Bosworth Op-Ed on Tester’s Bill

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Thanks to Terry Seyden for this one!
From the Billings Gazette, here.
Guest opinion: Tester’s jobs & rec bill would benefit Montana forests

By DALE BOSWORTH

As regional forester for the Forest Service here in Montana and as chief of the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., I have watched how the heavy traffic of opinion about public land management has grown more and more contentious, until our management processes resemble traffic jams. When so much comes to a halt, our forests suffer.

More recently however, I’ve found cause for encouragement in the local community partnerships on three national forests in Montana, partnerships that laid the groundwork for Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.

Like many Montanans, I read the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act when it was first introduced and I let Sen. Jon Tester know that I supported his efforts, but I also took the time to offer a few suggestions. Then, over the next couple years, I watched as something very uncommon happened. As the suggestions came in, changes were made and the bill got better and better.

Timely land legislation

With the news that the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act may move forward in the Senate as part of the Interior appropriations bill, it’s important to recognize why this legislation is both necessary and timely.

First, there are many areas in Montana that are long overdue for being protected as wilderness. Almost half of the elk harvested in Montana come off the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, where most of the lands in this bill are located. The elk are there because the backcountry is there. Many of these special places, from the Sapphires to the Centennials, have been in limbo for decades, and it’s time for Congress to act.

Second, Sen. Tester’s bill will enable the agency to take a larger, watershed approach to managing our forests. It gives the agency tools to help it succeed. And, it requires the use of stewardship contracting to accomplish much needed restoration work on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai National Forests. This tool allows the Forest Service to harvest timber and reinvest that income in other local projects like removing unusable roads so that elk can flourish, or restoring streambeds to support native fish. I strongly support the use of stewardship contracting and I believe it is the tool of the future for accomplishing needed work on national forest system land.

Unprecedented Montana partnerships

Third — and perhaps most important — this bill is based on collaborative efforts across Montana. Members of communities from Deer Lodge to Troy who have historically been at odds did the hard work of working together. And they have stuck with it. That itself is huge. We need to make sure these efforts are rewarded so that we can build even stronger partnerships in the future.

The chairman of the Senate appropriations committee said this about the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and the work that went into it: “Decisions on how to use and protect our natural resources are never simple or clear-cut. They require commitment and fortitude. They force conversations and compromise. They make us stronger by overcoming differences and looking toward the future.”

I commend Montanans for working together on this vision. After a career of 41 years as a steward of our national forests, I’m truly encouraged by their commitment and fortitude.

Dale Bosworth of Missoula served as U.S. Forest Service Northern Region forester from 1997 to 2001 and as U.S. Forest Service chief from 2001 to 2007.

Science: Beacon of Reality – AFS Keynote by Bob Lackey

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Here’s a paper by Bob Lackey, well worth reading, especially for any of us practitioner/scientist types. He’s got a great deal of real world experience in the natural resource science policy world. I think the whole paper is interesting but excerpted the section below that addresses some of the issues we discuss regularly on this blog.

In case you are unfamiliar with Bob and his work, here’s his bio.

But, for scientists who take their civic responsibilities seriously, all is not well. Far from it.
Specifically, for scientists at least, advocating personal or organizational policy preferences has become widely tolerated as acceptable professional behavior.

Scientists may even be encouraged to do this by a portion of our professional community. The risk: we will diminish ourselves and the scientific enterprise when we allow personal or organizational policy preferences to color our scientific contributions.

This is a morass into which we scientists must not allow ourselves to slip. As scientists, we have a special role, an exclusive role because we are uniquely qualified to provide technical knowledge that is based on rigorous scientific principles.
It is this policy neutral knowledge that the public and decision-makers sorely need.
Is the scientific enterprise at risk? It is! A recent U.S. national poll revealed that 40% of the general public has little or no trust in what scientists say about environmental issues. And, about as bad, the remaining 60% were not overly positive either. I suspect that similar results would be found in Canada, especially relative to fisheries science.

How pervasive is this distrust?

