The stickiness of our beliefs. The need for repetition. The power of propaganda.
These 3 short sentences sum up a main reason we activists do what we do — and have our work cut out for us. Just about everything I’ve written in this essay I’ve written before. More like 50 times before. But if enough people don’t get on board, rather than just get bored, what’s the use?
Just this week I had another round of challenging conversations with people on topics including wildfire, forests, forest health, so-called “vegetation management” and of course, “Invasion Biology,” the pseudo-scientific swamp of so-called “invasive species.” All these topics are ablaze in controversy.
I’ve been reading about, writing about, learning about and heatedly discussing all these for a decade, some for two decades. I’ve had countless more discussions with activists working on these issues for 3 or 4 decades. But let’s focus on these…
Five Forest Truths I hold to be self-evident.
Many people don’t share these beliefs. How about you?
1. Forests do not need “fixing.” Forests today aren’t broken. Forests don’t break. They can be aging, they can be drying out. Forests can contains trees and other plants carrying pathogens, diseased, numerous insects attacking, even killing trees. Even these forests are not in need of repair.
And certainly not in need of the so-called “restoration” by just about every government agency, usually in partnership with profit-driven private contractors. Humans wielding gas-powered tools, toxic chemical poisons and petroleum-based drip torches only know how to kill and poison the vulnerable web of forest life. Especially when most of what these plant-killing humans do is driven by fear, ignorance and The Almighty Profit Motive.
2. Forests do not become “decadent.” I can’t believe I have to actually write down this sentence and explain/defend it. In short, people can be decadent, and surely many of those that use this word to describe forests . “Decadent” means, “to be in decline,” from the Latin, decadere, meaning to fall away. Of course a forest can be aging. Or have more old and standing dead trees (called, “snags”) than it did 50 years earlier. But so what? All forests are growing, aging, declining, a complex mix of living and dead, rising and falling, in ancients rhythms we human morons mostly don’t see or hear or even sense any more. Instead, foresters march into forests with an agenda. And with industrial tools.
If a man with a hammer thinks everything looks like a nail, what do forests look like to foresters with chainsaws and chippers?
The first time I actually watched the “this forest is decadent” phrase come out of a forester’s mouth, I shook my head in disbelief and disgust. And then, I must admit, I smiled in admiration at the audacity, the creativity of the term. A very clever propagandist’s term; the latest linguistic arrow in the forester’s quiver of forest destruction.
When foresters call a forest “decadent,” it’s always deployed as the 1st blow of their forest-attacking one-two punch. The 2nd blow is insisting the forest they’ve labeled “decadent” needs “thinning.” Of course — it’s the real reason for the label. The tail of decadence wagging the dog of deforestation. (Or is it the other way around? I get confused.) The goal is to let loose the human “managers” armed with forest “healing” tools: industrial machines and chemicals.
“Thinning” is a euphemism which sounds a less destructive than the forestry practice it describes, which is: “cutting down trees with chainsaws and shredding hundreds of understory plants with masticating machines.” But that lengthy reality sounds worse, doesn’t it? And it’s not as catchy. The short “decadent” label sells the forester’s prescribed “treatments.” The longer, accurate description gives away the ruse. Consider the ruse given away. Please.
To continue venting a bit here, I think some of the foresters who use the term “decadent” to describe forests are themselves decadent, but in another sense of the word: in moral decline. In my experience, “decadent” is only the latest term of art in a lexicon of euphemisms by the humans Hell-bent on “managing” forests to death. Or at least killing enough trees and plants to subdue, control, contain and reduce forests into “park-like” places with fewer trees and more places for picnic blankets — assuming you don’t mind the Roundup residues. If you read this blog, you know what I think of forest “management.” But not to worry, as the title of this essay indicates, I’ll tell y’all again. And again.
Forest “managers” repeat their lies. We must repeat the truth.
Which is the larger point of this rant, to point out how foresters and agencies and even environmental consulting firms keep repeating these euphemisms, and keep recommending that forests be “thinned” and “managed.” Usually by them, for money (though not always). They are waging a propaganda war. And sadly they are winning. The vast majority of the public doesn’t know the issues, or have time for a deep dive into them to determine what’s true. Web searches, Ai-driven or not, are programmed to just regurgitate the most popular or widespread narratives. (Or ones the Ai’s modeler’s prefer you read first.)
