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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, welcome to the crime Pace it Bonny

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Doesn't Podcast. I'm here with Ethan Tapper, who's you're based

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out of Vermont?

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Speaker 2: Right, that's right?

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Speaker 1: Is that correct? And who's who put out a book

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called how to Love a Forest? Who just released it?

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When did you release it? Like a year or two ago?

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Speaker 2: It was September twenty four?

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, so about a year ago. And I've

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been following you on social media for a while. I

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think one of your first posts looped me in and

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then just all the stuff I see I love, I

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love it. I love the stuff you post. And you

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were the one who You were the one who told me,

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of course, to start off talking about ticks right away,

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that you guys just started getting ticks up in Vermont recently,

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like to a bad extent, which is nuts to me.

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I mean, it's like the same thing when you like,

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Iceland has mosquitoes.

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Speaker 2: Now, yeah, we didn't. Even when I was growing up

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in Vermont, we didn't have him. The first one I

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ever saw I was in Portland, Maine, like in a

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Whole Foods or something, and I didn't know I saw

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it on me and I didn't know what it was.

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I thought it was just a little spider, and so

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I was like, you know, I was in this big

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store and I was like, well, I'm not going to

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let you out here, buddy, and so I put it

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back on me, like you can hang out of me,

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you can jump off when we get back out of

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the barking. And then I found it embedded at me

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later and asked someone else. I was like, oh, is

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this what a ticket?

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Speaker 1: Oh wow? So you didn't even fuck that's crazy. You

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didn't know what it was. I was going to say,

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you just put it on the floor. You know, they'll come.

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They'll get it when they come. Wax though, when the

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janitor comes waxes it later that night.

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Speaker 2: You know, No, I didn't. I didn't even have a

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frame of reference for I'd never seen one before that

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was in So that was probably two thousand and nine

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or twenty ten.

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Speaker 1: That's crazy.

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Speaker 2: Now it's a big deal. And basically every every forester,

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every biologist, everybody that works in the field that I

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know has, you know, had at least one tickboard disease.

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I've had Live's disease pretty much all foresters have.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's horrible up there in the Northeast man, I

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mean it's it's it's just like that's one of the

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reasons that might be one of the reasons it's kept

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me out for a while. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, sorry,

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what'd you say?

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Speaker 2: I said, you're a Southwestern boy, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where I've learned. That's why I've spent most

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of my time. I was in California for twenty years.

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I left Chicago when I was like seventeen. That's where

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I grew up, and I was in California for twenty years,

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and that's where I learned botany and then yeah, I

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mean you get ticks in California. Like the first time

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I ever found a ticket was embedded in my nuts

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and I had, you know, a friend who I was

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later romantically involved with. It was very nice she pulled

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it out for me. But but it was like it was,

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you know, I was because I didn't know what to

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do and I was free. I was like panicking because

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I've never gotten. I'd never gotten before. I'd spent you know,

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when I was a teenager, I was spent my time

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like growing up in cities and riding the subway and

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shit like that, and uh yeah, and I used to

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be absolutely just terrified of him. And now I'm just

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like whatever, I'll just pull them off later. But you know,

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I go to all these habitats where they burn enough now,

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you know, on the eastern in the eastern side of

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the hundredth meridian where it's more humid, you know, east

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coast and uh, and so you don't really get them

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when they when they burn a lot. But that's that's

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perplexing to me that you guys used to not get them.

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Why was that? Do you think just because of the

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cold winters? And was there a history of burning in

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Vermont or what not?

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Speaker 2: Really? No, I mean we think of It's actually been

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fun so now that I've since the book has come out,

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and you know, just a big part of my life

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has been traveling around doing this public speaking stuff and conferences,

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and so I've begin able to see all different forest types.

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And one of the big discoveries for me has been

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seeing what a big roll fireplaces in these ecosystems. Because

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here in Vermont we have a few fire adapted systems.

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We have a few areas of this natural community that

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we call sandplane forest, which is like pitch pine and

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a small area little pockets of some other fire adapted

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systems red pine forests, natural red and forest, and dry

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oak forest. But fire isn't a big deal here, so

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I think it was just that they were limited, you know,

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climatically to a certain extent.

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Speaker 1: Well, you guys were glaciated too, like relatively recently ten

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thousand years ago, was all was Vermont under ice? Did

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they come that far south?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think we were glaciated. And I think

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that they say that the only part of the Northeast

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that ticks are native to is like Long Island, New York,

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which I believe I think is unglaciated or is right

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at the edge. That's why. Yeah, everywhere, So that happened.

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Like so like another example of you know, with these

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with climate change, like this weird stuff that's happening, is

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that we have all these issues with what we call

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the winter tick, which is this very large tick. When

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they're in gorge there, they're huge, They're like the size

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of peanut m and m's, and they're they back, they

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attack servants. So they're like been really causing damage to

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our moose populations to the point where in their first

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year of life we lose sixty to eighty percent of

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our moose and we lose them to anemia because they

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get these winter ticks on a one year old moose,

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they might have one hundred and eighty thousand of them

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on it, and they're huge. And they actually are a

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species that historically is co evolved with deer white tail deer,

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so deer because they're co evolved with them, have this

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preening behavior they pick them off. But the historic ranges

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of deer and moose didn't used to cross, and now

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that their range is cross, we have winter ticks in

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moose's range and they don't have any evolutionary relationship with

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that species, so they don't really have any way to

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deal with it.

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Speaker 1: When you think about what it's going to take to get,

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you know, to kill a moose, I mean, the extent

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of infestation is it's just that's so disgusting, and I

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mean it's they got to look like Papaloma's like wartz

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or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they do, and they have this thing that they

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we call them the ghost moose because they'll lose all

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their hair and they'll have this like white translucent skin

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from all the ticks. Yeah, I mean, it's just one

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of these things like it's like everybody. It's starting to

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feel like everybody's taken these ecosystems, you know, and just

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put like they're in a snow globe and just shook

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them up. Yeah, you have different you know, obviously tons

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of introduced species causing all this mayhem, and then even

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native species that are sort of like mixed around and

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exposed to these novel conditions that are becoming a problem.

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I mean, white tailed deer is a species like that, right.

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Speaker 1: Or ordinative species. They used to have checks and you know,

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stop gaps that are now removed, and so they just

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get out of control like fight. You know. Fire is

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a great example of that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I mean so now, having having done events

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and done work and visited areas like Mississippi and some

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of these plains regions, it's just a remarkable thinking about

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the impact that fireus had on the landscape and how

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much these places have changed without it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, I could I could say a lot.

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I was just in Florida. It's brutal to see I

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was in I think Orlando's the most terrible place I've

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ever been to. H But it's a great I mean,

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it must have been forgive the squeaking style in the

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background too. That's his dog. I'm watching. He's I'm it's

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if I put him outside, he's just gonna whine and

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we're gonna hear him anyway. So anyway, but uh, we

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all love Jimmy over here. But you know, Florida must

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have been paradise. It was beautiful, and it's just everyone

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that lives there now is so strange from what actually

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what actually evolved there and grew there. What the reality is.

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You know, it's like they got oranges on the license

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plates and then it's everything is just the car slam

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and toll roads everywhere, and highest level of corruption i've

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seen in terms of you know, development and business ties

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to politicians. There's just no regulations whatsoever. It seems like

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there's nothing to do to stop it. But yeah, I mean,

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you know, you see it everywhere. It's like it's gonna

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it is the sixth mass extinction. It's gonna hit a

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wall at some point. But I mean, you know, I

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once I learned the geologic timescale, it changed everything for me.

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It was like, oh, like this sucks, but life comes back,

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and it's just in the end, it's just you know,

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the massive amount of suffering and needless waste that we're causing.

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But yeah, I mean.

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Speaker 2: It's it's the thing Joey too that I like that

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I write about and talk about a lot, is just

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like this weird dichotomy that we've developed in our culture

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where it's like, you know, either way, nature gets screwed,

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which is not like either you know, people don't understand

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how important it is and how valuable it is and

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how it sustains its functional and beautiful and so they

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exploit it and they degrade it and they treat it

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like a commodity or you know, the people who like

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who love nature, who understand its value, they're like, we'll

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just leave it alone. You know, nature will find a

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way nature you know, to do anything is to ruin

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it and despoil it.

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Speaker 1: Who do you know that says that? Though? Because I

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feel like that's I.

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Speaker 2: Hear that really the prevailing system it that I hear.

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Speaker 1: That's crazy because I hear management all the time, Like

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I that kind of because I think most people know

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that such an antiquated kind of you know, miroram way

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to view things where it's just hands off, like it'll it'll,

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it'll figure it out like I just you know, it's it's.

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Speaker 2: I think I think it's really depressing. I mean I

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I hear like on my channels and and and At

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talks to a certain extent stuff like that. I mean,

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I hear it all the time.

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Speaker 1: And that's that's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. I

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can't believe that. I mean, yeah, it's like for.

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Speaker 2: Me, it's just it's just another kind of abdication, you know,

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it's just like, uh, and it's just another kind of

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lack of understanding as well. It's like people are very

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people's minds are very flexible, and like whatever is just

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the easiest for them to understand, or the easiest for

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them to wrap their heads around, is they're just they'll

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just go there.

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Speaker 1: I mean, but you don't hear a collegist saying that, though,

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do you.

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Speaker 2: I mean, absolutely, no no ecologists, no biologsts, no people

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who actually understand these ecosysms.

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Speaker 1: Are you just talk about like normies, just like members

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of the square community, just normals? Yeah, yeah, No, no

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offense to them. I'm just saying, you know, there's this

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there's this spot for them too. They're important assets to

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the economy that we have here in the United States

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that might be collapsing soon. But I think, you know,

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I people get up bummed down. They asked me all

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the ten like, you know, how do you go continue

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going on? You know? And I think they're mostly younger kids,

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which I totally get because I was like that too,

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But I'm like, how do I continue? One? Yeah, it's

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geologic timescale, like I said, But also too, it's we're

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recently new to this consciousness thing, Like we're still monkeys.

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We still operate on the monkey brain. We have this

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lowest common denominator view of things. You know, we just

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respond to to emotional impulses and wants and dopamine responses.

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And I want this. I want that this person has

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set me whatever. Like there's so little enlightenment and that's

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a that's a bummer. But I think it just means, okay, well,

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if it's just an enlightenment problem, I mean it's a

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big problem. It's a big requires a big solution. But

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it means there's hope, you know. It means that there's

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a way to just telling people be self aware, be

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aware of this machine, this living machine, this biosphere and

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how it works. There's no getting around it. You have

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to work with it. You can't fucking run off to Mars.

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It's not really gonna work. It's not it's a you know,

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it's it's not it's not a real it's not a

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realistic dream. And even if it was, it's not a

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place you want to actually be. Uh, you know, it's

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it's like focus on this and understand it. It's just,

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you know, everything is just still so new and there's

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still so much time.

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Speaker 2: Well oh yeah, well, and I I mean, I do.

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I think one of one of my jobs, it feels like,

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is to go around and have this like sort of

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spread this message of hope and just being like there

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is stuff we can do and there is things we

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can save, and and that, you know, is something that

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I think people don't hear a lot of times. To

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your earlier point though about like our you know, just

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being these like monkey brains and stuff. EO. Wilson had

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a really funny thing that he said about that, which

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is that he said, we have uh, paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions,

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and godlike technology. Yeah, it's like how could that work?

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Speaker 1: That dude, is that that guy's one of my I

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mean him and Sagan and and other people, Octavia Butler, Bukowski,

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like all these people, you know, they're like it's like

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if I ever design a curricula, it'll be in there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But but some.

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Speaker 2: Of this stuff, like you know, like you mentioned, I

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just feel like so much of what is necessary to

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sort of like to bring people in and change courses.

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It's like, for a lot of folks, I don't even

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think it's that we need to necessarily like change their minds.

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We just need to bring them in a little deeper, right,

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which is what you do and which is what I

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try to do. And and when you know, by exposing

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them to the reality of like where these ecosystems are

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at and like what our relationship with them actually is

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and what it can be. You know that that's the

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reason why you don't see these silly philosophies from people

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like who are biologists and botanists and ecologists and you know,

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folks who actually like do this work, is because we're

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in deep enough to know that these ecosystems are precious

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and also that they need our help, right, And so

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it's sort of like, how do we trick people into

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coming in a little deeper?