I have a good friend who has worked for several big national environmental
organizations. When I shared with him some of the ideas I planned to present today, he stopped me cold with a blunt reality check:
“

Bob, you’ve got to move into the 21st century. Science is a weapon in the policy wars. We buy the most believable scientists we can find and send them into court to battle Government scientists. Eventually the judge gets overwhelmed by the minutiae and orders the parties to go away and work out some kind of a compromise. This is how it works now. When this happens, we nearly always win because the agency just wants to make the case go away. And, best of all, they usually agree to pay our legal costs. That’s the real world, my friend!”

What did I say to warrant this rant?
But he was more upfront than most policy advocates, and I’ll accept that his is a sound political strategy, for an advocacy group, but it is a corruption of science and the scientific enterprise. He is paid to understand and manipulate the political and legal system to achieve his organization’s goals. Fine, but it is still a corruption of science.
What role should scientists play in policy debates? How can they best provide
leadership? How does a scientist lead from behind?

First, scientists should contribute to and inform policy deliberations. This is not only the right thing to do, but it’s an obligation, especially if our work is publicly funded. I also do not hold with the notion that it is sufficient for fisheries scientists to publish their findings in scholarly papers, papers that only a few technical experts will ever read. I take it as a given that scientists also should provide, and explain, the underlying science, including uncertainty, around important policy questions.

Second, when scientists do contribute to policy analysis and implementation, and they should, they must exercise great care to play the appropriate role. Unfortunately, working at this interface is also where some scientists mislead or confuse decision makers by letting their personal policy preferences color their science.
It is so easy to do.
Let me share a slightly embarrassing story that demonstrates one consequence of
allowing policy preferences to infect science. It involves a veteran Government lawyer, someone I have worked with for years.
We were relaxing in a Portland pub after spending a long, long day listening to dueling scientists testifying in an Endangered Species Act trial. I was trying to convince him, from my perspective as a scientist, that it seemed reasonable to expect opposing litigants to at least be able to agree on the basic science relevant to a particular court case, the so-called “scientific facts of the case”. After all, the legal debate should be over interpretations of the law, not science, right?

Perhaps I was badgering him a bit too much, but his response to my pestering jolted me:

Bob, you guys have no credibility. All of you spin your science to lend support to whatever policy outcome you or your organization favors. I’m not sure science was ever a beacon of truth, but it sure isn’t now, at least not in the legal arena. I watch scientists routinely misuse science in case after case.”

No credibility? Science spin? Misuse of science? He was wrong, wasn’t he?
No — he was not entirely wrong. Let me offer an example.
The most common misuse of science is to assume a policy preference and then
incorporate that policy preference into scientific information. Such science is called normative science, and normative science is, unfortunately, increasingly common.
Let me be unequivocal. Using normative science is stealth policy advocacy, plain and simple. Ignorance is no excuse.
Who would do such a thing?
It happens and it happens often.
An example from this part of North America: the case of the 160 year decline in wild
salmon and the role of dams. Here is a big insight: dams have an effect on wild salmon
populations and the effect is negative.

Along the West Coast, it is common for scientists to be asked to gauge the likely effects on wild salmon of removing a particular dam, or building a particular dam.
This is a legitimate and appropriate role for fisheries scientists, and one that we are well positioned to play. But, there is no scientific imperative to remove, or build, dams. Policy imperatives come from people’s values and priorities, not from science.
All of the policy options regarding the future of dams have ecological consequences,
some of which may even be catastrophic from a salmon perspective, but ecological
consequences are simply one element that the public and decision makers must weigh in choosing from a set of typically unpleasant alternatives.

Hardly a week passes that I don’t receive an online petition from an advocacy group
asking me, and other scientists, to sign as a show of support to remove a particular salmonkilling dam for reasons that sound like science, read like science, are presented by people who cloak themselves in the accoutrements of science, but who are actually offering nothing but policy advocacy masquerading as science.
Scientists, acting in their role as policy neutral providers of information, should not decide whether it is more important to use water to sustain wild salmon, or use the same water to generate electricity to run air conditioners, or the same water to irrigate alfalfa fields, or the very same water to make artificial snow at your favorite ski resort.
Politically, from what I observe today, the use of normative science cuts across the
ideological spectrum. It seems no less common coming from the political Left or Right, from the Greens or the Libertarians, or from Government agencies or Private sector organizations.
Regardless of the political ideology, normative science is a corruption of science No
matter how strongly a scientist feels about his or her personal policy preferences, practicing normative science is not OK. No exceptions.

