Welcome to the And Then... Project -
This introduction will help you understand the context and aims of the adventure:
Something about the tree catches my attention. Scanning up the Douglas fir’s twelve inch trunk its clear to me that something is not right. Where the crown of the thirty year old tree should be vibrantly green, it is, instead, thinning and trending from green toward brown. “Hmmm, what’s going on here? What might explain this?” I wonder to myself. Years in these forests teach us that there have always been many reasons why a tree might lose vigor and, eventually, die. Shifting my attention from the single, ailing tree to the larger stand, what I see gives me more than pause; most of the trees, for as far as I can see, show the same signs of declining vigor. Within the coming year, ninety percent of the trees in this thirty acre stand, recently purchased from our neighbors, will be dead. A year later, with the goal of reducing water stress of hotter and drier summers, we thinned half of the trees out of a similar stand on the forest’s western edge. We’ve done this type of thinning many times before and been pleased to see the vitality of the remaining trees increase thanks to the reduced competition. But following this thinning, nearly all of the remaining trees died within two years. While this pattern continues in unrelated areas of the forest, we also watch as other thinned areas thrive and grow well. As much as my family and I were puzzled and troubled by what seemed to be accelerating die offs in the relatively young, fir stands, we tried to console ourselves with the assumption that the older, more complex sections of the forest would be much more resilient. That assumption was upended when a professor friend, visiting from a nearby university, suggested that we meet up “near the dying, big cedars”. “What dying, big cedars?” I asked. Surveying these old stands, that we’d assumed would be the most stress resistant, our hearts sank as we watched over thirty of the oldest, biggest trees in the forest fade and, eventually, die. As much as my eyes and concern are drawn to the fate of the trees, I’m also mindful of all of the other life forms, known and unknown, whose fates are intertwined with the trees. This reminds me of how little I know, perceive and understand – and the opportunities to get better!
“What’s happening here? Why? Where is this headed? What should we be doing? What might this mean for our family and the 1,000 acres of Oregon Coast Range forests that we care for?”.
On the one hand, there is nothing novel about humans in this land asking these types of questions when experiencing what feels like dramatic change. How did people feel when the Bretz Floods suddenly filled the Willamette Valley with water – or a majority of the population rapidly died from diseases brought through European contact – or a tsunami wiped out coastal villages – or Mt. Mazama blew its top and smothered surrounding lands in ash? How did my grandparents’ and their generation feel as their resilience and courage were tested by WWI, followed by the global flu pandemic, followed by the stock market crash leading into the Great Depression and another world war? As my generation wrestles with the rising tide of self-inflicted, interwoven poly-crisies of global change, I can’t help wondering “Yes, humans have faced and endured much in the past, but are these current challenges somehow uniquely different?”. Time will tell. This is a time where there are stories to be tracked – and told -because there is so much to be learned. I feel called to pay attention and tell my one, small part of the unfolding story. I also feel called to show respect and gratitude for all life and particularly for the lands my family and I are responsible for. But how? First, by caring for and restoring the lands as best we can, learning and adapting as we go. Secondly, I bear witness during what I sense will be a revealing decade, challenging myself to better learn the forests’ many languages and to perceive and communicate all that feels most relevant and constructive.
What makes this suspense-filled story so fascinating is that there is no way to know where the story will lead and what we might learn from it. What makes this suspense-filled story so important is that decisions made between 2020 and 2030 will have on outsized impact on the future of both our species and all life.
- Will we choose to continue on our path toward what feels like a catastrophic cliff, or will be take the actions needed to change course in ways that reduce the worst consequences?
- Who are we, as a species and what are we capable of?
Join me in tracking the unfolding adventure!
Framed in periodic “letters from the field”, shared serially in roughly chronological order, updates are structured in three, intertwined categories:
1) In the Woods – sharing news of what’s happening in our three forests,
2) What’s There to Love in These Forests? – counterbalancing the troubling news with reminders of how much there is to notice, celebrate and be grateful for, and
3) The Wider World – linking selective snippets from our species’ efforts to respond to the poly-crisies of global change
My aim is to explore and seek answers to the following questions:
1 - How are the forests changing and what can we know about the drivers of the changes?
2 - How are the changes changing us, the forest stewards, and our relationships with the forests? How are we responding?
3 - And on the larger scale, as humans wrestle with global change, will we rise to the challenge and make the necessary changes or will we lack the ability and/or will to make the changes?
Thank you for joining me on this adventure into the unfolding unknown; your engagement and involvement are welcomed and valued; I invite your comments, questions and contributions. Time will tell, but it feels like this is the greatest suspense story of all time. For those of us fascinated by land and humans’ ever-evolving relationships with land, there has never been a more remarkable and important time than this decade of decisions.
And then…… something happened!
The Place – This project is grounded in three family forests collectively known as Hyla Woods. Totaling roughly 1,000 acres, they are on the eastern edge of the northern Oregon Coast Range. Since 1986, Hyla Woods has experimented with what’s needed to grow forests that are ecologically complex and resilient, economically viable and useful to the community. The 752 acre Mt. Richmond Forest is near Cherry Grove and the 100 acre Manning Forest and 172 acre Timber Forest are near the communities of Manning and Timber. The work benefits from active partnerships with a wide and strong web of community partners. More detail may be found at www.hylawoods.com.
The People – This project’s main noticer and author is me, Peter Hayes. I'm fortunate to be part of a multigenerational family responsible for Hyla Woods. The experience and training that family members bring to the work includes – forestry, logging, conservation biology, forest ecologcy, meteorology, education, business management, public policy and law. We always have much to learn! More details on the family’s multigenerational involvement with forests, forestry and sawmilling may be found here. My writings on the ongoing lessons that the forests teach us may be found here.
The Audiences - In framing and sharing these words, I wonder “who might care? Who might care the most?”. Amid this unknowable, I’m focused on those who will live the longest with the consequences of the choices that our generation is making – or not making, those born in 2020. Should I live to see the year 2035, perhaps some fifteen year olds will ask me to walk and talk. Along the walk, I can imagine them asking “So, what happened and why?”. Perhaps this project might help begin to answer their good questions.