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's I mean, I think it's that. But ye,

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it's not about trying to change their minds or persuade

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them because it doesn't happen overnight. But I think they'll

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change their own minds the more they learn, and if

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you politely just informed them. I'm like, look, man, you

289
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just don't know about this, and that's okay. Like I

290
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don't know how to play guitar. Like I can play drums,

291
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I can get a keep a beat, but I don't

292
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know how to play guitar, and so my opinions on

293
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guitar are not the ones that are worth listening to

294
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when it comes to playing guitar music, you know. But

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if someone taught me, if I learned something, you know,

296
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And that's why that's the same thing I say. So

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it's like, you know, you've got opinions on this stuff

298
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and no offense, but they may not be worth listening

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to because you don't know a lot about it. And

300
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that's part of just being a humble human being, you know.

301
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I you know, I don't know. People don't do that anymore.

302
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Of course, now everyone's a fucking expert, but you know,

303
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I don't know a lot about that. I'm not gonna come.

304
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I'm not gonna say anything. Okay, Well, let me tell you.

305
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I've been spending the last fifteen years of my life

306
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in places like this and trying to understand them, and

307
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you know it's for me. It's I mean, I see

308
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a lot of hope, man. I see the native plant

309
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thing went from just being this quaint, feel good thing

310
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about you know, I hate horticulture, to be honest with you,

311
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Like culture is just about beauty, which doesn't mean anything.

312
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It's subjective and you know what, it's just it's it

313
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doesn't it's not really what I do is in horticulture.

314
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I grow a shit ton of stuff. It's not horroriculture.

315
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I'm trying to like restore pieces to this living machine

316
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back or I'm just interested in how plants work physiologically

317
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and what evolutionary adaptations they might have based on where

318
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they're from. And so that's you know, I'll grow some

319
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non native stuff just to study it. But but you know,

320
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the native plant thing is like going into this like

321
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oh wow, just using plants as infrastructure. It's not just

322
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this feels good and it's good for the pollinators. Like

323
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I don't even I don't even like using that word

324
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pollinators anymore because to to like someone who doesn't have

325
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any background in this, it doesn't mean anything. It's just

326
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it feels corny. And if it's like a pat yourself

327
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on the back. Oh, it's good for the pollinators. I

328
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just say beneficial insects. The beneficial insects, the insects that

329
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benefit us as a species. They keep pest populations down,

330
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pests that directly parasitize us or parasitize the plants we want. It's,

331
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you know, everything is a check and check and balance,

332
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because it's that's the what an ecosystem is. You know,

333
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one plant is not as good as the other. It

334
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depends where they evolved and what what living machine they

335
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evolved in. They're important over there, but they're horrible over here.

336
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They smother ecosystems and they throw a gear, you know,

337
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they throw a wrench in the gears of the living

338
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machine here. But I but I see a lot of hope.

339
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So I guess when I when these when younger people

340
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say that to me, like how do you have hope,

341
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I'm like, man, I don't know how to answer that,

342
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Like I've got a lot of hope, Like it's you know,

343
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and then if you know, if it fails, then we

344
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just we're going to go extinct. Anyway, It's just like

345
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that's well, that solution just solved itself, you know, it

346
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problems just solved itself.

347
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Speaker 2: So anyway, And I like and one thing that I

348
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talk about a lot and right about is like my

349
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land here, which is I call Bear Island, which is

350
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like a big part of the of how to love

351
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a forest and a big part of the content that

352
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I make and what I talk about stuff and and

353
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and that's sort of like it's a hopeful story because

354
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when I came to this land, you know, it had

355
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I say, it had like every problem that a forest

356
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could have. You know, I have been really pulling. Man

357
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is what we call high graded. So they'd like the

358
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:05,319
previouest landowner had told these loggers to come in and

359
00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:07,599
just cut every tree bigger than ten inches in diameter,

360
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which were not just the most valuable trees but also

361
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the healthiest trees. So there's like no healthy trees here left.

362
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Fear overpopulation, you know, really intense invasive species infestation, eroding

363
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skid trails, like you know, piles of trash, the whole thing,

364
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and and I you know, over the last Now it's

365
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been we're at the end of eight growing season eight,

366
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just seeing the transformation that's possible when we like bring

367
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to bear all of this technology. We're not afraid to

368
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do tough stuff like, you know, cut a tree if

369
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we need to restore before us we actually have a

370
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tremendous amount of power, you know. I'm just like, I

371
00:17:47,799 --> 00:17:50,920
own this, this skidder piece of log and equipment, you know,

372
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:54,400
and I'm like, oh shit, this thing is powerful. Like

373
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if we use it in the right way, we can

374
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affect some real positive change. And we just need to

375
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be purists.

376
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Speaker 1: Yeah, fill me in on the because I'm totally unfamiliar

377
00:18:03,519 --> 00:18:05,799
with the Northeast, with the habitat of Vermont. These are

378
00:18:05,799 --> 00:18:08,640
all hardwood forests. There's conifers there too, or is.

379
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Speaker 2: It, Yeah, there's conifers there as well. But like, so

380
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:16,799
the big story, Joey is that, you know, really here

381
00:18:16,799 --> 00:18:20,279
in Vermont and really throughout New England, the timing is

382
00:18:20,279 --> 00:18:22,480
a little bit different, just based on the timing of

383
00:18:22,559 --> 00:18:29,079
when places were colonized. But here in Vermont, starting in

384
00:18:29,079 --> 00:18:31,720
the early eighteen hundreds, we had basically every forest on

385
00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:36,799
our landscape was cleared for agriculture, so like we are

386
00:18:36,839 --> 00:18:39,279
in very mountainous terrain. But it's remarkable when you see

387
00:18:39,319 --> 00:18:42,400
these historic photos of what Vermont used to look like.

388
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:45,200
What I tell people is that just assume that every

389
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:48,480
forest you've ever been in in Vermont was a pasture

390
00:18:48,519 --> 00:18:52,319
in the eighteen hundreds. And it's actually pretty remarkable. Between

391
00:18:52,359 --> 00:18:56,240
about eighteen twenty and about eighteen fifty, with draft animals

392
00:18:56,279 --> 00:18:59,880
and saws and axes, you know, we went from nine

393
00:19:00,079 --> 00:19:03,079
five percent forested state to being a less than twenty percent.

394
00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:07,599
And we have today like somewhere between one tenth of

395
00:19:07,599 --> 00:19:09,559
one percent and one half of one percent of old

396
00:19:09,559 --> 00:19:13,039
growth remaining, but we have we are seventy five percent

397
00:19:13,079 --> 00:19:18,160
forested now. So like throughout in the nineteen hundreds, a

398
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:22,119
lot of those forests came back, but they are not

399
00:19:22,599 --> 00:19:25,920
like the forests that were cleared from this landscape in

400
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:27,920
the eighteen hundreds. You know, they just haven't had time

401
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:31,839
to develop all of these these qualities of what you know,

402
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:34,519
an old growth ecosystem would look like on this landscape

403
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:38,000
for thousands of years and so here where fire wasn't

404
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,160
a big thing, what we mostly have is these relatively

405
00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:46,480
closed canopy, multi aged predominantly hardwood, but also mixed. We

406
00:19:46,559 --> 00:19:50,559
have some conifers, eastern hemlock, eastern white pine, red spruce,

407
00:19:51,559 --> 00:19:56,359
balsam fur. But we would have had these these these

408
00:19:56,440 --> 00:20:03,279
multi aged forests with mostly like small intensity natural disturbances

409
00:20:03,599 --> 00:20:06,079
creating these multi layered canopies, tons of dead wood on

410
00:20:06,119 --> 00:20:12,119
the ground. Prior to colonization, the large ungulates on our

411
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:16,079
landscape were like caribou and a now extinct species of

412
00:20:16,079 --> 00:20:20,000
elk called the eastern elk and those and they were

413
00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:23,599
hunted by wolves and cougars. That are all all of

414
00:20:23,599 --> 00:20:25,440
those species are in Alkon except for the moose.

415
00:20:25,599 --> 00:20:27,880
Speaker 1: There was an elk species. When did that get driven

416
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:28,759
to extinction? You know?

417
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:31,079
Speaker 2: Was that eastern elk I think was gone by the

418
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:34,720
end of the seventeen hundreds. Oh and they actually the

419
00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:37,279
only place in the East where they've reintroduced it is

420
00:20:37,279 --> 00:20:40,400
in Pennsylvania. In the early nineteen hundreds, Pennsylvania brought over

421
00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:44,440
some elk, like on a train from Yellowstone from western Elk.

422
00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:48,519
And so they now have a stable enough population in

423
00:20:48,759 --> 00:20:50,799
part of Pennsylvania where they have a season for elk.

424
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Speaker 1: Wow.

425
00:20:51,839 --> 00:20:55,039
Speaker 2: But so they you know, and the other big story

426
00:20:55,079 --> 00:20:57,119
that I think you'd be interested in enjoy. Is that

427
00:20:58,519 --> 00:21:03,200
we think that had in our valleys somewhere between well

428
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:07,200
probably about three hundred beaver dams per square mile, so

429
00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:09,359
that's a square miles six hundred and forty acres. It's

430
00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:11,759
a beaver and m every two acres. And so, like

431
00:21:12,359 --> 00:21:14,559
all of these valleys that are now where like people

432
00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:16,799
live and we have these villages and we have these

433
00:21:17,079 --> 00:21:21,359
agricultural fields and roads and all this stuff, were probably

434
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:25,920
this like kind of amphibious world of these open water habitats,

435
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:31,440
shrubby wetland habitats, beaver meadows, and the beavers were gone

436
00:21:31,599 --> 00:21:35,759
by the end of the sixteen hundreds because of European

437
00:21:35,839 --> 00:21:38,920
trapping and also this like economy that Europeans created with

438
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:40,960
the indigenous folks here where they were trading them all

439
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:46,200
this steel and guns and whatever cool stuff for beaver pelts.

440
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,640
And they actually incited a series of wars between the

441
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:52,279
indigenous peoples in this region because of the economy that

442
00:21:52,319 --> 00:21:55,319
they created, called the beaver wars, where they would like

443
00:21:55,559 --> 00:21:59,000
trap out their all the beavers in their region and

444
00:21:59,079 --> 00:21:59,960
go to war with their neighbors.

445
00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: Oh so it was, I mean it was due to

446
00:22:02,319 --> 00:22:05,200
over extraction of resources basically.

447
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,119
Speaker 2: For for for hat to make hats.

448
00:22:06,799 --> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 1: The resources being the beavers, and so that's why the beavers,

449
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:11,960
Natives and the Europeans started fighting.

450
00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it was it was indigenous people fighting

451
00:22:16,279 --> 00:22:19,440
other indigenous people, oh wow, for their beaver drapt because

452
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:21,759
of but it was because of colonization.

453
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,440
Speaker 1: Because they could sell them, and so it was market

454
00:22:23,559 --> 00:22:26,039
hunting basically, right, it was taking more than you need

455
00:22:26,039 --> 00:22:29,119
that right, what did Yeah, how did the beavers affect

456
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:31,599
I mean, when you've got a beaver deentsity that high,

457
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:33,960
how did that affect the landscape there?

458
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:36,920
Speaker 2: Well, so I think that there we have all these

459
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:41,240
species on our landscape today that you know, they're really

460
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:44,839
we're like why is this? Why is it here? You know,

461
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:46,880
because we don't have any habitat for it. And these

462
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:50,680
are largely species that are endemic to these like meadow

463
00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:53,680
like environments, which we don't really have a natural analog

464
00:22:53,799 --> 00:22:57,000
for because we don't really have fire. And for these

465
00:22:57,319 --> 00:23:01,799
early successional habitats like has big areas of like purely

466
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:06,480
young forest, young trees, and probably what those those species

467
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,079
were sustained by it was just this constant flux of

468
00:23:09,079 --> 00:23:12,119
different beaver created habitat. So you have like the open

469
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,359
water habitat, and the beavers would like utilize all the resources,

470
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:17,880
eat all the trees around there, and they would like

471
00:23:18,079 --> 00:23:21,720
go somewhere else, and then that open water habitat would

472
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:24,400
become we call it a beaver meadow, which creates all

473
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,279
these you know herbaceous plant diversity. Looks like a meadow

474
00:23:27,839 --> 00:23:29,559
with joke, you know, joe high weed.

475
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 1: And set basically where more alike can reach the ground. Yeah.