Ecologists question research on burns in bug-killed forests after Montana fires

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Photo by Matt Stensland
Thanks to Derek for submitting. From the Missoulian here.

Last summer, a wall of flame roared through a three-mile stretch of tinder-dry, bug-killed lodgepole pine forest and forced a large group of firefighters to retreat to a safety zone.

An official said later the flames moved through the trees like fire does through grass.

In the upper West Fork of the Bitterroot, another fire blew through 17,000 acres in a day. Much of that area also was covered by lodgepole pine killed by mountain pine beetle.

That unusual fire behavior now has some fire ecologists questioning conventional research that suggests that wildfires won’t burn as fiercely through forests filled with bug-killed trees.

“We definitely saw some unusual and pretty amazing runs under fire conditions that we would normally consider to be moderate,” said Matt Jolly, a research ecologist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula.

Earlier research based on modeling suggested that stands of dead and dying trees were not as prone to flare into fast-moving crown fires. And if the fire did manage to make it into the crowns, the research said it was unlikely to stay there long.

Firefighters and researchers saw something quite different happen this summer.

“These fires were quite a bit more active than what the conventional research suggests,” Jolly said. “The problem is most of the conventional research used simulation models. If you don’t have good observations, then you have to assume the models are correct.”

Before this year, the past three summers were marked by very wet Augusts, which is typically the peak of the wildfire season in western Montana.

“We’ve been dodging the bullet, if you will, over the last three seasons,” Jolly said.

Canadians have been reporting similar fires in their own forests filled with beetle-killed trees for a number of years.

The fires this summer burned in conditions that weren’t considered extreme over an understory that was often still green. At times, the solid walls of flame reached from the ground to far above the canopy.

In some cases, the fire was burning through a forest of mostly dead trees that had already shed most of their needles.

***

Jolly said trees attacked by mountain pine beetles start a downward spiral that makes them more susceptible to fire early on. Once the trees die, their needles turn red before falling off. The red needles are extremely flammable.

Once the needles fall off, the forest has a gray appearance. This summer, Jolly said the fires blew through those standing gray stands.

“A lot of people have proposed that once the needles fall off, there’s little opportunity for a crown fire,” he said. “In these gray stands, you essentially have a vertical dead fuel with extremely low fuel moistures that once ignited, can create a flaming front.”

Fire researchers also noted the fires were quick to form a column that created its own weather, which further enhanced burning conditions.

For these fires to occur, Jolly said fuel conditions, weather and topography have to be aligned just right.

In many cases, the fire conditions were not considered extreme.

“These fires burned under less than extreme conditions in the same way that a healthy stand would burn under extreme conditions,” Jolly said.

The dead stands are made up of vertical fuels that respond quickly to changes in the weather and humidity levels.

“That’s why it happens very quickly,” he said.

***

With hundreds of thousands of acres of bug-killed stands scattered across the West, Jolly said there is a “very real possibility” of seeing more fires like this past summer’s.

“It’s totally dependent on weather,” he said. “As soon as we have a dry year like we saw in 2000 or 2003, which came with a very prolonged period of drying, it will be very interesting to see what happens.”

Bitterroot West Fork District Ranger Dave Campbell said research like Jolly’s will be important to those who fight and attempt to manage the blazes.

“This was a good opportunity for us to partner with the fire lab, which has some of the best fire scientists around,” he said. “Hopefully, we will be able to make the models for the future.”

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_33e5c862-f930-11e0-9771-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1bEYungr1

Experts disagree about griz numbers, implications

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Figure from the Wyoming 2002 Grizzly Management Plan

Interesting story from the Cody Enterprise..

By MARK HEINZ | Posted: Monday, October 17, 2011 3:57 pm

Grizzly numbers in the heart of the Yellowstone area habitat appeared to have dipped, but some experts’ opinions vary regarding how much, and why.

There are an estimated 593 grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, compared to 602 last year, according to a new study.

