A few months back, I was on an assignment with a conservation group in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Not bearing ill will toward the organization or its mission, I’m excluding their name.
Driving out to Randle early in the morning from my Chehalis home, I’ll admit I was a bit grumpy already. But, something one of the organizers said soured what was left of my enthusiasm.
“When we get to the really big trees, don’t include locations (in writing or photo captions).”
I didn’t ask more questions. Wherever this magical big tree place is, as a reporter, I don’t want to see it if I can’t share it with the public.
People can’t care about things they don’t have a stake in, and I want people to care about their forest. This is not an anti-altruistic belief. We can invest selflessly and care for things that don’t care for us back; we simply need to have the chance.
These folks — notably, all of whom were from Portland and likely had little interest in The Chronicle’s readership base — were purposely keeping this mystical grove of old growth hidden, presumably to save it.
All I heard from this sentiment was: “trees are more important than people.”
My qualm traces back to the initial partisan divide in environmentalism. When the “Save the Planet” slogan was created, it worked in some sense. But, the more conservation disproportionately impacted rural, working class Americans — coal miners, loggers, fishermen, etc. — the more people started to believe saving the planet and harming those communities went hand-in-hand.
Yes, harming. Take spotted owl and marbled murrelet habitat conservation. In Lewis County, we’re still feeling the impacts decades after the fight began. Packwood no longer has schools after undergoing a severe recession.
There are tales — possibly apocryphal, but exemplary of a desperate community nonetheless — of students on the Olympic Peninsula hoarding oyster crackers from school lunches to bring home to starving families. Let’s not even delve into the violent practice of tree-spiking.
A few qualifiers. Yes, people can simply be bad actors. Vandals at High Rock Lookout, folks who dump trash in the forest, forest-fire starters — they’ve given recreationalists a bad reputation to combat.
Secondly, saving the planet is, indeed, necessary. We have a duty to be good stewards of the Earth, find alternative forms of energy beyond fossil fuels, ensure the wellbeing of our oceans and all living things.
Lastly, politicians and fossil fuel industries have severely complicated the issue by downplaying or outright denying science and failing, time and again, to take responsibility for their role in the problem — a sin that’s much more egregious than not wanting to share your favorite Douglas fir grove with strangers.
Now, can we all start blaming them, instead of every Hickory-shirt wearing Lewis Countian?
Ultimately, if we pollute Earth beyond livability, it will still exist. Call me selfish, but I’d like to save the planet, not for owls (and I do love owls), but for generations to come. I’d like my children to catch and eat salmon on the Cowlitz River, to hike unburnt wilderness, inhale clean mountain air and share the splendor of the Northwest with everyone.
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Assistant Editor Isabel Vander Stoep covers East Lewis County and many environmental issues for The Chronicle including climate change, natural disasters, species and habitat restoration, hunting, fishing and more. She can be reached at isabel@chronline.com.