On the topic of forest “management” and “thinning” for “wildfire resilience,” it’s far more likely you’ll find and read the “forests are decadent” and in need of “thinning” and must be “managed” non-science narratives which the myriad money-driven, forest-assaulting players popularize.
And remember, a “forester” is someone whose profession is cutting down trees and forests. Not to be confused with an arborist. Foresters are not arborists. Foresters are not biologists. Foresters are not ecologists.
But perhaps the most absurd, most brazen, what I’ll call here the stupidest assertion of all, is that “today’s forests are overgrown.” Insinuating that forests which are not assaulted by the timber industry, or by the so-called “bio-fuels” industry — which cuts down entire forests to process them into wood pellets to then burn in energy-generation factories — are a problem. Forests can’t be left alone, they need humans to do something to them. This thinking ignores that, somehow, forests survived without humans at all for literally millions of years.
Or that some decades of Smokey Bear fire suppression policies so “broke” our forests, that only Smokey the Bear’s human keepers can “fix” them. Please, people, don’t buy this crap. Because…
3. There is no such thing as an “overgrown” forest. The overgrown label is often used interchangeably with “decadent.” But it’s worth repeating as a bolded, stand-alone sentence, in the hopes you’ll learn it, love it, and repeat it to all your friends at meals.
There is no such thing as an “overgrown” forest.
If we have any slim chance to save some of our few remaining wild forests from chainsaw, masticators (giant industrial lawnmowers), and millions of gallons of toxic herbicides, it’s not enough for you to believe me. And believe me, I’m grateful if you DO believe me. I need you to become at least a bit of forest activist yourself and educate your friends and family.
Hell, forget what I need; the forests need you! And remember, YOU need the forests. To make the oxygen you breathe, to cool the climate you don’t want getting any hotter than we’ve already made it, and continue to be precious home to all our beloved forest critters: songbirds, foxes, owls, deer, raccoons, woodpeckers, squirrels, and all the other furry and feathered animals you likely have a photo or plush toy of of in your house.
4. ALL the currently popular industrial forest “treatments”which human “managers” use are destructive to varying degrees. Even if forests could benefit from a natural fire, or more rain (since we humans have warmed the planet and made some ecosystems more arid), let Nature do it, in her own time. In her own way.
One exception, perhaps, is the prescribed “broadcast” burn – – but I don’t trust the current crop of land, open space and parks “managers” to do burns right either. Which brings us back to fear, ignorance and the profit motive. Especially when county, state and federal management agencies are all desperately seeking funding. You know, follow the money-grabbing!
The vast majority of “wildfire resilience” and “forest health” projects exist only so “management” agencies can get millions of dollars in their coffers to justify their existence. And so they “manage” Mother Nature to death. They cut into forests in order to “save” or “restore” them. Forgive my repetition, my constant harping on these points, dear reader, but they have to be repeated. (Just like Bernie Sanders’ endlessly repeating about abuses by “the billionaires…”)
5. Mother Nature knows best. So leave her the hell alone! She, wild at heart, knows so much more than we humans do. And carries so much more knowledge and wisdom, accumulated over millions of years. Thinking that we know better about what forests need than the forests do is a display of staggering arrogance and ignorance. And yet, this is our norm.
We humans, now larger in number and more technologically enabled than ever before, who have and continue to constantly assault and damage forests, now claim we know better; that we, not the self-regulating, self-sufficient ecological systems themselves, know best.
Isn’t it obvious that what forests really need is for us humans to get the hell out for at least a few decades? We need to stop all our interventions, all our so-called “restorations” and “active management.” Just get out of the forests and let them heal on their own. Haven’t we done enough damage?
Imagine that a brilliant, skilled surgeon bungled your computer-assisted surgery and almost killed you. And that you’re lying injured in bed. (Ideally you’re recovering at home, where you won’t be eating hospital “food,” which is its own oxymoron, one that can kill you.) You’re resting and letting your body’s own self-healing, nature-driven powers work their magic. You’re feeling a bit better. And then the surgeon bursts into your bedroom with his scalpel and wants to go for round 2. This time he insists he knows what to do, what you need, and that he will heal you. Any takers? (I know, I know; surgeons also absolutely save lives. One saved my brother’s life, 20 years ago. Let me have my analogy, would ya?)
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