For me, one of the joys of walking in the woods has always been the opportunity to feel small. It can be liberating to spend a few hours in the company of a silence that asks nothing in return.
The weekend after reading Richard Mertens’ cover story on forestry, my husband and I went on one of our favorite hikes in Borderland State Park in southeastern Massachusetts.
As we wound our way through a thick field of wild blueberry bushes, a brown flash shot across the path ahead. A startled deer darted through the bushes and settled down about a hundred yards from us. She eyed us suspiciously before lowering her head to grab a mouthful of berries. She was obviously not entirely sure what we were doing, but she was not about to give up this field of ripe fruit either. We enjoyed her presence for a moment before leaving her to graze in peace.
As we hiked, I kept thinking about those blueberries, because they signal a forest in transition. Dick’s reporting helped me see that. The story is about timber harvesting, but it’s also an ode to the forest. The characters are taking wood from the forest, but they want to do it in a way that honors the complex relationships that hold forest communities together. While foresters of the past focused on maintaining tree populations to ensure future harvests, this new generation of ecological foresters seeks to tend the vast web of plants and animals that make up an ecosystem, from the canopy to the depths of the forest floor.
A forest, after all, is not a warehouse or a nursery. It is a dynamic and interconnected community in which insects and fungi play as important a role as maple or oak trees. It has taken centuries for humans to begin to understand the complexity of these constantly evolving systems. As one ecologist Dick says, “The key to all this is humility. We don’t know all the answers. We are often wrong.”
As I walked, I reflected on the idea that humility and a willingness to be wrong can be a path to understanding.
When we first started hiking here, I was saddened to see vast swathes of the forest destroyed. Remnants of trees, blackened by fire or weakened by disease, stuck out irregularly from the undergrowth. I winced at the loss.
But that summer day, I realized that the disturbance is a gift in many ways. Wild blueberry bushes thrive in disturbed habitats and are often the first to colonize bare patches. Soon, they can restore a layer of green to a clearing, providing shelter to countless forest creatures. The roots connect to a vast fungal network that distributes nutrients throughout the forest. Over time, the seedlings feed on these nutrients as they stretch upward, eventually forming a fresh canopy that completely shades that berry patch.
I marveled at the web of interconnected events unfolding around me. This cascade of birth and decay will shape this place for years to come. But right now, the deer and I were enjoying the fruits of the moment.
