Leaving East, Heading West

Featured Photo: The view from a 14-mile hike in the Scapegoat Wilderness. 

One month ago I left Connecticut and began the long drive out to Montana.

Two years of graduate school at Yale F&ES flew by and I found myself preparing for my first “real” job — a seasonal forestry position with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Butte, Montana. Butte was a town I knew nothing about, in a state I knew little about, in a region of the country I had only traveled to a handful of times. When I found myself applying for forestry jobs back in January, I was drawn to Montana because it felt like one of the last truly wild places in the continental U.S. Although I enjoyed my time in New Haven, I was ready to leave the Northeastern megalopolis — and more than ready to leave the Ivy League scene. After five days of driving with my mother and sister, I arrived in Butte. It is the farthest I’ve ever lived from my hometown in southern New Jersey. I’m still getting used to it.

I moved into my apartment on a Saturday and began working the next Tuesday. I was both nervous and excited to start. Ever since my winter internship with the BLM in central California, I have had a desire to manage public lands. The interplay between the public and the vast network of land in the West fascinates me. My field office manages 1.4 million acres of federal land, 100,000 of which are forested. Most of my field work occurs on small, fragmented parcels; something I grew accustomed to back East.

So far I have treated Douglas-fir trees with Methylcyclohexane (MCH — a chemical which repels Douglas-fir beetles) and “cruised” timber. Timber cruising consists of measuring an individual tree’s height, diameter, and percentage of defect to assess the monetary value of a stand of trees. When administering timber sales to the public, it is our job to get the best value for the government. This isn’t difficult: compared to trees that grow in the moist Pacific Northwest, the timber in the Northern Rockies region has a pretty low value. The Douglas-fir forests here seldom reach 100 feet tall. (This isn’t to say the forests of the region have a lower ecological — or ecosystem service — value. That’s a different conversation entirely.)

I have enjoyed the variety of tasks, training opportunities, and people I have met in the area so far. However, I will miss the Northeastern forest that I grew to love over the past 23 years. The ecological, societal, and political complexities of the Northeast do not exist in this area of the country. Or rather, the West has its own set of complexities that I am just beginning to discover.

I feel torn between the comforting familiarity of my old home and the endless possibilities of my new one. At my field sites in southwestern Montana, I am amazed that I can turn 360° and not see a single building — it’s the same feeling I have when I tilt my head back to the stars and consider the vastness of the universe. There are so many places to explore during my time off and I know I’ll never be able to see them all.

But there are days when the Northeast and its forests still call to me. I experienced many small miracles during my time as a forestry student: making eye contact with a barred owl in an Atlantic white cedar swamp, watching fire transform an oak-pine forest, and stumbling across a 300+ year-old white pine in the Yale Myers Forest as the light struck it just right, to name a few. I have no doubt I’ll return to the Northeast one day, whether it’s to work or to play.

I’m not sure what my future holds, but for now I’m content to be surrounded by mountains. On my commute to work, I head towards the Highland range and have the pleasure of watching early-morning fog roll over the snow-capped peaks. It hasn’t ceased to amaze me yet.

 

 

Returning the Pines to the People

Featured Photo: Lake Fred at Stockton University, by David Carr

It was 34° F and raining when close to 200 people were locked out of a public meeting with the New Jersey Pinelands Commission over a proposed pipeline that would cut through miles of ecologically sensitive habitat within the state’s national reserve. Due to a last-minute switch to a smaller venue, only 120 people were allowed into the January 24 meeting and the rest were forced to wait outside in freezing conditions. Those that remained could be heard chanting “let us in” and “no pipeline!” even after the meeting was adjourned. Despite outcry from the public, the Pinelands Commission would approve construction of the pipeline in a 9-5 vote on February 24, 2017.

According to their website, the Commission’s mission is to “preserve, protect, and enhance the natural resources of the Pinelands National Reserve.”

This is not the first time the public has clashed with the Pinelands Commission – in fact, individuals and environmental groups such as the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, The Sierra Club, and Environment New Jersey have been at odds with the commission over its governance of the Pinelands for years.  The fiasco that took place on January 24 is a symptom of a much larger problem: that the Commission’s decision-making process is no longer as democratic as it was created to be. The Pinelands Commission is an independent state agency created in 1979 to govern local land use and implement development regulations within the 1.1-million-acre national reserve. The board is comprised of 15 non-paid commissioners: seven appointed by the NJ Governor, seven appointed by the NJ counties that fall within the Pinelands border, and one appointed by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

But the true voices of the Pinelands belong to the people who live within the reserve.