476
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:36,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then and then they would go from that

477
00:23:36,839 --> 00:23:38,440
to being like a shrubland, and then it would go

478
00:23:38,519 --> 00:23:41,160
from that to being like a young forest, and then

479
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:42,720
the beers would come back and it would start all

480
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:43,200
over again.

481
00:23:43,319 --> 00:23:45,799
Speaker 1: God, man, have you have you been to Museum of

482
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:48,440
Natural History in New York City?

483
00:23:48,799 --> 00:23:51,119
Speaker 2: I was there last week.

484
00:23:51,799 --> 00:23:52,519
Speaker 1: Man, I'm fine.

485
00:23:53,039 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 2: I was in New York for a thing. Yeah, it

486
00:23:54,759 --> 00:23:57,640
was so cool. Went there basically every time I'm in

487
00:23:57,640 --> 00:23:58,200
New York City.

488
00:23:58,279 --> 00:24:00,559
Speaker 1: I went there once and I tried the in for free,

489
00:24:00,559 --> 00:24:02,200
and then I fucking griped. You know, I'm like a

490
00:24:02,279 --> 00:24:05,319
cheap attank. I griped about the twenty five dollars price.

491
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,359
It's probably fucking thirty how or something, you know, I

492
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,720
did like a Polly Walnuts scripe about the price. I

493
00:24:10,759 --> 00:24:13,480
fucking paid it. Anyway, went in. The person I was

494
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,200
with was like getting embarrassed. She was like, she's from

495
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:18,920
she was from Europe. You know, they don't do that

496
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,759
over there. But anyway, but we went in and then

497
00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:23,880
I just I was in looking at all their little

498
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:25,960
dioramas because back in the day, they used to be

499
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,319
the way that you would show people, uh you know,

500
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,799
could before you know, photogra I mean there were photographs,

501
00:24:32,839 --> 00:24:35,680
but not you wouldn't find like entire picture books on

502
00:24:36,079 --> 00:24:38,839
like the Namib desert or a certain region of the world.

503
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:44,000
So these you know, bondanists and mammal experts biologists would

504
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:46,720
form you know, make those little dioramas to kind of

505
00:24:46,759 --> 00:24:50,119
portray the habitat the people and the plants were remarkable,

506
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:52,200
like the plant models and some of those are remarkable,

507
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,039
and all the plants are listed, you know, on the side.

508
00:24:56,039 --> 00:24:59,039
Speaker 2: So I got it just like I'm like they listed

509
00:24:59,079 --> 00:25:00,359
the Yeah.

510
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 1: I was so jazzed on that. I was like, this

511
00:25:02,039 --> 00:25:04,079
is fucking great, man, this is so cool. Like Field

512
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,799
Museum in Chicago has a few of those too. They've

513
00:25:06,799 --> 00:25:10,200
got to they've but I think they've got a Northeast

514
00:25:10,519 --> 00:25:12,160
this is where I'm going with this. They've got but

515
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,440
they've got a well Witchy at Diorama too, which is

516
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:17,279
like one day when if I, you know, whenever I croak,

517
00:25:17,319 --> 00:25:19,720
I want my ashes putting like the well Witchy at Diorama,

518
00:25:19,759 --> 00:25:21,559
if one of my friends can sneak them in there,

519
00:25:21,799 --> 00:25:24,400
and then maybe like in the salsa bar at Taco Pee,

520
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,200
you know, which is like a local taco chain down here.

521
00:25:27,279 --> 00:25:30,960
But anyway, but you know, the dioramas, I went to

522
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,160
the one. I went to one of them, and you know,

523
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,880
it was like a Northeast woodland and I was like, fuck,

524
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:40,039
this is this is so beautiful and you can't see this,

525
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,640
you know, in like ninety nine percent of the places

526
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:46,960
that it used to be like now. Because I think

527
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,839
of the Northeast and I think of I mean, well,

528
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:51,920
so much of the United States is hideous really to

529
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:53,960
be honest, but at least the human infrastructure. I mean,

530
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:55,920
it's the ugliest landscape in the first world. But I

531
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:58,400
think of the Northeast and I think of like that sign,

532
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,359
you know, like that area of like Pennsylvania that's always

533
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,480
used in the memes where it's got like Lewis and

534
00:26:03,559 --> 00:26:07,000
Clark and the fucking you know, and they're like looking

535
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:10,559
over this valley of like Amaco signs and like dollar

536
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:12,480
generals and shit. And because I think that's what I

537
00:26:12,519 --> 00:26:16,400
think of, Like everything's developed, but you know, I'd love

538
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,559
to see little bits of those remnant forests that are

539
00:26:19,599 --> 00:26:21,319
well maintained. I mean, I was just in a place

540
00:26:21,319 --> 00:26:23,960
in Florida, like that Tiger Creek and it was like, fuck,

541
00:26:24,039 --> 00:26:27,920
this is old growth long leaf pines, old growth pinus clossa,

542
00:26:28,319 --> 00:26:31,000
these grasslands that are just incredible, all in this bleach

543
00:26:31,039 --> 00:26:33,319
white sand. It was like, man, people have no idea

544
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:34,400
what they're missing, you know.

545
00:26:35,559 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I think about that, like the because I'm

546
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,200
a birder and and birds, if you really get to

547
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:44,720
know birds, they like tell you so much about what's

548
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,119
what's present on the landscape. And you know, when I

549
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,400
go to these forests that that actually you know, have

550
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,680
naturally or through human intervention developed these qualities that we

551
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,480
think the forest here had for thousands of years, there's

552
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,960
so much more, you know, and it's like it's such

553
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,000
a weird thing like on this landscape here, and I

554
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,160
think this is probably true across most of the US

555
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:11,680
where we have we think we know what is normal,

556
00:27:12,079 --> 00:27:13,599
you know, and we think we know like what a

557
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,319
forest is supposed to look like, or whatever, what an

558
00:27:16,319 --> 00:27:18,960
ecosystem of any type is supposed to look like, and

559
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,480
we really don't. We're really what we're seeing are these

560
00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:26,359
landscapes and these ecosystems that have been so altered that

561
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,880
they don't, you know, provide nearly as much capacity for

562
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,559
life and for all of these beautiful things that than

563
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,119
they could, you know. So like here a big thing

564
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,039
that I do, you know, on my land and in

565
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,319
my work as a forest or on my client's lands,

566
00:27:42,759 --> 00:27:45,880
is like utilizing forest management as a tool to take

567
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:48,240
these forests, which most of the forests on our landscape

568
00:27:48,279 --> 00:27:52,200
now just reverted from agricultural land within the last hundred years,

569
00:27:52,559 --> 00:27:54,400
and they probably to become like what we call an

570
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,000
old growth forest might take another two hundred years. But

571
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,640
if we cut trees in the right way, we can

572
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:03,799
divide up these habitat qualities that old growth forests had

573
00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:06,680
here and that are underrepresented across our landscape, that old

574
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:08,880
growth forests had for thousands of years, which are the

575
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:13,759
all these qualities that directly correlate to habitats for species

576
00:28:13,799 --> 00:28:17,799
of concern, habitats for all of this diversity of forest birds,

577
00:28:17,799 --> 00:28:20,680
which are all declining or bacious species, all the whole

578
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:24,279
suite of these different species on our landscape. And so

579
00:28:24,559 --> 00:28:25,839
like a lot of the work that I do is

580
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,960
sort of restoring those old growth characteristics actively.

581
00:28:29,319 --> 00:28:31,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's wild to me that you know people

582
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,799
that I mean, I guess it's I mean, I guess

583
00:28:34,799 --> 00:28:36,759
I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying you knew

584
00:28:36,759 --> 00:28:39,960
people that were like involved. Like anyone who's even like

585
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:46,240
a borderline naturalist knows that like hands off approach is ridiculous, it's.

586
00:28:46,039 --> 00:28:49,359
Speaker 2: Bullshit, you know, No, just the normals.

587
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, because I mean it's just people who don't

588
00:28:50,839 --> 00:28:53,240
spend time there. Yeah, right, exactly, cause it's right. It's

589
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,079
I mean, humans have been managing land in good ways

590
00:28:57,079 --> 00:28:59,599
and bad ways for the last three hundred thousand years

591
00:28:59,599 --> 00:29:02,319
that we've been a species, you know, and probably before

592
00:29:02,359 --> 00:29:05,200
that when we were just crazy, you know, fucking hominids

593
00:29:05,359 --> 00:29:08,200
running around because hominids are a little bit older than humans,

594
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,519
but you know, probably long before then. But you know,

595
00:29:11,599 --> 00:29:13,400
you get when you don't manage it you get what

596
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,440
I call the shitty woods syndrome. It's like the sh

597
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,119
it's the shitty woods. It's what I grew up with

598
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:18,759
in Chicago, Like, why the fuck you want to go

599
00:29:18,799 --> 00:29:21,400
to a forest preserve. It's a bunch of shitty woods.

600
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:25,039
It's overgrown with invasive buckthorn, it's you can't walk through it.

601
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,519
There's ticks everywhere. Uh, it's over popular with deer. There's

602
00:29:29,559 --> 00:29:31,039
deer on the dead on the side of the road

603
00:29:31,079 --> 00:29:32,920
all the time because there's nothing to keep them in check.

604
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,359
There's no predators or human hunters, you know, And why

605
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:38,680
do you want to go there? But then when you

606
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:41,880
see a landscape that but you're also you're seeing you know,

607
00:29:42,039 --> 00:29:44,000
I would think that when I was a kid, not

608
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:47,079
knowing that I was looking at, you know, the result

609
00:29:47,119 --> 00:29:49,480
of one hundred and fifty years of terrible land management

610
00:29:49,519 --> 00:29:52,960
and idiocy and just that kind of mentality like hands off,

611
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:55,920
you know. And if I could have seen it five

612
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:57,839
hundred years ago, I'm sure it would have been an

613
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:01,440
amazing place to spend time in those the woods, like

614
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,319
the forest reserves of Chicago or the prairies too. I mean,

615
00:30:04,319 --> 00:30:06,319
the prairies are the same way if they don't get fire,

616
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,799
they look like shit. And I imagine most places in

617
00:30:09,839 --> 00:30:13,240
eastern North America because of how much more rain the

618
00:30:13,279 --> 00:30:15,640
east gets than the west. You know, the burn intervals

619
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:17,640
in eastern North America were like two to three years,

620
00:30:17,799 --> 00:30:21,000
two to five and if five was pushing it. But

621
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,079
you know, and if you don't burn them, it's just

622
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:25,119
it gets smothered and it looks like shit, and the

623
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,359
tips get really bad and the chiggers get really bad,

624
00:30:27,359 --> 00:30:28,400
and you know.

625
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, and where I've been, like I just

626
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:36,000
did a week of talks in Kentucky and southern Indiana,

627
00:30:36,599 --> 00:30:40,160
you know, and out there it's like not only does

628
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,799
it get you know, sort of likes messed up a

629
00:30:42,839 --> 00:30:47,000
little bit, it becomes a forest. These historic grasslands like

630
00:30:47,119 --> 00:30:49,680
a big thing out there is they've got these closed

631
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,079
scanpy forests now and they're experiencing this thing messification, you know,

632
00:30:54,119 --> 00:30:57,680
where they're becoming more and more fire resistant due to

633
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:04,079
indigenous display from the landscape, from natural fire suppression, and

634
00:31:04,079 --> 00:31:06,160
from the loss of bison to a certain extent, these

635
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,240
herds of hundreds of millions of bison, they've had what

636
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:13,759
was these prairies and savannahs and oak woodlands to come

637
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,759
these closed canopy forests, and so now they have to

638
00:31:16,799 --> 00:31:19,640
get people to you know, to do all this really

639
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:21,839
intensive stuff to bring them back. You know, it's like

640
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:24,440
it's not even like it's just like a crappier prairie.

641
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,839
It's like it's a it's a forest. And everybody's like, well,

642
00:31:26,839 --> 00:31:29,400
don't we love forests, you know, don't we love for us?

643
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,559
And it's like yeah, but that you know, there's there's

644
00:31:32,559 --> 00:31:34,680
a certain amount of you've got to be a little

645
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,640
bit brave. And so one thing that's actually joey to

646
00:31:38,039 --> 00:31:41,759
this point about like the things that people say to

647
00:31:41,839 --> 00:31:44,119
get out of, you know, do it having to do

648
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,440
any management. So here in and Vermont in the Northeast,

649
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:56,359
there are whole organizations that are based on opposing forest management,

650
00:31:56,519 --> 00:32:02,119
just being like all like literally institutionally based a they're

651
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,960
just trying to you know, all every forest needs is

652
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,720
to be left alone and everything will be fine. And

653
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:09,880
really what it is is it's a not in my

654
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,160
backyard thing, and it's just not wanting, you know, being

655
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:17,519
uncomfortable with those changes that happen when they manage forests.

