

47:09

you know, okay, well here's the Siskiyou

47:11

National Forest versus the Lassen National Forest.

47:14

Like, well, these were just borders put on by the government. And

47:17

you know, even within those hundreds of

47:19

thousands of acres forest, there could

47:21

be, you know, 10 acres

47:24

next to 100 acres next to, it's also

47:26

different, I guess, is what I'm

47:28

getting at. And I'm just sitting in the

47:30

complexity of it and maybe

47:34

just blabbing a bit, like the way that

47:36

I'm processing it all. And

47:38

I'll stop now before I just keep going into

47:40

this vortex and see if there's any way you

47:43

can help throw me a rope in

47:45

this place I'm in. Oh,

47:48

that's a great image, by the way. And

47:51

I like how you traveled from

47:53

the streams to the plantations, you

47:55

know, the stream restoration work with

47:57

every hundred feet can live. And

48:01

you can throw some conifers in and not every

48:03

creek meeting it. It does

48:05

this movement toward process-based restoration

48:08

in California.

48:10

And I'm sure it's been moving

48:13

through other states as well, where

48:15

they are incorporating large

48:17

and small woody debris into

48:19

very deeply incised creeks and

48:21

in some cases, well, creeks

48:23

feeding meadows, really. And

48:26

in some cases, it's incredibly helpful. Hand

48:29

in hand with some of those projects, it

48:33

looks like there's definitely

48:36

some extraction element going on. So

48:39

that, you know, so you've got

48:41

the almost like the Creek Restoration

48:43

Project ends up going

48:48

hand in hand with some level

48:50

of extraction in the forest. And

48:53

some of it is timber. And then

48:55

of course, some of it is sort

48:57

of hiding behind the veil of this

48:59

beautiful restoration project that's happening. So

49:02

what's really interesting is that we are

49:05

actually speaking about forests more

49:07

than we're speaking about grasses,

49:10

grasslands, meadows, chaparral

49:13

vegetation, all of which is

49:15

incredibly important for biodiversity

49:17

support. Some of

49:19

which comes back in stages at the

49:21

end of a fire, the grasses and

49:24

chaparral come back and you

49:26

have these incredible, you know,

49:29

biodiversity of chaparral nesting birds,

49:31

like the green-tailed towey and the

49:33

other toweys and the quails will

49:36

come back to inhabit this

49:41

that is making its comeback in

49:43

stages with the ground cover being

49:46

very thick initially. What's

49:50

really interesting as part of these restoration

49:52

projects that no one really talks about

49:56

is herbicide

49:58

application. Once these

50:00

forests are cut, they're

50:03

actually broadcast sprayed with herbicide. I just

50:05

witnessed it earlier this year for the

50:07

first time in, you

50:10

know, in person. Before that,

50:13

I'd heard about it and seen photos

50:15

taken with the warning signs

50:17

of skull and crossbones warning,

50:19

1% glyphosate, do

50:22

not enter, and then there's a date provided

50:24

after which you can enter. And

50:27

then after the herbicide applications

50:29

over, and I'm talking broadcast

50:32

applications, they're

50:35

planting the trees and of course some of the

50:38

tree plantations fail, which

50:41

leads me to tree plantations and

50:43

a recent piece

50:46

that I've read, a paper that came out

50:48

by Dunn, Steve

50:51

Dunn of Oregon and several

50:53

of his colleagues. I don't think he's a lead author

50:56

in that, although he's been a lead author in many

50:58

other papers talking

51:00

about plantations actually burning

51:03

with such high severity,

51:05

like they burn so fast and

51:07

furious, so hot

51:10

that they sort of burn,

51:12

sort of that influence spills

51:14

over into the adjacent forests

51:16

that are not necessarily plantations.

51:19

So that's the danger

51:21

of a plantation, is this

51:23

juxtaposition, this very close cheek

51:26

by jowl juxtaposition between

51:28

the plantation forest and,

51:31

you know, sort of a more

51:33

layered, multilayered, slightly more

51:35

natural forest that's also been cut at

51:37

some time in its history, like you're

51:39

saying. The

51:41

danger is that that plantation

51:44

is going to influence fire behavior in

51:47

the next area. And

51:49

the fact is that this plantation

51:51

style is all we have

51:53

when we hit bare ground. I mean, when

51:56

people are trying to plant, they're

51:58

just planting plants. I'm

52:00

not seeing anything highly

52:03

varied with a lot of beautiful trees. I'm

52:05

not seeing the chaparral. I'm not

52:07

seeing the native grasses. I'm

52:11

not seeing the native slender

52:13

stems monkey flower. I'm not seeing that comeback.

52:17

I'm just seeing, oh, we want trees.