When the Pinelands Commission listens to the voices of the people, victories for the environment are possible. In 1997, a well was constructed just outside the Pinelands boundary to provide water to Camden County residents. When members of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance noticed that a wetlands area inside the Pinelands was drying up, they pushed for a formal hearing with the Commission to request that the well draw from another source of water. In 2001, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance was victorious and the Pinelands Commission turned down the water company’s allocation request, forcing them to find another source. During this time, the Commission and the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) met with hundreds of concerned individuals who turned the tide in the environment’s favor.

There needs to be a fundamental change in how Pinelands Commission decisions are reached – if not a restructuring of how Pinelands Commissioners themselves are elected. Why is it that the governor, many of whom are from northern New Jersey, far removed from the Pinelands, has the power to appoint seven commissioners? More often than not, those that are elected serve the governor’s special interests – and are replaced if they don’t. In 2014 and 2015, two commissioners were hastily replaced by Gov. Chris Christie because they voted in opposition to the South Jersey Gas/Rockland Capital pipeline. The governor’s power to appoint and replace commissioners should be revoked. Instead, two commissioners from each NJ county in the Pinelands should be democratically elected, in addition to the federally appointed one. This would prevent the governor from acting in his or her own self-interest, and return the power to the people.

Community management of the Pinelands is possible – but not when people are locked out of meetings and have their voices silenced. If a fundamental restructuring of how Pinelands Commissioners are elected is not feasible, then there needs to be more transparency during critical decision-making processes

Or, at the very least, a venue that can accommodate everyone who turns out to the meetings.

 

 

What It Means to be a Young Forester

From left to right: Caroline Scanlan, Andrew Wilcox, Jessica Wikle, Lydia Mendoza, Emily Dolhansky, Leana Weissberg, Leonora Pepper, Nicholas Biemiller, Cameron Musser

*This op-ed was originally written for and published in the November 2016 edition of The Forestry Source. 

This November I attended the National SAF Convention in Madison, Wisconsin as a member of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies’ student chapter. It was my first national convention and I was amazed at how much I learned in such a short amount of time. My peers and I split our time among different presentations; our wide array of interests allowed us to listen to several talks that we later discussed together. At one point I brought up how often I was referred to as a “young forester” over the course of the convention. I am 22 years old. I fall into the nebulous group of people known as millennials. And I am a recent college graduate ready to take on the complex issues of forestry that my generation faces. A student for nearly all my life, I never perceived myself as young, nor did I see the forestry I was studying as any different from that which came before me. However, in the context of the convention, I was able to reflect on what it means to be a young forester in an evolving field.

In general, I believe natural resource managers my age have a different set of values than older generations. The timber industry is no longer our only career prospect – in fact, my generation might be the first that values the ecosystem services forests provide more than the monetary value that timber does. While timber production is and will always be an integral part of forestry, the focus is shifting away from it.

Being a young forester means that being a woman in the field is no longer a novel concept. Of the 18 Yale F&ES students who attended the convention, 12 were women. I attended several presentations given by women, and met many young women excited to advance as professionals in their realms of expertise. While we still have a ways to go, women’s voices are being heard and respected more so than ever before.

Finally, young foresters care about communication. And not just the type of communication that involves texting each other where the best Wisconsin cheese curds can be found. Science drives us, but the desire to share our knowledge with the public is equally important. We see the internet, and perhaps social media, as one of the best ways to accomplish this. We want everyone to engage in the dialogue around our natural resources – regardless of age, race, gender, or sexuality – and proper communication is key to doing so.

I hope I have the opportunity to attend future conferences and support an even younger generation.  As I watched Wisconsin’s autumnal forest fade from view beneath a layer of clouds on my flight back to Connecticut, I reflected on what it means to be a young forester and why I’m proud to be one.

There’s no doubt that the field of forestry is changing. There should be no doubt that it is being left in capable hands.