Part five of “The Forest Advocate” series

Simple arguments are easy to rally around. Provocative, simplistic sound bites, black-and-white issue framing, good versus evil characterizations, either/or choices all do a great job grabbing headlines and attention but usually undermine the conversation and compromise required to secure meaningful policy change.

When it comes to forests, an either/or approach to policy is not only short-sighted, it insults and oversimplifies these beautifully complex, messy systems. Humans are part of the forested ecosystem. We can’t – and shouldn’t – put a fence around them and pretend that we’re not interconnected. And, as many New Englanders know, we’re surrounded by a landscape shaped by the sheep and hill farms of the late 18^th century that still requires active stewardship to return to a healthy, resilient forest.

Our active stewardship is a moral imperative and includes identifying ways in which human needs for building materials, home heating, clean air and water, and recreation weave into resource management.

Fringe Voices Polarize the Conversation

However, in recent years, fringe voices – on one side advocating for looser restrictions, and on the other completely opposing forest management, particularly on public lands – have dominated headlines, leaned on pithy sound bites, flooded the conversation with misinformation and undermined the open dialogue and collaborative process needed to advance sound forest policy. Both extremes challenge the broad public consensus supporting the social license to practice ecological forestry.

Recently, Vermont U.S. Senator Peter Welch was targeted for his vote to move the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act out of committee for consideration by the full Senate. While imperfect as written (and acknowledged as such by Senator Welch), the FOF Act is intended to address the growing threat of wildfire on fire-prone public land where fire suppression over decades has created higher and more catastrophic fire threats, particularly on western lands. Moving this bill forward is important to improving it and the approaches necessary to address the failures of the past.

Another recent headline highlighted criticism of the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed management plan for part of the Green Mountain National Forest, which intends to use controlled burns to restore fire-prone ecosystems and promote greater resilience to increased incidence of fire. The piece focused more on the “public versus agency” narrative than on the broad collaboration involved in this restoration effort, which includes conservation organizations, respected forest ecologists, and youth conservation partners.

The relatively few but loud voices who show up to say “no” get more attention than the voices of those doing the complex and nuanced work of stewarding the forest.

New Forest Stressors Make Ecological Forestry Essential

Climate change introduces new and growing stressors on regional forests. Increasingly uneven precipitation, invasive species, and wildfire make thoughtful management and ecological forestry all the more important to apply. Policies that better address these climate stressors require new frameworks to keep pace with the need to keep forests healthy and resilient. But gaining consensus on what those solutions should look like is a challenge in light of the voices that would rather shout and say “no” than engage in thoughtful discourse.

A robust process that considers all the parts may be a tall order to fill in the current political climate. We need to improve policy frameworks around forests and their stewardship and continue to improve upon the public input and review process. In an increasingly divided political arena, lawmakers need to hear a “both/and” approach to forest management, such that we balance our care for forests and all that rely on them, with our human needs for wood, solace, recreation, and the protection of some wild spaces.

Lean into Thoughtful Dialogue about Forest Management

Now, more than ever, we need thoughtful forest policy, not idealogues, to ensure forests remain resilient in the face of new stressors. As part of the web of reciprocal relationships found within forests, we have a responsibility to consider the full complexity of the systems we are a part of, and our role in keeping them healthy. This reciprocity is the theme of this week’s New England Society of American Foresters meeting, where foresters from across the region will spend a few days considering our human role within and responsibility to forests.

When it comes to forest policy, it is essential to challenge the simplicity brought forth by all-or-nothing advocates, to lean into thoughtful dialogue about the future of this landscape, and to ask for science-based information that acknowledges human and ecological needs, such as the Beyond the Illusion of Preservation report. These careful and deep explorations are where we need to look for inspiration and guidance for forest policy, not in an either/or approach that ignores the complexity and care required to do right by forests.