52:20

Well, trees are not forests. You

52:23

can plant any number of trees, some of

52:25

which will die, of course, because

52:28

of the sort

52:30

of raising to the ground

52:33

of the habitat that came before. But

52:36

you can't plant a forest. And

52:38

that's something I, that's a quote

52:40

I got from Maya Menenez, who spoke at

52:42

COP26. I just think that we

52:45

just need to put our fear in the right

52:47

place. We are in a quagmire. You're

52:51

absolutely right about speaking out

52:53

of the sort of

52:55

quicksand of all

52:58

this various strands of

53:00

information, some

53:02

of which is a little slanted, if

53:04

I may be allowed to be frank, slanted

53:08

toward the extraction paradigm. Oh,

53:10

my gosh, it's all dying. They're all unhealthy.

53:12

We've got to space them out. We've got to take a

53:14

lot more trees out. We've got to take out 80 percent

53:17

of the trees, one publication this year. We've got to take

53:19

out more and more and more. And

53:21

the more and more and more is

53:23

sort of interesting because nobody's looking

53:25

at how, or very few

53:27

people are looking at how fires behaved in

53:29

those places where more and more has been

53:32

taken out. It's actually just

53:34

as fast and furious, if not more, than

53:37

areas where it hasn't been taken

53:39

out. And in some cases where

53:42

it actually slows down. If

53:44

a fire encounters wet

53:47

soil and moss and ferns, it is

53:49

going to slow down because it's all

53:51

the moisture there. It's so

53:53

interesting that there is such

53:55

a heavy influence of fire behavior imposed

53:59

by our community. you know, the

54:01

treatments that have been in place

54:04

and are in place. And yet we're

54:06

not really recognizing that this is, this

54:08

is really a human hand in fire rather

54:10

than just fire out of control. It's the

54:12

human hand in fire that we're not seeing.

54:17

Yeah. Thank you so much

54:19

for your work

54:21

and your devotion

54:24

and the way

54:26

you can see through confusion

54:31

and rhetoric and the powers

54:33

that think they are trying

54:35

to wield a narrative

54:38

that is really short-sighted

54:41

and clearly on the

54:43

side of industry using

54:45

any excuse to log more and

54:48

more. And it kind

54:51

of feels like this coming

54:54

from a space of desperation. Like

54:56

I think about when settlers came

54:59

to the west

55:01

coast of North America back,

55:04

you know, 100, 200, 300, 400 years ago and

55:10

seeing the grandeur and these huge old grilled

55:13

trees that they thought would never end. You

55:16

know, they thought they could just keep cutting and cutting

55:18

and there

55:20

would be endless supplies. And

55:23

I think at this point

55:25

we realized, no, you know, there are

55:27

limits. Like the earth has limits, the

55:29

forest has limits. And now

55:33

it's almost like this addictive

55:35

scrambling to just take everything

55:37

we can get before

55:40

something ends, before we're

55:43

not able to anymore. It's kind of the

55:45

same thing with like making money or even

55:48

this type of post pandemic world.

55:51

Some of us are seeing where

55:53

it's like, as soon as the restrictions are off,

55:55

it's like, okay, go, go, go, go. Even though

55:58

we saw a time when a miss... we're

56:00

down, but

56:03

it's like binge until we can't

56:06

anymore mentality and I

56:09

think it's really challenging

56:11

to manage or

56:14

I don't even like that word honestly

56:16

but tend a forced

56:18

well and right relationship

56:20

when so

56:22

much of the management

56:24

is done in a type of

56:27

what I see as a binge mentality so

56:29

yeah it's really complex

56:31

but I think the more of

56:33

us who start to decipher truths

56:37

and understand ecological

56:40

processes and deep time and

56:42

also realize like the forest

56:44

isn't for us it's not

56:46

just for us it's not

56:48

just for us to control

56:50

or to use or to

56:52

make money off of the

56:55

forest has its own lives

56:58

lives plural I mean and I loved how

57:00

you said a force isn't just trees and

57:02

I see that with I was very much

57:05

wrapped up in the reforest industrial

57:07

complex in the redwoods and it

57:10

was amazing to feel the urgency and

57:12

the desperation to just plant trees plant

57:14

trees plant trees and it's like well

57:17

that's not how trees grow though and it's

57:20

not how strong resilient

57:22

trees grow for sure where

57:24

they're placed in dry soil without

57:26

their mother trees or under the

57:29

shade of larger trees or having

57:31

the connections through the mycelial mats

57:33

like these processes are

57:36

are very beautifully

57:39

complex and I have

57:42

definitely gotten to a place where for me

57:44

I think focusing on

57:47

protecting what is there

57:49

and then allowing time

57:52

to tend to a

57:54

ecosystem and just

57:58

kind of stepping back and saying You

58:00

know, we don't know what to do. We

58:03

don't actually have the answers. And

58:06

even though I can have compassion for us wanting

58:08

to help, I

58:10

think in a lot of ways we're

58:12

doing more harm than we are helping.

