Michael Sauers
June 8, 2025
Most of Greenfire Coalition Writers’ Forum’s posts are meant to be hors d’oeuvres. The hope is that they will stimulate natural curiosity, study, exploration and perhaps, action. Purposely brief so that they invite reading as they compete with the avalanche of information that smothers our intellects.
This post is about forests. A true forest, one that has been left to own management, is harder and harder to find. They are a collection of trees of different ages and species growing where it suits them. Easily spotted are the mother trees that set the tone for their progeny. They live for hundreds, even thousands of years before they become “snags” or drop to the forest floor. Either way, they remain vital to forest ecology. Old growth, ancient, virgin forests are homes for an abundance of fauna and floral. As these older trees fall they become the work of decomposers. Life goes on.
The plant and animal species of the above participate in a complex dance of life. We like to think we have a handle on this but we are continuously proved wrong. New discoveries are made regularly.
Humankind has multiplied beyond its ability to live within natural settings. Most of our existence is unnatural, manufactured and manipulated. YIKES! Forests are not deemed important if they manage themselves. Because of our numbers, they necessitate opportunities for exploitation, threats to our health and encumbrances for growth. They need to be managed. Forests are leveled, wildlife is exploited and humanity continues to grow. Double YIKES!!
Most importantly, forests as intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical teachers and healers are gone. Instead, we have management plans like, “Forests for All: A Plan for Pennsylvania’s Forests and People.” This plan represents where we are as a civilization. It smacks of “speciesism” and continues to commodify the forests. Specific animals are used for economic development via hunting, fishing, and trapping. Lumbering continues unabated. Large tracks of land will be open to noisy, polluting, dangerous and wildlife abusing off-road ATVs. Triple YIKES!!!
Forests, especially those that manage themselves (rare) are extremely complex environments. We know very little about the lives and interactions among trees, birds, fungi, amphibians, snails, reptiles, fish, insects, mosses, lichens, worms, herbaceous plants, mammals, water, fire, carbon, decay, decomposers, microscopic life and humans in forests. We think we do but that is our folly.
For your own sake or for the sake of your children and grandchildren get out into the forest. Use your senses to take in as much of the complexities as you can allow. Travel light and leave no signs of your journey. Starting with your backyard, defend and promote all green areas. Try to expand them. Take your kids with you.
There is so much more on this but most important is for you to go into the forest!
Suggested reading: Forest Walking by Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst and Nature’s Temples by Joan Maloof