The number of bears killed, for various reasons, over the past few years “has taken a powerful bite out of the population,” said ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody, who is retired from decades of field work with the BLM, Forest Service, and contract work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The take-home message is the population seems to have reached a plateau. We might be exceeding the female morality level,” said Mark Pearson, conservation program director with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.

But Game and Fish bear expert Mark Bruscino said he thinks the population remains robust.

“The survey behind the study was only on the grizzly population in the core of the habitat, and only for one year,” he said.

“In areas where we haven’t done systematic sampling, the bear population continues to grow, both in terms of numbers and distribution. Overall, the grizzly population is doing quite well,” Bruscino said.

He was among experts and other interested parties who attended a recent meeting in Bozeman, Mont., of the Yellowstone Ecosystem subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. The IGBC includes representatives from G&F, Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, USFWS, the U.S. Geological Survey, wildlife agencies in Idaho, Montana and Washington, and Canadian Wildlife Service.

Much of the discussion centered around a population study, done mostly by USGS and USFWS researchers,

Even a slight dip in grizzly populations can be worrisome to bear experts and conservationists, because the bruins’ reproductive rates are much lower than other wildlife species.

There seems to be consensus over the idea that grizzlies are ranging farther and consequently getting into more scrapes with people. But there is some disagreement over why.

There is also differences of opinion over whether grizzlies should be delisted, and perhaps even hunted, in Wyoming.

Bruscino thinks that’s a good idea; Pearson and Neal said they want to bears retain federal endangered species protection.

A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the matter is expected soon.

Looking for food?

Bears are losing some key ingredients of their diet because of the decline in white bark pine and cutthroat trout in the heart of grizzly country, Neal and Pearson said.

“Habitat quality has been in decline, primarily because of the loss of white bark pine to beetles,” Neal said.

Grizzlies like to feast on pine cone nuts, which are rich in fat and calories.

“It’s an important food source for them right now, as they fatten up for winter,” Neal said.

“We must take into consideration the effects of climate change on their food sources,” Pearson said. “With less food available in the interior habitat, bears are roaming into the fringe areas.”

Neal recalled the last time grizzlies began to disperse widely, get into trouble and, consequently, get killed in higher numbers.

That was back in the 1970s when the Park Service decided to shut down open landfills in Yellowstone, where bears had gotten accustomed to easy gorging.

Now, essentially the same thing is happening. But instead of the loss of a bad, artificial food source, grizzlies are losing natural sources, Neal said.

But Bruscino is dubious about the idea that bears are wandering to find food.

Rather, more bears are showing up in more places because they’re being pushed out by grizzlies that have laid claim to the interior habitat, he said.

Bruscino said according to what he knows, grizzlies are far more likely to adapt to new food sources in their territory, rather than wander somewhere else.

“Bears are the quintessential omnivores,” he said.

“The core habitat is saturated We just don’t see bears leaving their home ranges, he said. “Fat levels on bears in the core of the Yellowstone habitat indicate those bears are doing very well nutritionally.”

Neal said he doesn’t agree with the idea that habitat saturation is behind conflicts with people.

“They are getting into areas where people themselves are expanding their presence,” Neal said. “It’s not so much ‘saturated’ habitat,’ as it things like trying to raise chickens and sheep on the edge of occupied grizzly habitat.”

A question of tolerance

Bruscino said the GYE grizzly population has met or exceeded all the biological goals set when the recovery program started.

“We need to do more on the fringes to reduce conflicts,” he said. “In my opinion we could be hunting grizzlies, today, and it would not be detrimental to the population.”

Neal and Pearson said the answer isn’t to delist bears now, but rather to allow them to expand their habitat.

“The key has never been numbers. It’s always been enough occupied, contiguous habitat,” Neal said.

Opinions might hinge on whether people see the GYC as essentially a “island” of wild habitat, with nowhere else for grizzlies to go, or as part of a larger network of places where the bears feasibly could roam, Pearson said.

For example, GYC favors enough interconnected habitat to allow for genetic exchange between the Yellowstone and Glacier Park grizzly populations.

But he noted that conflicts with people could ultimately drive policy.

“Human tolerance is absolutely going to be the deciding factor regarding where grizzlies can thrive,” Pearson said.

California resident Dave Smith, who worked for years in Yellowstone, and still frequently visits, agreed.

