Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion

Old Growth

23 Old Growth It was the title of the thing that grabbed me first:“Biotic Aspection in the Coast Range Mountains of Northwest Oregon.” An “aspection” turned out to be an overall “look around” at the forest’s lifecycle from all sides— organisms, seasons, soils, and weather. The 1951 paper described James Macnab’s pioneering 1930s study with his students from Linfield College. Working with primitive equipment and teaching themselves as they went, Macnab’s team painted a picture of place in rare detail. That place was Saddleback Mountain,a misty hill poking out of the old growth only a few miles from the Pacific. Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds, Macnab’s chief field assistant, went on to earn her doctorate, take over the study, and become a respected ecologist in her own right.As a lively and venerable retired teacher in McMinnville, Oregon, Jane Claire has written a rich memoir of this classic ecological study. Her book, Not Just Trees (published in 1999 by Washington State University Press), crystallizes much of what was learned on Saddleback Mountain.This is good, for the forest they plumbed—to a depth seldom attempted today—is no more.What should have been jealously saved as a priceless baseline for the maritime Northwest rainforest has since become an ordinary, short-rotation industrial woodland. The one stroke of grace is that the forest’s minstrel lived to tell its rich, sad story. If Not Just Trees no longer matches an actual place, it tells us what a real forest could be if only we would let it, and models a comprehensive approach to the infinite complexity of old growth.Everyone involved with forest management and protection should heed this wise and humble tale. Listening to our elders is no new idea, but we can never remind ourselves often enough.We need only think of late, great conservationists such asAldo Leopold,Rachel Carson,William O.Douglas,and the recently departed “Mother of the Everglades,” Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, to TheTangled Bank:Writings from Orion 24 remember how their advice and examples empowered educators and activists seeking to confront the ecological challenges of their time. Our living elders—Margaret Murie,Victor Scheffer, John Hay, and Hazel Wolf, to name a few—have extraordinary gifts to give, if we will hear them out. We should hearken especially to our naturalists, those who know the living details of the world, how the land once was, and how we ought to address what’s left of it.This past summer was a tough one on seniors of this species.Within a few weeks we lost RonTaylor, one of the finest field botanists in the West; John Hinchliff, the beloved and devoted keeper of Northwest butterfly data; and John Burroughs Medal-winning writer and the dolphins’ best friend, Ken Norris, one of the last two holders of the title “Professor of Natural History” in the University of California system. Though each left behind the heart of his knowledge in memorable books and with those he taught, we all were diminished when they departed. What we lose when elders pass is personal wisdom based upon lives well lived, unique knowledge of former times and places that will not come again,and,in the case of naturalists,ways of seeing that we could dearly use as we seek to understand, to adapt, to reform, to restore. Few of us have escaped the bitter remorse that comes from waiting too long to see an aged relative, an afflicted friend, a failing mentor. For years I tried to find Ben Leighton, who had dropped out of sight soon after his Butterflies of Washington appeared in 1946. A serpentine trail, spiked with dead ends and coincidence, finally led to a convalescent center not two blocks from my stepchildren’s home! I was eager to show Ben modern works based on his beginnings, to tell how his contribution still mattered, and to ask questions that only he could illuminate. His nurse said he was strong, and suggested that I “skip the storms on the pass and come in the springtime.” But shortly after NewYear’s, Ben Leighton died. So often, we don’t seize the opportunity to ask the questions we need to ask.But,if we could anticipate the true value of the answers,we’d know we ought to ask them early and often—and listen up.For just as we depend upon the old-growth trees to speak “the forgotten language” of the forest (as poet...