656
00:32:17,839 --> 00:32:21,079
They're anti burning, they're anti any kind of cutting of

657
00:32:21,079 --> 00:32:24,359
trees anti game management in many cases.

658
00:32:24,079 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 1: Does anybody tell them to shut up? I mean, or

659
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:27,839
are they just rich so they've got to do But.

660
00:32:27,759 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 2: They're well, they're persistent, they're often you know, well resourced.

661
00:32:32,119 --> 00:32:34,960
And the thing about it that that confuses people is

662
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,640
that they have a narrative which is for a late

663
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:40,400
to delay people so much easier to understand, which is

664
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,640
we love trees. We love for it because you know,

665
00:32:43,759 --> 00:32:44,799
they don't the trees.

666
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: They think nature and they think trees. They don't there's

667
00:32:47,519 --> 00:32:49,799
they can never and it must be.

668
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,079
Speaker 2: That if we love trees, like cutting trees is bad.

669
00:32:52,359 --> 00:32:54,119
But so an interesting thing to think about in terms

670
00:32:54,119 --> 00:32:58,160
of the psychology of people is, you know, those are

671
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,160
the same people that often pacific about wanting to empower

672
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,079
indigenous peoples and justice and all this stuff.

673
00:33:05,119 --> 00:33:08,559
Speaker 1: And when I went, oh, I know, I believe I'm

674
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,160
very familiar with the liberal self flagellating Caucasian Don't worry,

675
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:13,880
I've got plenty of experiences.

676
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 2: So but but here's an interesting thing that I discovered

677
00:33:16,559 --> 00:33:18,559
is so when I went out to these places that

678
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,119
had historically burned, Indigenous people have been burning there for

679
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:26,240
ten thousand years plus. Uh, you know. I was like, huh, well,

680
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,319
they have some of those groups that are anti management,

681
00:33:29,359 --> 00:33:32,559
anti intervention. I was like, I wonder which drive for

682
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,759
them will be stronger. Will it be the drive to

683
00:33:35,559 --> 00:33:39,000
you know, like like represent indigenous folks well and want

684
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,519
to you know, take care of that, or will it

685
00:33:41,559 --> 00:33:44,440
be the drive to say no management? And these people

686
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:48,920
believe they're so against any kind of intervention in ecosystems

687
00:33:49,359 --> 00:33:52,240
that their position is that there were never indigenous people

688
00:33:52,279 --> 00:33:53,880
there and that they never burned.

689
00:33:54,079 --> 00:33:58,359
Speaker 1: Damn, that's crazy. That's just by this logic they well

690
00:33:58,400 --> 00:33:59,119
what kept them out?

691
00:34:00,039 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 2: How they would rather disempower any erase entire peoples than

692
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,240
deal with the uncomfortable reality of the fact that, like

693
00:34:07,319 --> 00:34:08,760
we have to take action there.

694
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: Where are you finding these That's what I'm saying. It

695
00:34:13,599 --> 00:34:17,360
just seems like because I anyone, I mean to think

696
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:19,800
that people actually listen to them, like anyone in city

697
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,440
government or estate government listens to people like that. They

698
00:34:23,519 --> 00:34:28,559
just seem so clueless where.

699
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:32,039
Speaker 2: Those people their narrative is so much cleaner for often

700
00:34:32,079 --> 00:34:35,800
for politicians. So like in Massachusetts a couple of years ago,

701
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,960
they succeeded in getting the entire state of Massachusetts to

702
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,960
pass a moratorium on any management on state lands. So

703
00:34:43,039 --> 00:34:44,599
it's not it's not like a fringe thing.

704
00:34:44,639 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: If this is a moratorium on on.

705
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:51,079
Speaker 2: What any any management for wildlife, any management for anything

706
00:34:51,119 --> 00:34:51,880
on state lands.

707
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,159
Speaker 1: Really like, don't touch anything, don't no burning, no cutting,

708
00:34:56,239 --> 00:35:00,800
no masticating, no really nothing. Of course, Oh god, good

709
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,079
luck with the good luck with the tic problem. Then

710
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:06,679
you know what is not I will say, I will

711
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,800
say it's nice about that the alpha gal for everybody

712
00:35:10,119 --> 00:35:12,760
that alpha gal meat syndrome, you know, where you can't

713
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:13,400
eat meat.

714
00:35:13,599 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 2: Probably probably good for the environment.

715
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: It's it's it's lesser impact. Yeah, it'll cause the whole

716
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,639
meat industry to at least in the Northeast to collapse.

717
00:35:21,679 --> 00:35:24,000
That's good, you know, because that really does I mean

718
00:35:24,039 --> 00:35:27,239
the amount of energy it takes. And the way Americans

719
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,440
eat meat too. I mean, I'm not anti meat at all.

720
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:31,960
Vegans are some of the most annoying people, or some

721
00:35:32,039 --> 00:35:33,559
vegans are some of the most annoying people have that

722
00:35:33,599 --> 00:35:36,400
I ever ever interacted with. But you know, the way

723
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,320
Americans shovel fucking hamburgers into their mouths when like, if

724
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:44,320
you're if you're living like a triath running triathlons and

725
00:35:44,599 --> 00:35:47,559
living like an extremely athletic life. I can understand that,

726
00:35:47,599 --> 00:35:49,320
but like, no, man, you're like sitting in your car

727
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:51,039
three hours a day and then sitting at a desk.

728
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,880
You're sitting most Americans sit down most of the waking

729
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,119
hours of the day. You don't need to eat that shit.

730
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,519
It's horrible for you. You're gonna get colon cancer. But anyway, Yeah,

731
00:36:01,079 --> 00:36:02,800
there was an article that came out in the New

732
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:04,639
York Times a month or two ago about all these

733
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:10,920
the burgeoning vegan scene, the involuntarily vegan scene. Uh in

734
00:36:11,559 --> 00:36:13,840
Cape cod in the northeast. It's like, oh, yeah, they

735
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:15,639
all get the tics are so bad, they all get

736
00:36:15,679 --> 00:36:18,719
alpha gal they can't they develop meat allergies, and if

737
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,440
it's really bad, they developed dairy allergies. And now they

738
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,800
had their like obligate vegans. So that's crazy though, So

739
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,559
you can't, you can't do anything. And that's in Massachusetts

740
00:36:28,679 --> 00:36:29,400
for the whole state.

741
00:36:31,199 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 2: Now. So now that now they've relaxed it and they're

742
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,480
able to do some stuff, but it's been a it's

743
00:36:35,519 --> 00:36:37,599
a struggle for them with every single thing that they do.

744
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,159
Speaker 1: Damn, you gotta find some tweakers. To set fire to

745
00:36:40,199 --> 00:36:45,280
the woods. It's it's what they do in California, you know. Yeah,

746
00:36:44,679 --> 00:36:48,400
there's there's some guy it's like a bag of meth

747
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:50,679
told them to go light the woods and the fucking

748
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,400
Santa Monica on fire. And I don't know anyway, sorry,

749
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:55,400
go ahead, Yeah.

750
00:36:55,199 --> 00:36:57,639
Speaker 2: I know. It's just it's it's a big deal out here,

751
00:36:57,679 --> 00:37:00,920
you know. And again it's like, uh, one of the

752
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,320
hard things is that the narrative that I have to

753
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,000
tell and what I do in like the book and

754
00:37:06,039 --> 00:37:09,440
stuff is like this much more nuanced and complex narrative

755
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:12,599
about like where we are with these ecosystems and where

756
00:37:12,639 --> 00:37:16,119
ecosystems are at and these really counterintuitive things that you

757
00:37:16,199 --> 00:37:18,000
got to do to take care of them. And the

758
00:37:18,119 --> 00:37:21,559
narrative for those folks is so easy, you know, and

759
00:37:21,599 --> 00:37:23,440
it's easier for people to understand. And people are like,

760
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,239
there's so much stuff that people are dealing with that

761
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,800
they need to figure out what they think about and

762
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,239
everything that they're just like, you know, okay, great, you know,

763
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:37,760
trees good logging or cutting trees bad. You know. Yeah,

764
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,159
And of course that's not the nuanced perspective that we need,

765
00:37:41,199 --> 00:37:43,239
but it allows them to go on with their lives.

766
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's for anybody who's

767
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:52,000
into ecological science or biological sciences and outdoors today. It's

768
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:54,239
that's the uphill battle as you're you know, this is

769
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,719
after two or three hundred years of these places just

770
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,760
being destroyed by you know, the mind set that came

771
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,719
here in fourteen ninety two, and then having to work

772
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,400
up hill. I mean, so much has been a race.

773
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,199
There's so few examples to show of what you know,

774
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,840
management looks like compared to what there used to be.

775
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,559
And so it's just the shifting baseline syndrome. You know,

776
00:38:16,199 --> 00:38:19,480
every generation thinks what they're growing up with is normal,

777
00:38:19,559 --> 00:38:23,719
not knowing that they're inheriting the ruined spoils of their

778
00:38:24,039 --> 00:38:25,880
parents and their grandparents, et cetera.

779
00:38:27,199 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what I tell people here. I'm like,

780
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,840
we all have a sense for the forests that cover

781
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:36,760
this landscape, like what we think of forest is supposed

782
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:41,000
to look like, and you know, the forests and you know,

783
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,159
we have this shifting baseline syndrome, this new idea of

784
00:38:43,159 --> 00:38:45,199
what a normal forest is supposed to look like, and

785
00:38:45,599 --> 00:38:49,119
the forests that are here today have nothing to do

786
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,599
with the forests that we're here thousands of years ago.

787
00:38:51,639 --> 00:38:53,519
They may head to some of the same species, but

788
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:58,000
they don't have any of the qualities that the forests

789
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,679
that we're here for thousands of years. Not only do

790
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,719
we have a shifting baseline, a different understanding of like

791
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:07,159
what a forest is supposed to look like, but also

792
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,199
a totally different understanding of like the capacity of our

793
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:12,440
forests to support life.

794
00:39:12,519 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's a machine with half the pieces missing.

795
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, And people are just like, you know, good enough,

796
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:21,840
and it's like, well no, it's not good enough. Yeah,

797
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:24,679
And it's like, you know, they're just those of us

798
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:27,639
who go a little deeper can be like there are

799
00:39:27,679 --> 00:39:32,280
all these amazing and important things that just aren't represented.

800
00:39:32,559 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to get you got to get their

801
00:39:34,519 --> 00:39:37,800
asses outside, like the proverbial you, not you personally, but

802
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:39,480
like I think about that with myself all the time,

803
00:39:39,519 --> 00:39:41,519
Like I try to lead plan walks and shit down

804
00:39:41,559 --> 00:39:43,760
here in South Texas, like just get the fuck outside.

805
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,239
Like there were people that I did a plant walk

806
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:47,679
like two or three years ago. There were kids that

807
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:49,199
grew up here that have never been to some of

808
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,280
the places I took them. I was like, fuck, that's crazy,

809
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,039
Like I didn't even know that existed, you know, And yeah,

810
00:39:54,079 --> 00:39:56,440
a bunch of people met each other and it became

811
00:39:56,519 --> 00:39:58,719
friends and then you know, just stuff like that, just

812
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:00,400
getting people out there, you know, because they're not going

813
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:01,400
to see it on TV.

814
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:03,760
Speaker 2: And they're not going to see it. Like the other

815
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:05,719
thing too. I think about this with birds all the time.

