May the Forest Be With You

As the horrific “fire season” begins again, I want to throw my vote in with Arthur Firstenberg (My View, Sunday April 8^{theSanta Fe New Mexican}  http://www.santafenewmexican.com/LocalColumnsViewpoints/My-View--Arthur-Firstenberg-Controlled-burns-a-prescription-for) who stated a strong case against “controlled” burning.  In addition to all of the things he said, the reality is right in front of us; are we going to be a part of nature and work in the forest or are we going to let the ways of the city rule us? (None of our presidents and most of our representatives have almost no background or cultural contact with the forests; they are city folk, plain and simple…no offense to them, of course).   There are millions of young people out of work or faced with hardships of all sorts (including obesity) and they are the natural inheritors of the forest and the natural choice for who can help fix them.  Sweden gets 40% of all of its energy from biomass (forest products) and we appear to be basing our economy on resisting being a part of the forest; we give  lots of jobs to firefighters, yes, but not to forest thinners, forest tenders or careful forest products gatherers, or research (our favorite thing) and training.  It is so beyond the scope of reason that we still charge people to go into the forests to help thin them (firewood gatherers).  Consider the sheer numbers of BTUs that go up in the fires like we are seeing all over the west and southwest (and even the east now).    It puts the science of global warming and the practice of ‘no burn days’ to absolute shame.  To consider that what we are seeing in front of us is nothing less than an  apocalyptic  sign of not a religious sorting out, but a sorting out of the basic underpinnings of our value systems; we are so afraid that we cannot control forest raping from large corporations and interests such as did the original damage, that we refuse to notice that we must learn to cure our own nature deficit disorders just as we begin to heal the wounds created in the past and also pave the way for a future whose economy is based on carefully, thoughtfully and stridently using the solar and renewable energy that the trees are just standing or lying there waiting for us to recognize.  Forests and clean water represent our wealth.  Period.   If biomass is not economical, then why do so many of us go out into the forest every year to gather firewood; and if that is so bad in terms of smoke,  then why do we stand here and allow the skies to fill with smoke every spring, summer and fall.  I personally ran up our hill three times last summer, shovel and cell phone in hand; ready to fight a fire that ‘must be just over the hill because of the ash and smoke in the air’, only to realize the it was, again, the huge fire on the Arizona/New Mexico border, close to 200 miles away.  The ‘environmentalists’, bless their hearts, sit  speechless with hat (and a lawyer, maybe a camera) in hand.   We have and can create the green and sustainable nature-based methods to do this.  Hey, kids, have you ever seen the cool equipment they use to do biomass work around the world; you can throw away your game boys  and thoughts of joining the army and join the war against foolish forestry.  You can design really cool access roads for smaller rigs; do induced meandering  work in the upper watersheds, invent and work superior energy producing systems that create heat, compost and methane; find beauty and peace up in the hills and mountains of the world; find ways to use those batteries, electric vehicles, steam engines, wood fired vehicles, on the spot wood charged electric chainsaws and electric dozers and pick-ups.   Spend the spring, summer and fall living with your  cool comrades of both sexes and do something important at the same time.   Build trails and learn about one-rock dams and study biology and economics and do accounting, study and do agriculture and controlled grazing experiments…in the field.   Let the controlled burn be in a woodstove or generator.  I also want to throw in with Aldo Leopold and the concept of developing a “Land Ethic” and a forest’s “Bill of Rights” as we do this.   May the forest be with you!

-Thor Sigstedt (60) now climbs the escarpment on his property every year and harvests firewood;  climbing up with a rope and  rolling the logs down.  He has done controlled grazing, forest products gathering and watershed restoration of all sorts for  a few dozens of years , as well as routinely creating rustic art and furniture.