58:14

But of course, when everything is based

58:16

off economic growth at

58:19

an endless rate, it's really hard to give

58:21

anything time because we want a rate of

58:24

return now or in 40 years. So,

58:28

gosh, yeah, I'm so transported. I'm

58:30

sitting in Alaska right now freezing

58:32

my butt off really. It's

58:34

really cold today. The north winds are blowing

58:36

hard. Everything's frozen,

58:39

but I'm like very much back

58:41

in the forests of California thinking

58:43

of their beauty and their diversity

58:46

and just really praying

58:48

for them that they'll

58:51

find a way through our manic

58:54

decision-making. And

58:58

have space to grow into the future. It's

59:02

really interesting because I

59:05

see something that's missing. There's

59:10

two or three things that are

59:12

missing in the conversation. One

59:14

is that there's actually a lot

59:16

of jobs that could be created

59:20

through just the home-hardening

59:23

defensible space work

59:25

that absolutely needs to be done more

59:28

and more, especially because people

59:30

are still rebuilding. People are still

59:33

coexisting with areas that have a

59:35

very strong history of fire. So,

59:39

if the focus was just homes

59:41

and survival of structures, there'd

59:45

be a lot of jobs out there, probably

59:48

more because, you know,

59:50

the focus is hands-on, what do I

59:52

do? What are all the structural changes

59:54

that I need to put in? It's not

59:56

just one bulldozer,

59:58

one operator, one ground person

1:00:01

and blasting through a forest. It's

1:00:03

a lot of people with fine

1:00:05

skills trying to work

1:00:07

on home hardening and defensible space. And

1:00:10

that's just, that's to

1:00:12

me, that's the bright promise. That's the

1:00:14

bright hope, which is that

1:00:16

there are so many jobs that

1:00:18

are available. So the economic

1:00:21

standpoint is that same

1:00:23

money can be put into areas

1:00:25

avoiding, that

1:00:27

will clearly lower the risks for

1:00:29

communities. So to me, that's one

1:00:32

big bright hope. And the

1:00:34

other big bright hope is, is just

1:00:36

going into some of those, I

1:00:39

guess now we could say they're

1:00:41

remnant, because as you say, there's just so

1:00:43

much has been removed. Forests, just

1:00:45

going into them and listening,

1:00:49

listening to the

1:00:51

trickle of water, to the sound of the

1:00:53

birds, the birds warning, initially warning each other

1:00:56

that you're there and then they stop doing

1:00:58

that because you're pretty still going

1:01:00

about your business and they're going about

1:01:03

theirs. And maybe

1:01:05

an occasional mammal, somebody

1:01:08

climbing up the tree, a

1:01:11

bear that shows up around the corner. There's

1:01:14

the other bright hope, the fact that

1:01:16

when you listen and you stop, there's

1:01:19

still, we still have a chance

1:01:22

of keeping things. Intact

1:01:24

based on the nuggets that are left.

1:01:26

If we could just let those nuggets

1:01:28

grow, nuggets meaning small swaths

1:01:30

of forest that have been fortunately,

1:01:33

they're out of access, mechanical

1:01:35

equipment, it's high risk there, it's a

1:01:37

high slope, it's very rocky. Whatever

1:01:40

the combination of miraculous circumstances

1:01:43

is, they've been

1:01:45

left alone. And sure enough, they

1:01:47

support this high biodiversity

1:01:49

and this incredibly interesting structure,

1:01:51

you're not gonna see elsewhere

1:01:54

because it's all planned out. And

1:01:57

the memory of the place, that

1:02:00

the place has for making its own

1:02:02

comeback is sort of wiped out

1:02:04

by the mechanical treatment. At

1:02:07

least for 50 or 100 years, the

1:02:09

50 or 100 years we don't have

1:02:11

in terms of extraction.