816
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:08,400
Like I grew up in this teeny little town in

817
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,360
southeastern Vermont called Saxon's River, which is three hundred people

818
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,360
lived there. And I went back there because my mom

819
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:15,800
wanted me to give a talk at the little like

820
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:20,039
community center, and I was there this summer and as

821
00:40:20,079 --> 00:40:23,320
I was walking to the community center, I heard this

822
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,960
little chirping, bubbling call and I knew what it was,

823
00:40:27,039 --> 00:40:30,199
chimney swifts. And I looked up and they were just

824
00:40:30,559 --> 00:40:34,159
chimney swifts hunting above my head the time all the time,

825
00:40:34,159 --> 00:40:37,760
and it was really interesting species. They're actually like they're

826
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:40,880
an old growth bird, so they historically roosted in these

827
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,159
big hollow trees. They can only they roost like hanging

828
00:40:44,559 --> 00:40:47,719
horizontally like a bat, and they can't only take off

829
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,760
from a vertical, not from a horizontal, and they're just

830
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,599
like the general second worst hunting over our heads all

831
00:40:53,599 --> 00:40:56,000
the time. And so when all those forests were cleared,

832
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:57,960
they figured out that they could roost in these chimneys,

833
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,360
and that that made it really into declining as chimneys

834
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,760
get capped and as people use them less. But anyway,

835
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:06,000
so I was like walking there and I was hearing

836
00:41:06,039 --> 00:41:08,719
and suddenly seeing all these chimney swifts, and I realized

837
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:12,559
that my whole life, for eighteen years that I lived

838
00:41:12,559 --> 00:41:15,880
there in that town, I had been hearing and seeing

839
00:41:16,039 --> 00:41:19,599
chimney swifts, but neither hearing nor seeing them at the

840
00:41:19,599 --> 00:41:21,920
same time because I wasn't tuned into them. I didn't

841
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:23,280
know what they were, I didn't know where to look

842
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:25,239
for them, I didn't know to care to look up

843
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,840
and so keep my ears open. And then once I

844
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:30,360
learned about birds, suddenly they were like there.

845
00:41:30,639 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

846
00:41:31,039 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 2: And one way that you could think about it is

847
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:37,400
like that's so sad, And then another way is like,

848
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,400
you know, there's all these things like this, like like

849
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:42,519
you do with plants, and like I do, you know

850
00:41:42,559 --> 00:41:46,639
with trees. Maybe like that we can take people out

851
00:41:46,679 --> 00:41:48,360
into the woods and if we can just like show

852
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:50,639
them something, they will see more.

853
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,159
Speaker 1: It's waking them up. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's like,

854
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:56,599
I guess it's a little sad when you think about

855
00:41:56,599 --> 00:41:57,840
it like that. But I try to think about it

856
00:41:57,840 --> 00:41:59,760
in a way where it's like, wow, you chance, suddenly

857
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:01,559
the whole world changes when you wake up to this

858
00:42:01,639 --> 00:42:04,119
shit and you wake up to everything around you like

859
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:06,519
it changed. I get. I've gotten so many emails from

860
00:42:06,519 --> 00:42:08,800
people tell me, you change the way I look at everything.

861
00:42:09,119 --> 00:42:12,559
Started using INAP, I started learning about all these things,

862
00:42:13,119 --> 00:42:14,920
you know, I was like, oh, yeah, it's so much

863
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,480
nicer to focus on on the weeds growing on the

864
00:42:17,559 --> 00:42:20,519
Median strip than on the billboards for some fucking slob

865
00:42:20,559 --> 00:42:24,480
with a laminated face. You know. It's it's uh, it

866
00:42:24,599 --> 00:42:29,880
changed me. Okay, So changing subjects slightly. How did you so?

867
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,440
Tell me about your background? How did you get into forestry?

868
00:42:33,599 --> 00:42:35,639
How did you get into time? How'd you get into

869
00:42:35,679 --> 00:42:38,199
spending time outside? How did you start on the path

870
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:38,840
that you're on now?

871
00:42:40,079 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 2: So the you know, it's funny because like when I

872
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:47,880
hear folks often that are in our fields talk about

873
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,719
how they get into it, they're always like, I was

874
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,039
always the nature kid, you know, I was always into

875
00:42:53,119 --> 00:42:57,039
forests or out in the woods, out on the wherever outside,

876
00:42:57,519 --> 00:43:00,360
and and that wasn't actually in my experience at all.

877
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,320
I mean, I grew up in this very rural place,

878
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,559
like I said, this little town, three hundred people, surrounded

879
00:43:05,559 --> 00:43:09,159
by forests. But I just what I really wanted was

880
00:43:09,199 --> 00:43:12,079
to just get out of there. And it was boring

881
00:43:12,159 --> 00:43:16,199
and it was dull and whatever. And I ended up

882
00:43:16,199 --> 00:43:19,239
getting a scholarship to go to University of Vermont, and

883
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,039
when I was there, still didn't know what I wanted

884
00:43:21,039 --> 00:43:25,079
to do, didn't have any real direction. And it happened

885
00:43:25,079 --> 00:43:29,239
that my high school girlfriend, who was still dating, she

886
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,119
decided she wanted to go on this like five month

887
00:43:32,199 --> 00:43:34,559
wilderness program with kind of it wasn't outward bound, but

888
00:43:34,599 --> 00:43:37,199
it was sort of outward bound like. And she went

889
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:39,679
on this five month expedition and she came back and

890
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,199
she had just had this like life changing experience, and

891
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,400
we had this moment where we weren't connecting, and I

892
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:49,480
thought we were going to break up, you know, because

893
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,320
I'd just been you know, doving around in my dorm

894
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,280
room or whatever. And so I said, you know what

895
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,079
I'm going to do. I'm going on a wilderness expedition

896
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,039
and the next one with that program left in two

897
00:44:01,079 --> 00:44:03,679
weeks and I went on and it was a six

898
00:44:03,679 --> 00:44:07,400
month expedition. We skied north for three months and we

899
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,239
built a canoe and the canoe back down was the expedition?

900
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: Where did you go?

901
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 2: And it was? It started in southern New Hampshire and

902
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,320
then we went up this this kind of cool grassroots

903
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:21,639
trail that runs the length of Vermont called the Catamount Trail,

904
00:44:22,159 --> 00:44:25,519
that's a ski trail, and then we camped out great

905
00:44:25,599 --> 00:44:29,880
by the Canadian border and uh, and then we canoed

906
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:33,079
back on a series basically basically on the Connecticut River,

907
00:44:33,159 --> 00:44:35,320
but like on a series of rivers to get to it.

908
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 1: Damn.

909
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,679
Speaker 2: And so when after that I ended up, I was

910
00:44:39,679 --> 00:44:41,519
in sort of like the primitive skills world for a

911
00:44:41,519 --> 00:44:45,400
while and I worked as a wilderness guide. I was

912
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,440
living in this like yeur with a furbough floor in

913
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,719
the woods to Maine for a year, and then I

914
00:44:52,079 --> 00:44:53,920
got a letter from the University of Vermont that told

915
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:55,039
me I had to come back or I was gonna

916
00:44:55,039 --> 00:45:00,320
lose my scholarship. And I literally literally I like I

917
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:05,039
I looked at a paper list of majors from the

918
00:45:05,119 --> 00:45:07,119
University of a mode that I must have printed out

919
00:45:07,159 --> 00:45:11,119
at the library or something, and I saw forestry and

920
00:45:11,159 --> 00:45:13,880
I didn't know what it was, but I was like, yeah,

921
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:15,400
that's the word forest in it, so we'll try that.

922
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,360
And that's literally how I ended up deciding to study forestry.

923
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,440
But it was this interesting thing too, like a bit

924
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,159
of a you know experience for me of like I

925
00:45:25,199 --> 00:45:26,960
had been living in the woods, you know, working as

926
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:29,519
a guide, and I came back when I went to

927
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:32,760
back to school. I came to it like with so

928
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:36,599
much ego because I just thought that I understood forests

929
00:45:36,639 --> 00:45:39,880
perfectly and our relationship with them perfectly. And then it's

930
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:41,639
like you actually learn about them, and I was like,

931
00:45:41,679 --> 00:45:46,480
holy smokes, they changed, you know that the what forests

932
00:45:46,519 --> 00:45:50,199
are changed and the measure is necessary to care for

933
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,039
them changed a lot because I just realized that I

934
00:45:53,079 --> 00:45:54,920
hadn't really understood them that well.

935
00:45:55,159 --> 00:45:58,639
Speaker 1: So in school, where you taught from where you taught

936
00:45:58,679 --> 00:46:02,599
from an ecologicalspective or were you taught from an industry perspective?

937
00:46:03,559 --> 00:46:06,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think UVM is much more on the

938
00:46:06,679 --> 00:46:11,679
ecological side. UBM is the abbreviation for the University of Vermont.

939
00:46:12,199 --> 00:46:15,000
They is much more on the ecological side of the spectrum.

940
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,199
But still forestry is interesting because like old school forestry

941
00:46:19,679 --> 00:46:21,800
is definitely we call it cores and boards. You know,

942
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:26,280
it's like about production, and that perspective, at least in

943
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:30,400
certain areas, is fading away and being replaced by a

944
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,599
much more holistic understanding of like, you know, what we're

945
00:46:33,599 --> 00:46:36,599
really trying to do is not to grow products, you know,

946
00:46:36,679 --> 00:46:39,239
to grow timber, but to grow forests, you know, and

947
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,480
like when we when it is appropriate, how are we

948
00:46:42,519 --> 00:46:45,039
going to harvest timber from those forests? But it's not

949
00:46:45,079 --> 00:46:48,079
like about that. But then again, if you go to

950
00:46:48,199 --> 00:46:51,880
like the southeast or the northwest or the far northeast,

951
00:46:52,199 --> 00:46:55,079
and very much is this like production mindset where it's

952
00:46:55,119 --> 00:46:59,599
like we are growing wood, we're growing fiber, they would say. So,

953
00:46:59,679 --> 00:47:01,800
like I think when I did it, it was sort of

954
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,760
this mix of these different things. And then an interesting

955
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:06,960
thing that happened to me was that, you know, my

956
00:47:07,039 --> 00:47:09,679
first job, I was working in these sort of industrial

957
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:13,119
forests and the Adirondacks, and then and then I worked

958
00:47:13,119 --> 00:47:18,400
for this consulting forestry company in Vermont, and you know,

959
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:20,280
a big part of the job is like is like

960
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,960
the logistics of managing a force, So it becomes about

961
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,360
managing the ecology and more about like working with these

962
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,800
loggers and roads and trails and all the markets and

963
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,239
timber and all these logistics. And I got like pulled

964
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:35,920
in that direction. And then I got another job as

965
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:37,840
a service force or working for the State of Vermont,

966
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,199
which is just sort of like a public resource, and

967
00:47:40,639 --> 00:47:43,639
that allowed me to like take a step back and

968
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:46,679
remember what it's we're doing this for, which is not

969
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:49,519
to cut a bunch of wood, but to have healthy ecosystems.

970
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,039
And it actually ended up now I'm very grateful for

971
00:47:53,119 --> 00:47:56,400
that the experience that I had which was more focused

972
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,119
on like logistics, because now what it allows me to

973
00:47:59,159 --> 00:48:02,000
do is to know how to work with the tools

974
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,320
that we have, like these loggers and this equipment and

975
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:09,360
all this stuff in a way to affect these ecological goals. Right.

976
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:12,000
So it's like you can do a lot of damage

977
00:48:12,199 --> 00:48:13,400
with a piece of log and equipment.

978
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,039
Speaker 1: We know this, we can for us, I can think

979
00:48:16,039 --> 00:48:18,199
of a few strip malls. I'd like to take large

980
00:48:18,199 --> 00:48:19,519
pieces of logging equipment.

981
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:23,159
Speaker 2: Well, and it's but you can you can use it

982
00:48:23,199 --> 00:48:25,679
in a different way and you can do some pretty

983
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:29,320
profoundly positive stuff and about how you manage it and

984
00:48:29,639 --> 00:48:31,760
and so like then I was like, you know, how

985
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,039
subversive is that that we what we're going to do

986
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,320
is we're gonna take this equipment that you know, at

987
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:41,960
the very least was not created to you know, restore ecosystems,

988
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:44,320
and then that's exactly what we're going to use it for.

989
00:48:44,559 --> 00:48:46,280
And that's been sort of my journey since then.

990
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,039
Speaker 1: Do you do you think the I mean, do you

991
00:48:48,079 --> 00:48:51,800
see among more people who are into logging, because it

992
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:55,159
doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like logging should be

993
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:59,159
anti environmentalist, you know, or pre hugger as they call it.

994
00:48:59,159 --> 00:49:03,440
It seems like, listen, you're you're taking from this living machine.

995
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,599
You want the machine in the best running shape possible,

996
00:49:07,039 --> 00:49:10,199
and just coming in and taking everything is the absolute

997
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:15,199
most like monkey brained, lowest common denominator shit for brained approach,

998
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:17,920
Like you're going to burn out the land. It's fucking stupid.