“Grizzlies have been on the Endangered Species List for 30 years now, and I think people are getting worn out,” said Smith, who has written two books about staying safe around grizzlies and other large animals.

“The Game and Fish in Wyoming is having to play ‘musical bears,'” by constantly trapping and relocating troublesome grizzlies, Smith said.

This raises some questions for those that know this part of the country… given our economic situation, are folks still building houses into or next to grizzly habitat? Is critical habitat designated for private land?

I was also interested in these quotes:

Bruscino said the GYE grizzly population has met or exceeded all the biological goals set when the recovery program started.

“The key has never been numbers. It’s always been enough occupied, contiguous habitat,” Neal said.

I am not very expert on ESA, but if there are population goals, can they shift through time? That could get discouraging to people trying to implement policy
if folks are moving the goalposts.

And if the problem with endangered species is not numbers, how do we decide what is “enough occupied continguous habitat”?

Fourmile Canyon Fire Report Confirms Firewise

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The Rocky Mountain Research Station released its Fourmile Canyon Fire report, requested by Senator Udall of Colorado. The Report confirms that:

1) A home’s fate depends upon fuel in its immediate surroundings and construction materials;

2) Fuel treatments, especially those that leave fine fuels untreated, are ineffective protection against wildfires that threaten homes, i.e., windy, dry conditions; and,

3) Fire suppression resources are easily overwhelmed precisely when Fire-Unwise homes need them the most.

The report took a special look at aerial attack, finding that the great preponderance of retardant was dropped after the fire had already stopped advancing.

Sarewitz on “Consensus Science”

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This piece is reposted from Roger Pielke’s blog here. Note from Sharon: we have been discussing collaborating in terms of developing agreements about what action to take; I see a clear distinction between their use in policy (getting groups together to decide or recommend an approach or action) and in science (getting groups together to determine the current scientific thinking).

The below post by Roger, describing some of the ideas in Dan Sarewitz’s piece in Nature, deals with the latter. I don’t think we do much in terms of this in the world of public land management, which may be a good thing. Also note a comment here on Roger’s blog by Andy Stahl about consensus policy; some think that committees are places where good ideas go to die.

Writing in Nature this week, Dan Sarewitz reflects on his recent participation on the BPC Geoengineering Climate Remediation task force and why efforts to achieve consensus in science may leave out some of the most important aspects of science. Here is an excerpt:

The very idea that science best expresses its authority through consensus statements is at odds with a vibrant scientific enterprise. Consensus is for textbooks; real science depends for its progress on continual challenges to the current state of always-imperfect knowledge. Science would provide better value to politics if it articulated the broadest set of plausible interpretations, options and perspectives, imagined by the best experts, rather than forcing convergence to an allegedly unified voice.

Yet, as anyone who has served on a consensus committee knows, much of what is most interesting about a subject gets left out of the final report. For months, our geoengineering group argued about almost every issue conceivably related to establishing a research programme. Many ideas failed to make the report — not because they were wrong or unimportant, but because they didn’t attract a political constituency in the group that was strong enough to keep them in. The commitment to consensus therefore comes at a high price: the elimination of proposals and alternatives that might be valuable for decision-makers dealing with complex problems.

Some consensus reports do include dissenting views, but these are usually relegated to a section at the back of the report, as if regretfully announcing the marginalized views of one or two malcontents. Science might instead borrow a lesson from the legal system. When the US Supreme Court issues a split decision, it presents dissenting opinions with as much force and rigour as the majority position. Judges vote openly and sign their opinions, so it is clear who believes what, and why — a transparency absent from expert consensus documents. Unlike a pallid consensus, a vigorous disagreement between experts would provide decision-makers with well-reasoned alternatives that inform and enrich discussions as a controversy evolves, keeping ideas in play and options open.

Not surprisingly, Dan and I have come to similar conclusions on this subject. Back in 2001 in Nature I wrote (PDF):

[E]fforts to reduce uncertainty via ‘consensus science’ — such as scientific assessments — are misplaced. Consensus science can provide only an illusion of certainty. When consensus is substituted for a diversity of perspectives, it may in fact unnecessarily constrain decision-makers’ options. Take for example weather forecasters, who are learning that the value to society of their forecasts is enhanced when decision-makers are provided with predictions in probabilistic rather than categorical fashion and decisions are made in full view of uncertainty.

