Have you read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere? It’s closely linked to what you talk about in this essay, and I’ve been finding many examples lately of communities using storytelling or poetry to ‘talk back’. It’s lovely work.
Forests are living beings, thanks for collating and writing about them so passionately!
You've made such an important distinction between the quantification, "ecosystem services" approach to valuing forests and that of simple emotional attachment, especially place based. I've always hated the term ecosystem services, as if landscapes exist to serve us. It's a dead end, and you are pointing the way toward living beginnings. Thanks.
A couple weeks ago, when it looked like HUGE patches of national forest were going up for sale, residents of Taos County (where I live) were livid. Besides worrying about increased risk of forest fire and the threat to the watershed, comments from people gave me a sense that they think of the forest as *part* of the community, not just as some kind of commons or public park.
People fear to lose what they love, and what is more essential to human life than love itself? We dress up our affections in stories and ceremonies, but they ultimately refer to what we hold most dear. I go to the forest on the top of our mountain not to count trees or document regrowth after the last big fire, but to feel the forest all around me. Those feelings are not quantifiable, but they are why I would be willing to fight for that forest through the best means at my disposal. Science is in its own way a form of devotion, but it is not the form that most of us bring to wild places. Instead, it is the need to simply be surrounded by it for all of those immeasurable reasons that brings us to that place, to cherish it, and to protect its survival.
Have you read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere? It’s closely linked to what you talk about in this essay, and I’ve been finding many examples lately of communities using storytelling or poetry to ‘talk back’. It’s lovely work.
Forests are living beings, thanks for collating and writing about them so passionately!
I haven't read that one but it's definitely going on my list. Thanks for mentioning it
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35103532/
Attachment theorists are also studying this (thanks to Indigenous wisdom and knowledge production ofc)
Looks interesting. I'll have to give that one a read
I took an Eco Psych course in undergrad and we read a few similar papers. Its pretty incredible yet not surprising..
You've made such an important distinction between the quantification, "ecosystem services" approach to valuing forests and that of simple emotional attachment, especially place based. I've always hated the term ecosystem services, as if landscapes exist to serve us. It's a dead end, and you are pointing the way toward living beginnings. Thanks.
A couple weeks ago, when it looked like HUGE patches of national forest were going up for sale, residents of Taos County (where I live) were livid. Besides worrying about increased risk of forest fire and the threat to the watershed, comments from people gave me a sense that they think of the forest as *part* of the community, not just as some kind of commons or public park.
Just brilliantly explained and set out. Thank you for writing this!
Last paragraph hits the nail on the head
People fear to lose what they love, and what is more essential to human life than love itself? We dress up our affections in stories and ceremonies, but they ultimately refer to what we hold most dear. I go to the forest on the top of our mountain not to count trees or document regrowth after the last big fire, but to feel the forest all around me. Those feelings are not quantifiable, but they are why I would be willing to fight for that forest through the best means at my disposal. Science is in its own way a form of devotion, but it is not the form that most of us bring to wild places. Instead, it is the need to simply be surrounded by it for all of those immeasurable reasons that brings us to that place, to cherish it, and to protect its survival.