999
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,360
Like you want to learn, like as a loger, you

1000
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:24,199
should want to learn ecology, Like how does this machine

1001
00:49:24,199 --> 00:49:27,639
function so I can extract without fucking breaking it? You know?

1002
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:29,440
Do you see more of that?

1003
00:49:29,599 --> 00:49:30,039
Speaker 2: I agree?

1004
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 1: Do you see more of that coming, or is it

1005
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:38,239
still like this like politicized thing between land managers and

1006
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,559
environmentalists and logging industry.

1007
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 2: I think it depends. I mean, I think that I'm

1008
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:47,559
sort of in a unique position to make both of

1009
00:49:47,599 --> 00:49:51,800
those groups mad because because I, you know, I do

1010
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,519
management on land and that makes you know, the more

1011
00:49:55,559 --> 00:49:58,679
old school environmentalists mad. And then I also talk about

1012
00:49:58,679 --> 00:50:01,119
all these other values of you know, we're managing for

1013
00:50:01,159 --> 00:50:03,760
biodiversity or managing for climate resilience, which makes all the

1014
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:07,840
old school loggers and forestry types mad at me. But

1015
00:50:08,079 --> 00:50:12,000
really those you know, it's a funny thing because those

1016
00:50:12,039 --> 00:50:15,400
sort of two polarities they galvanize each other and they

1017
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:19,360
beat up each other, and they're not even oppositional, really,

1018
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,639
they just both need to acknowledge that, you know, they're

1019
00:50:23,159 --> 00:50:25,679
they have this really tunnel vision mindset about what we're

1020
00:50:25,679 --> 00:50:28,000
supposed to do here and what we need to do here,

1021
00:50:28,639 --> 00:50:30,599
and just open it up a little bit and open

1022
00:50:30,639 --> 00:50:34,079
yourself up to the possibility that, like, we can you know,

1023
00:50:34,159 --> 00:50:36,880
we can achieve multiple things. And the answers to some

1024
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,119
of these questions, if we're really asking the big questions

1025
00:50:39,119 --> 00:50:41,880
are not what we would think so example of this

1026
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,960
is is like, how in the world is it that

1027
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:50,039
we have gotten to a place where environmentalists like don't

1028
00:50:50,199 --> 00:50:54,199
like wood? You know, like wood is an amazing resource

1029
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,079
and it's and it's like we could be using wood

1030
00:50:57,079 --> 00:50:59,679
and all of these applications that we're now using steel

1031
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:05,639
and concrete or or fucking plastic, Like.

1032
00:51:05,639 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 1: Where do you mean that? Where do you mean environmentalists

1033
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:09,519
that don't like wood?

1034
00:51:09,519 --> 00:51:09,639
Speaker 2: Though?

1035
00:51:09,679 --> 00:51:11,559
Speaker 1: Is that a is this is like a thing that

1036
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:12,920
people that they don't want you to.

1037
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:15,920
Speaker 2: Use it because of like it's because of like anti

1038
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:19,800
logging sentiment. Wow, that it becomes like and then a

1039
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,239
lot of times the funny thing is like this not

1040
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,400
in my backyard. By the way, I think the not

1041
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:29,119
in my backyard thing is like one of the most harmless,

1042
00:51:29,159 --> 00:51:32,400
harmful things within our entire culture.

1043
00:51:32,559 --> 00:51:35,199
Speaker 1: It's just rich people's it's just fucking rich people that

1044
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,880
And that's why I was saying they own the politicians too,

1045
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:40,880
because it's you know, if you're someone in a city,

1046
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:42,760
even in like a city, I'm not even talking about

1047
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,280
like you know, uh, citizens United, and I'm talking about

1048
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,880
if you're someone in a city of money, the civic

1049
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,159
leaders and you know, city officials are going to listen

1050
00:51:50,199 --> 00:51:51,960
to you more than they're just going to listen to

1051
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,960
someone who's like a working class you know, single mom

1052
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:56,199
who's a nurse, you know what I mean.

1053
00:51:57,039 --> 00:52:00,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, And it's a lot of like

1054
00:52:00,159 --> 00:52:02,719
and those are the you know, oftentimes there is there

1055
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,760
does seem to be a correlation there between that, you know,

1056
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:08,480
the people who have that sentiment and and that kind

1057
00:52:08,519 --> 00:52:11,760
of stuff where it's like we're it, you know, nothing

1058
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:16,679
against people who like, you know, have strong opinions about

1059
00:52:17,039 --> 00:52:19,719
how we should be harvesting resources and stuff like that.

1060
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:22,920
But it just can't be about you can't be that

1061
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:26,400
you're like against everything and for nothing. We're like, where

1062
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:27,840
do people think stuff comes from?

1063
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, you got it. And also there's ways to

1064
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:33,760
do it without again, without breaking the machine, the living machine.

1065
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:36,280
Speaker 2: Right. So like this, and this is the thing that

1066
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:37,960
I tell people a lot too, is that there's there

1067
00:52:38,039 --> 00:52:41,559
is a funny sort of double standard that we grape

1068
00:52:41,559 --> 00:52:43,800
about in the forestry community all the time, which is

1069
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:48,400
that the vibe is like everybody loves agriculture and everybody

1070
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:51,599
hates forestry, and we're like, but what about the fact

1071
00:52:51,639 --> 00:52:55,320
that like, you know, here we can do forestry. We

1072
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:59,599
can harvest resources while maintaining or even you know, like

1073
00:53:00,199 --> 00:53:04,320
augmenting the function and the integrity and the resilience of

1074
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,920
a living system, which is whereas everywhere that we do agriculture,

1075
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:11,239
it's like this compromise, you know, or that those ecosystems

1076
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:16,280
are no longer intact. Like we we we make compromises

1077
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:19,559
all the time, and it's you know, it's not about

1078
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:23,800
do we have to make any compromises or whatever, about

1079
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:25,400
like do we want to make the right ones? And

1080
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,440
with agriculture, we're like, yeah, I got to eat, you know.

1081
00:53:28,599 --> 00:53:32,400
And I think that the thing we talk about all

1082
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:34,039
the time is if we could just get people to

1083
00:53:34,079 --> 00:53:37,199
appreciate forestry the way that they appreciate agriculture. But but

1084
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:40,320
the thing about it that's weird is that the perception

1085
00:53:40,519 --> 00:53:44,239
sometimes is we're the one who are ruining the ecosystems,

1086
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:49,320
whereas that same perception isn't applied to like the people

1087
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,239
who are actually ruining these ecosystems, or the people who

1088
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:55,440
have like you know, building houses in places where there

1089
00:53:55,519 --> 00:53:58,800
used to be an ecosystem, or you know, or we're

1090
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:00,440
growing food on the site of or they used to

1091
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:01,280
be an ecosystem.

1092
00:54:02,159 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's you know, it's it's a weird

1093
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:07,199
kind of misanthropy. And believe me, I get misanthropy when

1094
00:54:07,199 --> 00:54:09,960
I mean I love people as individuals. This is like

1095
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:11,599
a thing George carl And used always say, I love

1096
00:54:11,639 --> 00:54:13,679
people as individuals when you meet them and they know

1097
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:15,760
no one's watching them, and they're just interacting with you,

1098
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:18,480
and they're not performing, and they're not trying to, you know,

1099
00:54:18,519 --> 00:54:20,519
because a lot of most people are full of shit

1100
00:54:20,599 --> 00:54:22,480
to some extent, all of us, including me and you.

1101
00:54:22,559 --> 00:54:24,760
I'm sure everyone's trying to, like, everyone's trying to not

1102
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:27,880
look stupid. Everyone's trying, they're performing. And sometimes but when

1103
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:30,480
you meet people's individuals and it's one on one and

1104
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:33,000
they're not performing and they're not faking it, you know

1105
00:54:33,039 --> 00:54:35,760
they're they're great. But when you get them in large groups,

1106
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,719
they're fucking They can do horrible things and they're all

1107
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:41,280
they know people are watching and they're going to behave differently,

1108
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,559
or they're just not thinking and they're just parroting the

1109
00:54:44,800 --> 00:54:48,079
ideologies or the things that someone next to them said

1110
00:54:48,079 --> 00:54:50,000
without thinking about it. But so I get I get

1111
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:53,039
the misanthropy thing. But that's like a form of misanthropy,

1112
00:54:53,159 --> 00:54:56,000
just like everything we do is terrible. We can't you know,

1113
00:54:56,079 --> 00:54:59,159
like no logging, no any or you know, when people

1114
00:54:59,199 --> 00:55:04,159
say that the human our invasive arguments, that drives me nuts.

1115
00:55:04,199 --> 00:55:07,039
It's like, that's just the wrong You're not using the

1116
00:55:07,039 --> 00:55:09,280
word correctly. You think you know what it means, and

1117
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:12,119
you don't. You have no fucking clue, you know. I

1118
00:55:12,519 --> 00:55:17,039
just yeah, I think there's ways to you know again,

1119
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:19,360
once you realize you look at the ecoism as a

1120
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:22,400
living machine that you inherit. You're borrowing. It's not yours.

1121
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:24,599
You're borrowing it. You got to hand it down once

1122
00:55:24,639 --> 00:55:27,239
you kick the bucket and leave, you know, before they

1123
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:31,199
put your ashes in the taco polenke salsa bar. You know,

1124
00:55:32,639 --> 00:55:34,440
when you view it like that, it's like, Okay, there's

1125
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:36,039
a way to do this. It's like when I meet

1126
00:55:36,039 --> 00:55:38,599
people who are against hunting, it's like, yeah, I guess

1127
00:55:38,599 --> 00:55:40,840
I was when I was fucking ten and had no

1128
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:43,440
idea how the world worked, Like when I learned out

1129
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:47,159
an ecosism works. Like the Kaibab Plateaux experiment in the thirties.

1130
00:55:47,159 --> 00:55:49,719
You wipe out all the pumas, the deer get population

1131
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:52,280
gets so big it then crashes, and you you've now

1132
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:54,519
caused much more suffering than would have been if you

1133
00:55:54,559 --> 00:55:58,079
would have just let pumas snatch you know, deer every

1134
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:02,639
couple of days. You know. So I just again, it

1135
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:06,280
just comes to educating people, but also letting exposing people

1136
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:09,440
to it, getting people out into these places and seeing.

1137
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:12,639
Did you ever do you know anything about Japanese civil culture?

1138
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:15,519
Speaker 2: No, not really.

1139
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:20,280
Speaker 1: They were one of the first countries to start practicing forestry,

1140
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:22,360
and I think it was maybe it was kind of

1141
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:25,119
fucked up. It was like an authoritarian thing the emperor.

1142
00:56:25,119 --> 00:56:28,039
It is like sixteen hundred and I might be totally

1143
00:56:28,079 --> 00:56:30,159
fucking this up, but I only know about it because

1144
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:32,880
I was really into Cryptomaria Japonica, which is like the

1145
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:37,559
Japanese ancestor of the redwood, or the Japanese relative of

1146
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:40,639
the California redwood. And they call them sugi. They're these

1147
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:45,320
wonderful trees. They fucking massive, they look like them and

1148
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:48,880
they make wonderful wood. But there are these precious trees

1149
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:52,599
along with Camisiprius pacifia and a few other conifers, and

1150
00:56:52,679 --> 00:56:56,360
so you know, they were logging everything back five hundred

1151
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:58,519
years ago, and it was getting so bad that finally

1152
00:56:58,519 --> 00:57:02,320
the emperors, I'm not sure who else, but people stepped in.

1153
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:04,239
We're like, we need to figure out a better way

1154
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:05,639
to do this, because we're going to run out. This

1155
00:57:05,639 --> 00:57:07,920
is we're going to break the machine, you know, And

1156
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:10,079
so they started. They were one of the first countries

1157
00:57:10,199 --> 00:57:15,239
or the first nations to start practicing silviculture. And I'm

1158
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:17,039
so curious how they did it. You know, if it

1159
00:57:17,119 --> 00:57:19,400
was like the way they do it like here, where

1160
00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:21,880
it's just everything's planted in lines, or if they were

1161
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:24,239
trying to actually like restore forests, you know, like more

1162
00:57:24,239 --> 00:57:28,480
of like a permaculture version of of silvi culture. Anyway,

1163
00:57:28,519 --> 00:57:31,039
it doesn't matter, so I'm getting us off on attentiy.