As a general principle, science and technology will contribute more effectively to society’ needs when decision-makers base their expectations on a full distribution of outcomes, and then make choices in the face of the resulting — perhaps considerable — uncertainty.

In addition to leaving behind much of the interesting aspects of science, in my experience, the purpose of developing a “consensus” is to to quash dissent and end debate. Is it any wonder that policy discussions in the face of such a perspective are a dialogue of the like minded? In contrast, as Sarewitz writes, “a vigorous disagreement between experts would provide decision-makers with well-reasoned alternatives that inform and enrich discussions as a controversy evolves, keeping ideas in play and options open.”

Collaborative Groups as Friends of the Court?

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In terms of what Mike said here about other groups (such as collaborative groups) filing in lawsuits as friends of the court, I would think that if it works for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, it would work for local collaborative groups (if they could afford attorneys, or perhaps law students could volunteer to support these groups). Hopefully, more knowledgeable people can tell me if I am barking up the wrong tree here.

Here’s the link.

Bay Foundation, others can join restoration suit
By ALEX DOMINGUEZ Associated Press​
Posted: 10/13/2011 02:49:17 PM MDT
Updated: 10/13/2011 03:45:13 PM MDT

BALTIMORE—The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other groups can join a court fight over bay restoration efforts, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Thursday.

The bay advocacy group, other environmental organizations and associations representing sewer authorities asked to side with the federal Environmental Protection Agency​ as defendants in the suit. The American Farm Bureau Federation sued the EPA in January over the stricter federally led effort and other groups have since joined the challenge. Critics say it is too far-reaching and will burden states with huge costs.

U.S. District Sylvia H. Rambo said the groups may help settle the complex case.

“In fact, given the complexity and voluminous size of the administrative record, which includes scientific models, the court finds that the presence of the intervenors may serve to clarify issues and, perhaps, contribute to resolution of this matter,” Rambo said in her order.

A telephone call by The Associated Press seeking comment from the American Farm Bureau Federation was not immediately returned Thursday afternoon.

Foundation attorney Jon Mueller said the groups were “looking forward to arguing this case in order to ensure that Bay restoration moves forward, and that all do their part to reduce pollution.”

The other environmental groups joining the foundation in the motion were Penn Future, Defenders of Wildlife, the Jefferson County Public Service District, the Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy, and the National Wildlife Federation. The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents sewer authorities nationwide, also sought to intervene with state sewer authority associations. The head of the association said in May that his organization has some concerns about the EPA’s strategy, but is much more concerned with attempts by the plaintiffs to walk away from the process.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation President William Baker accused the plaintiffs on Thursday of trying to halt the restoration process.

“The effort to derail Bay restoration must be stopped, here and now,” Baker said. “We are pleased we can be part of defending the Bay restoration effort and are confident that the court will uphold the public’s right to clean water.”

The EPA’s strategy puts everyone in the six-state bay watershed on a “pollution diet” with daily limits for how much sediment and runoff can come from each area. Pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer, auto and power plant emissions cause oxygen-robbing algae blooms once they reach the bay, creating dead zones where sea life can’t live.

Farmers and agriculture interests are concerned about the strategy because agriculture is the single largest source of bay pollutants, according to the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay model. While agriculture has made gains in reducing bay pollution, the strategy calls for even more reductions from all sectors.

———

The Mirage of Pristine Wilderness: From High Country News

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I thought this piece and the comments were both interesting. Here’s the link.

The mirage of pristine wilderness

by Emma Marris

One summer day, I went with my father and daughter to Schmitz Park in West Seattle, famous for being among the only chunks of old-growth forest within city limits. A few urban noises penetrated the 50-acre park, mostly airplanes and boat horns. But it was markedly quiet — and beautiful. The turf was springy with a thousand layers of needles. Creeks wended their way under fallen logs. Ferns and firs and hemlock quietly photosynthesized, cradled by the debris of dead trees. And all around us, right along the trail, were bushes heavily laden with red huckleberries. I ate a couple and gave several to my toddler — something I probably wouldn’t have done five years ago, when I took more seriously the solemn duty not to besmirch natural areas, especially old-growth forests, with my human presence.