1:02:14

And in the race to extraction, I just

1:02:16

have to say with forest management, how much more

1:02:18

is being taken out than is being put

1:02:20

back? That should really

1:02:22

sober us and give us a way to

1:02:24

direct our hopes of, you know, if we

1:02:27

leave it in place, those

1:02:29

wildfires of tomorrow could,

1:02:32

you know, not be exacerbated

1:02:35

at the very least because all

1:02:38

that carbon dioxide being pumped into

1:02:40

the air, heating the planet by

1:02:42

slow degrees, is going to

1:02:44

be on the ground. You know, that sort

1:02:47

of the slogan, keep it on the ground, that

1:02:51

folks, colleagues have extended to keep

1:02:54

it in the forest. You

1:02:57

know, so I just

1:03:01

think that those are the sources of hope, you

1:03:03

know, just try really hard to

1:03:07

focus on and concentrate on the

1:03:09

sounds and sights of the things that are

1:03:11

most loved. Beautiful,

1:03:14

Maya. I would

1:03:16

love if you could read a poem

1:03:18

or two. Oh,

1:03:21

yeah, sure. I was thinking of this

1:03:23

because I've done so much to

1:03:26

translate the

1:03:28

field into diverse,

1:03:32

so to speak, not

1:03:34

rhyming, of course. This

1:03:37

is a dedication, this poem is a

1:03:39

dedication to Doug

1:03:42

Bevington and his family. And it's

1:03:44

really sort of based on a

1:03:46

photo of his daughter in a

1:03:49

newly regenerating forest where the

1:03:51

young trees are actually taller than she

1:03:53

is. And it was taken a few

1:03:56

years ago. And it's called Clokes of

1:03:58

Charcoal. The burned trees. These are

1:04:00

gathered by the hundreds, each

1:04:03

cloak of charcoal, a sooty

1:04:05

ship mast floating upright in

1:04:08

a sea of new leaves and thick

1:04:10

slices of earth. All

1:04:13

around are expanses of cedar,

1:04:15

fur, pine, blackened

1:04:17

from their base to eye level, alive.

1:04:22

Dawn brings a busy

1:04:24

uproar, wrens, bluebirds, black-backed

1:04:27

woodpeckers, lazily buntings,

1:04:30

pygmy-nut hatches, red-breasted

1:04:32

sapsuckers. The first

1:04:34

touch of sun clings to treetops

1:04:36

like honey. A

1:04:38

child is bending to pick

1:04:41

mine as lettuce. Her

1:04:43

father has found morels by two-mile

1:04:45

creek, hope that was

1:04:47

tough as heat-cracked rocks, grows

1:04:50

soft, buoyant as leaves

1:04:53

fluorescing from hearth-boned trees.

1:04:56

The land holds all, a mosaic

1:04:59

of fiery intensities, showers

1:05:02

of ash on floors

1:05:04

heaped with debris. The

1:05:07

land's memory becomes its healing,

1:05:10

its secrets, its breads,

1:05:12

butters, and preserves, released.

1:05:17

The child has found herself

1:05:19

among monkey-flowers, shooting stars,

1:05:22

quarkias, and solitary

1:05:24

bees. Constellations

1:05:26

of seedlings stretching out

1:05:28

from decades of sleep.

1:05:32

She listens to mountain quails calling

1:05:34

attention to the riches. She

1:05:37

sees leavings, prints where bear

1:05:39

and deer have foraged. The

1:05:44

walking animals have known for millennia,

1:05:46

the insects for longer. Smoke

1:05:50

runs through their instincts, like greetings

1:05:52

in a familiar language. Rivers

1:05:55

of birds have always been riding

1:05:57

in on the rivers of insects.

1:06:00

that swarm towards the source. The

1:06:03

salts of burned branches have

1:06:05

always been sinking, slow melting

1:06:08

in rain. The

1:06:10

larvae chew their way through woody tunnels.

1:06:14

Foxes and ring-tailed cats

1:06:17

switch from perch to perch. Now

1:06:20

the child too is singing. Thank

1:06:25

you, Maya. That was beautiful. Well,

1:06:29

this has been such an incredible conversation.

1:06:31

I really appreciate your time and care.

1:06:35

Thank you so much, Anna, and for

1:06:37

your wisdom and the sharpness of your

1:06:39

questions. You

1:06:42

must know so much about California

1:06:44

and I actually look forward to

1:06:46

learning from you if you can

1:06:49

if you are going to

1:06:51

visit someday soon. Oh, thank

1:06:53

you. Well, I feel honored

1:06:55

and yeah, I really love

1:06:58

working up here. It's the

1:07:00

landscape is stunning but there's nothing

1:07:02

like the forest down that not

1:07:04

down south there. Such characters and

1:07:07

each tree has such, I

1:07:10

don't know, like I'm kind of puffing

1:07:12

up my chest as I'm imagining

1:07:14

them. They're grand.

1:07:16

Even the ones that aren't large yet,

1:07:19

they have the

1:07:21

ability to be such powerful

1:07:24

ancestors. So I miss them a lot

1:07:26

and I love being able to

1:07:29

think about them with you. Thank

1:07:34

you for listening to For the Wild

1:07:36

podcast. The music you heard today was

1:07:39

by Lake Mary, Forest Vale, and Bird

1:07:41

by Snow. For the

1:07:43

Wild is created by Ayanna

1:07:45

Young, Erica Ekram, Francesca Glassbell,

1:07:47

and Julia Jackson.