1164
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:37,400
Speaker 2: But the European style was like super I mean it's

1165
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:40,800
it's different now and it's evolving, but like it was

1166
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:42,360
super plantation.

1167
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:43,559
Speaker 1: Okay, orchards.

1168
00:57:43,639 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of like purre it in you know,

1169
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:48,920
like not just that like it's a good way to

1170
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:51,480
grow would but it's like a more refined way to

1171
00:57:51,519 --> 00:57:57,079
grow a forest, which is nuts. But then that you know,

1172
00:57:57,159 --> 00:58:00,440
a lot of early conceptions of forestry and sort of

1173
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:03,480
like the first quote unquote forestry that was brought here

1174
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:07,360
to this continent was based on those Western European models,

1175
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:13,039
the Gifford Pinchot you know, the these kind of intensively

1176
00:58:13,079 --> 00:58:16,840
managed condifer plantations. Yeah, you know, and it was like

1177
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:22,039
that also the weird the weirdness of like the wanting

1178
00:58:22,119 --> 00:58:27,119
to have a more like refined forest in a way,

1179
00:58:27,519 --> 00:58:31,719
or a forest that was like, uh, you know, didn't

1180
00:58:31,719 --> 00:58:35,000
have any waste quote unquote waste, you know, didn't have

1181
00:58:35,079 --> 00:58:38,920
any inefficiency. And that was like the highest thing, which

1182
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:41,400
is of course like what they call waste and inefficient

1183
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:43,960
that we call like ecological complexity.

1184
00:58:43,519 --> 00:58:47,280
Speaker 1: Right right, I call that a deranged mind processes just

1185
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:51,239
just pure anthroposcentric. If it's you know, yeah, waste or inefficient,

1186
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:53,400
well that's the thing that you know, when you when

1187
00:58:53,400 --> 00:58:55,599
you come from this deranged mindset that doesn't know anyth

1188
00:58:55,599 --> 00:58:58,719
about anything else. It's just pure anthropicentrism. You see, you're

1189
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:02,320
looking at things that have a very important function and

1190
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:05,960
a very important you know, role to play, and you

1191
00:59:06,039 --> 00:59:09,000
view them as wasteful because they don't benefit you directly.

1192
00:59:09,079 --> 00:59:11,440
They benefit you, but not directly. There's a couple other

1193
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:14,599
steps involved. You know, they feed something that feeds something

1194
00:59:14,639 --> 00:59:18,719
that you end up needing. And again that's that's where

1195
00:59:18,719 --> 00:59:21,559
I see this monkey brain mentality. It's like, oh, just

1196
00:59:21,559 --> 00:59:25,559
you know, just so simplistic, uneducated and enlightened. And that's

1197
00:59:25,559 --> 00:59:29,039
what I you know, I'm I'm I'm glad things seem

1198
00:59:29,119 --> 00:59:31,800
like they're starting to change. There's more people pointing this out,

1199
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:34,920
you know, But what is it in terms of like

1200
00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:38,920
the forestry that you guys do and that you and

1201
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:40,400
I guess we didn't even get to that yet. But

1202
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:43,239
what do you I guess what is a better model

1203
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:44,800
and what do you advocate for?

1204
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:50,039
Speaker 2: I think, you know, so the better the better model

1205
00:59:50,079 --> 00:59:51,760
is just sort of like switching it on its head,

1206
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:55,480
where it's like, I think for a long time there's

1207
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:58,159
been either this the preservation mentality, which is like the

1208
00:59:58,239 --> 01:00:05,239
hands off mentality, or seeing ecosystems like their commodity or something.

1209
01:00:05,679 --> 01:00:08,280
And I think that, you know, we think about it

1210
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:11,679
in terms of like the triad, which is a model

1211
01:00:11,679 --> 01:00:14,239
that was developed especially to deal with kind of like

1212
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:16,960
the spotted out controversy in the late eighties early nineties

1213
01:00:17,239 --> 01:00:21,760
by doctor Jerry Franklin and others West and you know,

1214
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:23,920
they were like, we need all of these different things

1215
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:27,639
from our forests. We need all these ecological benefits obviously

1216
01:00:27,639 --> 01:00:30,719
from our forests, we need all these human cultural benefits,

1217
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:34,039
economic benefits, all these other things, and how are we

1218
01:00:34,079 --> 01:00:35,920
going to do it? And what they came up with

1219
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:39,159
was this idea of having sort of like three broad

1220
01:00:39,239 --> 01:00:42,440
categories of forest management. One is like the sort of

1221
01:00:42,519 --> 01:00:46,840
unmanaged reserve. One is this the more industrial for us,

1222
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:50,159
for forests are managed for products. And then there's this

1223
01:00:50,239 --> 01:00:52,960
middle category, which you could call like an ecologically managed

1224
01:00:52,960 --> 01:00:55,639
for us. It's just basically a forest that's managed for

1225
01:00:55,760 --> 01:00:59,239
multiple benefits. And the interesting thing about the triad is

1226
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:02,760
that those three categories are in relationship with each other. Right,

1227
01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:05,000
So if you want everything, you want as much of

1228
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:09,440
that preservation, hands off stuff as a as you can

1229
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:11,960
possibly get, then we also need to have more of

1230
01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:14,519
that industrial for us. And if you want fewer of

1231
01:01:14,559 --> 01:01:17,960
those industrial for us, we need fewer of those reserves

1232
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,360
and more of this sort of middle category of forests.

1233
01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:24,559
And I think that the middle category we're managing for us,

1234
01:01:24,599 --> 01:01:27,199
not as a as a commodity, is the place that

1235
01:01:27,239 --> 01:01:29,480
I kind of inhabit it, and even more so I

1236
01:01:29,519 --> 01:01:34,000
would say I'm interested in managing these ecosystems and then

1237
01:01:34,079 --> 01:01:37,519
thinking about for us products as an output that comes

1238
01:01:37,559 --> 01:01:41,679
from these ecosystems. But it's not what we're actually managing for, right,

1239
01:01:41,719 --> 01:01:44,840
It's like the ecosystem is the thing we're managing for,

1240
01:01:45,159 --> 01:01:51,119
and from healthy ecosystems you can harvest products. And it's

1241
01:01:51,119 --> 01:01:53,800
a false it's a false dichotomy right where we think

1242
01:01:53,840 --> 01:01:56,119
that it needs to be one thing or the other one. Actually,

1243
01:01:57,079 --> 01:02:00,920
you know, we we can absolutely be managed for healthy

1244
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:05,519
forests and managing for healthy landscapes and managing for species

1245
01:02:05,519 --> 01:02:09,440
of concern and managing for biodiversity have underrepresented habitats, all

1246
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:12,320
of these things. Not every time are we able to

1247
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:14,880
like you know, actually in few cases are we able

1248
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:17,679
to maximize the return of timber. But we're still able

1249
01:02:17,719 --> 01:02:20,440
to produce timber. And actually, an interesting thing to think

1250
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:23,440
about is that, you know, I did this talkdown in

1251
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:25,679
New Jersey, and in New Jersey they basically lost their

1252
01:02:25,679 --> 01:02:28,960
whole forest products industry, which you might think of, oh,

1253
01:02:29,039 --> 01:02:31,880
it's just an economic loss, but it's actually an ecological

1254
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:36,559
loss because their ability, because they don't have the ability

1255
01:02:36,599 --> 01:02:39,400
to make their management work commercial. It all has to

1256
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:41,199
be non commercial. So it all it needs to be

1257
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:45,559
paid for from like federal or state grants or from

1258
01:02:45,599 --> 01:02:48,719
out of the pockets of wealthy landowners. So you know,

1259
01:02:48,760 --> 01:02:52,119
it basically means that they're doing about two percent of

1260
01:02:52,159 --> 01:02:54,079
the management work that they could be if they were

1261
01:02:54,119 --> 01:02:57,599
just able to work with loggers and sell some wood

1262
01:02:57,599 --> 01:03:00,920
off of those products. So it's like a so suddenly

1263
01:03:01,079 --> 01:03:03,760
like they can't do any you know, they're doing a

1264
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:05,920
teeny tiny fraction of the work that they want to

1265
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,320
do for for fire and for rare species.

1266
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:13,079
Speaker 1: There's no man, it's basically going on.

1267
01:03:13,519 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 2: If we allow ourselves to like be like, you know,

1268
01:03:16,599 --> 01:03:19,320
how do we use this these tools that we have

1269
01:03:20,119 --> 01:03:23,519
to affect positive changes and ecosystems and then think about

1270
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,320
the timber more as like a byproduct of that process

1271
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:30,480
more than its own thing, then I think we can

1272
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:33,360
actually get to a better place, you know, both ecologically

1273
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:35,000
and economically in the long term.

1274
01:03:35,400 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 1: So Ethan, it sounds like what you're saying. It sounds

1275
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,599
like what you're saying is that you're you're you're saying,

1276
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:44,239
if we make sure the land itself, in this living

1277
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:47,400
system itself is healthy, then we'll and we focus on

1278
01:03:47,480 --> 01:03:49,320
that and make that the main priority. Then just by

1279
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:53,840
default we will have a good amount of timber to

1280
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:58,480
harvest without breaking the machine instead of having this again,

1281
01:03:58,559 --> 01:04:01,960
this really short sighted, you know, short term gain, long

1282
01:04:02,039 --> 01:04:05,400
term loss idea of let's just make as much funny

1283
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:10,559
as possible and focus on on not wasting anything and

1284
01:04:10,639 --> 01:04:14,679
letting any potential profit go to waste. You know, it's

1285
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:16,760
which is a really again, that's like the way a

1286
01:04:16,800 --> 01:04:18,880
ten year old would look at something like a greedy,

1287
01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:21,039
spoiled ten year old. It's not the way like an

1288
01:04:21,039 --> 01:04:23,000
intelligent grown human adult.

1289
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:26,320
Speaker 2: No, it's and it's not the like it only that

1290
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:29,519
mindset only works if we're thinking about it on such

1291
01:04:29,519 --> 01:04:33,480
a short time scale, right, It only works like if

1292
01:04:33,519 --> 01:04:36,440
we actually allow ourselves to think about ecosystems more broadly

1293
01:04:36,960 --> 01:04:39,679
and how we rely on them more broadly, and what

1294
01:04:39,719 --> 01:04:42,559
we want our long term future on this planet to

1295
01:04:42,639 --> 01:04:46,960
be as a species. Right, Like, none of those decisions

1296
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:50,280
make any sense. They're shooting ourselves in the foot.

1297
01:04:50,679 --> 01:04:55,039
Speaker 1: The parallels, the parallels between what we're talking about right

1298
01:04:55,079 --> 01:04:59,920
now with forestry and the larger American problem probably exists

1299
01:05:00,039 --> 01:05:03,800
many other places too, but I'm most familiar with America. Unfortunately,

1300
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:06,840
the parallels are just I mean, this is like we've

1301
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:10,159
just summed up the short term gain. Long term loss

1302
01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:13,440
is like a mentality that's taken over corporate America right now,

1303
01:05:13,519 --> 01:05:16,480
and it's taken over universities, and it's taken I mean,

1304
01:05:17,039 --> 01:05:20,119
you know, don't maintain for the health of the system itself.

1305
01:05:20,679 --> 01:05:25,000
Just just neurotically fixate on these little things that will

1306
01:05:25,039 --> 01:05:27,880
bring you the most money and the most return and

1307
01:05:27,960 --> 01:05:31,960
ignore everything else. And that's meanwhile, like society as a

1308
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:35,039
whole and the land as a whole and the biosphere

1309
01:05:35,039 --> 01:05:38,840
as a whole just starts crumbling and falling apart, and

1310
01:05:38,880 --> 01:05:41,360
you can't figure out why. You know, it's it's a

1311
01:05:41,440 --> 01:05:45,039
fucking disease. It sounds like, well yeah.

1312
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:46,400
Speaker 2: And this is the thing that like I feel like,

1313
01:05:47,559 --> 01:05:51,199
you know, when we think about this long term management, like,

1314
01:05:51,559 --> 01:05:53,639
you know, in long term I guess I would say stewardship,

1315
01:05:54,039 --> 01:05:56,639
which is this not a new concept, right, but a

1316
01:05:56,719 --> 01:06:01,280
very ancient concept on this landscape, and uh, it provides

1317
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:03,519
for like all the stuff that we want, right, It

1318
01:06:03,559 --> 01:06:07,559
provides us with resources, and it provides us with uh,

1319
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:11,039
you know, a beautiful, beautiful life with all these amazing,

1320
01:06:11,440 --> 01:06:14,159
beautiful communities and all the things that we need to live.