As a kid growing up in Seattle, I was proud of the Northwest’s old-growth forests. We still had pristine wilderness, while the people of the Midwest and East Coast had used theirs all up. It made me feel smug.

But, of course, it isn’t that simple. For the last several years, I’ve been writing about ecologists and conservationists coming to terms with the fact that “pristine wilderness” is a mirage. Climate change, pollution, species movements, land-use changes — we’ve transformed the whole globe for good, every inch of it. And even if we could undo all that we’ve done, what would we go back to? Prehistoric humans changed landscapes much more than we once believed. And paleoecologists are teaching us to see familiar ecosystems not as eternal, unchanging, harmonious wholes so much as accidental, ephemeral aggregations — ships passing in the night in geological time. There never was a one right time, the ecologists say — no Garden of Eden.

A year or so ago, I interviewed Feng Sheng Hu, a paleoecologist at the University of Illinois in Urbana. He explained that the Northwest’s old-growth forests present a puzzle. Not because they are so old — because they’re so young. The very oldest gray, grand, massive Douglas firs in the region are about 700 years old. But their normal lifespan extends to 1,200 years, making those wise grandfathers just a titch over middle-aged. The reason, said Hu, was that the climate has only been cool enough for them for 700 years. Go further back, and you find yourself in a hotter time called the Medieval Warm Period, when frequent fires would have kept any Doug-fir forests from reaching a ripe old age. A mere 700 years ago, there were already people living in the Northwest. As Hu spoke, my pride was instantly shattered. The vaunted old-growth forest ecosystem wasn’t even one tree-generation old. It didn’t predate human settlement. It wasn’t unchanging. It was … what? Just a forest?

So as I walked through this little scrap of urban old growth, my daughter on my back, I was thinking hard about my emotional reaction. I wanted to see if it felt any different now that I know that old-growth forest isn’t the timeless, unchanging, right ecosystem I once believed it to be.

Among the skunk cabbage and black mud and moss and lichen, the big trees still seemed impressive, solid, silent — detached but somehow tender. I realized that even after we learn that old-growth ecosystems aren’t necessarily that old, the trees are still really, really big.

Then my father spoke. “We came here when you were tiny,” he said cheerfully. “You were still mastering walking longer distances, and I think you walked all the way up the trail.” This, then, was presumably back in the early 1980s, when my parents were still together. I felt a stab of nostalgia for my childhood, and my train of thought switched tracks. You can’t go home again, I thought. That’s the message of all this new research. First you learn that you can’t go back, and then you learn that there never was a home to go back to. Everything is always in flux; any date you pick is arbitrary, whether it is before or after Columbus, before or after we killed off the mammoths and giant ground sloths, before or after the logging industry began in the Pacific Northwest around 1850. And it is sad. I’ve written a whole book arguing that ditching the “pristine wilderness” idea is empowering and liberating because it allows us to look to the future and create more nature instead of clinging to disappearing scraps of seemingly untouched land. That’s still true. But it is also reasonable to grieve for the loss of a beautiful, simple ideal.

Dad and I made a list of the reasons Schmitz Park is valuable. “It is a rare ecosystem type in the city,” I said. “And it is beautiful. And there are really big trees.” “And,” he said, “no one has ever changed it.” My first impulse was to pooh-pooh this as yet another manifestation of the counterproductive obsession with pristine wilderness. And certainly it isn’t strictly true. Some trees were taken out before it was protected, and volunteers are fiddling with it all the time, removing exotic species and planting native seedlings. But he’s right that it stands out from a sea of bungalows and coffee shops and sidewalks and docks, a green swath with big old trees. Maybe not old enough to impress Hu and maybe not pristine. But big and old, goddamn it. Big and old. A good place to let yourself mourn a little for the Eden that never was, for the early childhood you remember only hazily through photographs. A good place to feed the kid some berries. Other people may be too scared to eat them, or too respectful to touch them, but I have given up worshiping wilderness in favor of tasting it.

Emma Marris is a freelance environmental journalist based in Columbia, Missouri. Her first book, Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, comes out this month.
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