1321
01:06:15,159 --> 01:06:18,679
It's right there, and you know, it just doesn't allow

1322
01:06:18,800 --> 01:06:22,800
us to, uh, this short term thinking just doesn't allow

1323
01:06:22,880 --> 01:06:27,639
us to grasp this incredible opportunity. I'm the opportunity to

1324
01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:30,360
like to have this, you know, this beautiful world that

1325
01:06:30,400 --> 01:06:32,239
we get to give to our Yeah.

1326
01:06:32,039 --> 01:06:36,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. And I used to think that that

1327
01:06:36,679 --> 01:06:39,079
mentality because I've been shitting on this mentality for a

1328
01:06:39,079 --> 01:06:41,480
long time. Obviously not in forestry, because I don't know

1329
01:06:41,559 --> 01:06:44,519
much about forestry, uh except that I hate the way

1330
01:06:44,559 --> 01:06:47,039
plantation forests look and that they're not real for us.

1331
01:06:48,639 --> 01:06:50,760
I used to think this was just an issue of greed,

1332
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:53,159
Like it's just it's just greed, you know, it's just

1333
01:06:53,199 --> 01:06:54,920
Gray saw it with the with the railroad when I

1334
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:58,280
worked there. I mean, you see it everywhere in society.

1335
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:01,320
Let's you know, fuck the poor, fund the poor because

1336
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:04,920
defund public services because we need those are wasteful and

1337
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:08,199
we need to focus on what's gonna you know, enrich

1338
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:11,960
the shareholders or the whatever. I use to think it

1339
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:13,880
was just greed, But I mean the more I look

1340
01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:17,760
at it, the more I realize, like what a neurotic

1341
01:07:18,800 --> 01:07:22,000
fixation it is on the things that don't matter and

1342
01:07:22,199 --> 01:07:28,480
just complete idiocy too. I mean, it's it's incredibly stupid.

1343
01:07:28,679 --> 01:07:32,320
It's incredibly again, it's short term gain and long term loss.

1344
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:35,320
It's stepping over a dollar to grab a dime. It's

1345
01:07:35,480 --> 01:07:38,159
it's sacrificing the well being of the world you live

1346
01:07:38,239 --> 01:07:42,920
in for things that are not that that are temperamental.

1347
01:07:43,119 --> 01:07:45,719
You know, it's it's just it's fucking wild. You know.

1348
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:48,119
It's like it's don't worry about nuclear work as we

1349
01:07:48,119 --> 01:07:49,480
could just live in a hole in the ground with

1350
01:07:49,519 --> 01:07:51,280
our rations and you know, I can set up an

1351
01:07:51,320 --> 01:07:53,599
underground gym and you know, I'll have a screen that

1352
01:07:53,679 --> 01:07:57,280
broadcasts pictures of you know, beautiful beaches. And it's crazy,

1353
01:07:57,360 --> 01:07:59,400
it's it's it's like a fucking is this like the

1354
01:07:59,400 --> 01:08:03,079
result of lead poisoning or what just like with our species.

1355
01:08:03,159 --> 01:08:06,440
I'm serious, it's not a fas not a stretch, you know,

1356
01:08:06,599 --> 01:08:11,840
something that the neurological wiring got shorted somewhere in the

1357
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:14,360
gene pool and now you've got where we're at today,

1358
01:08:14,400 --> 01:08:17,960
and it's like a large majority of people in power

1359
01:08:18,720 --> 01:08:21,199
suffer from this. It's a contagious mindset, you know.

1360
01:08:22,159 --> 01:08:24,560
Speaker 2: Well, and then again, like I guess that you don't

1361
01:08:24,560 --> 01:08:27,439
feel this in the same way, but then I feel

1362
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:30,199
it sort of from both sides, where I'm like, you know,

1363
01:08:30,279 --> 01:08:34,119
constantly confronted with these two delusional mindsets, one of which

1364
01:08:34,199 --> 01:08:38,039
is that we can just commodify and exploit this biosphere

1365
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:41,399
and you know, at no cost to ourselves or to

1366
01:08:41,439 --> 01:08:43,279
the world of the future, or maybe they just don't care.

1367
01:08:43,800 --> 01:08:46,479
And then the other side, which is that there's nothing

1368
01:08:46,479 --> 01:08:49,960
good we can do right that we like this sort

1369
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:53,279
of old school environmentalist mindset where it's like our whole

1370
01:08:53,359 --> 01:08:57,520
job is to like just stop doing everything. And so

1371
01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:01,439
I've started talking about this concept that I call deep environmentalism,

1372
01:09:01,520 --> 01:09:06,039
which is like sort of like thinking about reimagining what

1373
01:09:06,159 --> 01:09:10,239
we do as environmentalists. You know, as co opted as

1374
01:09:10,279 --> 01:09:12,840
that term has become, I'd probably identify more as like

1375
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:17,119
a conservationist than an environmentalist. But still, like, if we

1376
01:09:17,119 --> 01:09:20,880
were really thinking about the ideals of environmentalism, which is

1377
01:09:20,920 --> 01:09:24,760
to like protect this world and that's precious about it,

1378
01:09:25,079 --> 01:09:27,279
and we were to update that and actually make it

1379
01:09:27,359 --> 01:09:31,880
like that a mindset that would allow us to have

1380
01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:33,880
a world that we could actually live in and that

1381
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:36,319
would actually sustain all the stuff we need. It would

1382
01:09:36,359 --> 01:09:39,760
be not just about stopping doing the bad stuff, you know,

1383
01:09:39,760 --> 01:09:41,960
in this sort of old school environmental mentality, which is

1384
01:09:42,039 --> 01:09:45,479
like silent spring and you know, the first Earth Day

1385
01:09:45,520 --> 01:09:48,479
and all of these really important things, but then adding

1386
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:53,039
to that like an imperative to also restore ecosystems, and

1387
01:09:53,119 --> 01:09:55,840
also an understanding of like how are we going to

1388
01:09:55,880 --> 01:09:58,680
make these choices about like where we get resources from.

1389
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:01,199
And I think that we would all agree that the

1390
01:10:01,199 --> 01:10:04,399
way that we do that is not by closing every

1391
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:07,720
factory and idling every piece of log and equipment, but

1392
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:11,199
it's like having real decisions about getting that stuff probably

1393
01:10:11,239 --> 01:10:14,279
closer to home, you know, instead of just doing what

1394
01:10:14,319 --> 01:10:17,279
we do now, which is displacing the impacts of our

1395
01:10:17,319 --> 01:10:20,960
consumption onto people's and ecosystems somewhere else that don't have

1396
01:10:21,000 --> 01:10:23,600
the privilege to say not in my backyard, right And

1397
01:10:24,239 --> 01:10:27,479
if we were to think about that stuff critically. For

1398
01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:29,960
a resource like wood, I think we'd want more of it,

1399
01:10:30,039 --> 01:10:32,560
not less. Fuck yeah, and we'd want it to be here.

1400
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:35,319
Speaker 1: And also, you know, instead of doing plantations, instead of

1401
01:10:35,359 --> 01:10:38,920
planting orchards of trees, you know, even though it might

1402
01:10:38,960 --> 01:10:40,319
cost a little bit more to get in there and

1403
01:10:40,359 --> 01:10:41,920
harvest that when you need to, because they're not a

1404
01:10:42,039 --> 01:10:44,520
range in a nice line. There's other ways you could

1405
01:10:44,840 --> 01:10:47,479
plant things, and you could plant all the understory species

1406
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:50,079
that go with them, and you could plant again to

1407
01:10:50,119 --> 01:10:51,199
restore a living moche.

1408
01:10:51,199 --> 01:10:54,199
Speaker 2: You could manage, and you could manage within you know,

1409
01:10:54,439 --> 01:10:57,600
the confines of like modeling our management after natural processes

1410
01:10:57,600 --> 01:10:58,600
that actually exist on the.

1411
01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:01,720
Speaker 1: Landscape's culture supposed to be. You know, I should on

1412
01:11:01,760 --> 01:11:04,680
permaculture at supposed to be. Yeah, it's what I should

1413
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:07,079
on permaculture all the time, I really do. It's fun.

1414
01:11:07,199 --> 01:11:09,960
I just I've met so many kooks in that it's

1415
01:11:09,960 --> 01:11:11,920
become a cult. But what it is supposed to be

1416
01:11:12,600 --> 01:11:15,359
actually sounds pretty cool. And when you take in an

1417
01:11:15,359 --> 01:11:19,479
awareness of native ecology, and native just means it evolved there.

1418
01:11:19,680 --> 01:11:22,560
It's part of that living machine. It's it's it's all

1419
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:24,439
it means. It's not like some purity tests, it's not

1420
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:25,880
how far back do you have to go to make it.

1421
01:11:26,199 --> 01:11:28,479
When you take in the native part of it, like permaculture,

1422
01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:31,840
if it was like native based ecology based permaculture, it

1423
01:11:31,880 --> 01:11:34,800
actually sounds pretty cool. You just you know, it's like Christianity, Like,

1424
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:37,520
most people who are Christians that I encounter don't actually

1425
01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:39,439
follow the words of Christ. They're just suckers who go

1426
01:11:39,479 --> 01:11:40,960
to church and then the church tells them how to

1427
01:11:41,039 --> 01:11:44,960
vote whatever. Uh. But uh, but you know, it's that

1428
01:11:45,119 --> 01:11:48,319
mentality that that humans are humids are just a cancer,

1429
01:11:48,399 --> 01:11:51,479
and it's like, no, we're fucking not. The modern economic

1430
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:54,680
mindset is a cancer. But there's other ways to live.

1431
01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:57,720
Like there's elements of modern society that are you know,

1432
01:11:57,920 --> 01:12:01,600
poisonous and flawed, but you know, humans as a species

1433
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:04,600
are not. We've got examples of many other ways that

1434
01:12:04,720 --> 01:12:08,640
humans have lived. Oh sure that has not destroyed you know,

1435
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:10,960
or been about shitting where we eat, you know, and

1436
01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:12,439
there's come on, well, you know.

1437
01:12:12,439 --> 01:12:15,039
Speaker 2: What's What's one of the things too, is like if

1438
01:12:15,039 --> 01:12:19,239
we condemn ourselves, we're going to lose out on probably

1439
01:12:19,279 --> 01:12:22,960
like our ecosystem's best chance to to be you know,

1440
01:12:23,039 --> 01:12:25,159
look into a better future in any kind of time

1441
01:12:25,199 --> 01:12:27,880
frame that's probably relevant for our space. Yeah, yeah, Like

1442
01:12:28,920 --> 01:12:30,960
I think I have a funny story to tell you

1443
01:12:31,039 --> 01:12:33,800
about about this, which is that I went to a

1444
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:39,640
forestry conference out in Washington, and you know, the second

1445
01:12:39,680 --> 01:12:43,359
that I hit the Oregon border. The only type of

1446
01:12:43,359 --> 01:12:44,880
silvi culture. Don't want to have a forest dres. I

1447
01:12:44,920 --> 01:12:46,640
saw it was these big one hundred and twenty eight here,

1448
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:49,479
clear cuts, you know, and like that we're being replanted

1449
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:50,840
with these monocultures are dug.

1450
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:52,239
Speaker 1: For Yeah, familiar.

1451
01:12:52,720 --> 01:12:54,920
Speaker 2: And then when I went I went to the Boresty

1452
01:12:54,960 --> 01:12:58,239
conference and I was like, hey, like, you ever hear

1453
01:12:58,640 --> 01:13:01,840
about anybody who doesn't do one hundred and twenty eight

1454
01:13:01,960 --> 01:13:05,560
clear cuntsentery playing with the monoculture of douglasher And everybody

1455
01:13:05,640 --> 01:13:08,439
was like, you know, I feel like I've heard of

1456
01:13:08,520 --> 01:13:13,199
someone who do. I'm like, oh my god. Because so

1457
01:13:13,239 --> 01:13:16,119
one of the things that is interesting is that we

1458
01:13:16,199 --> 01:13:19,359
go into these we get caught in these loops, so

1459
01:13:19,560 --> 01:13:25,920
like loops such as you know, they're like, okay, well,

1460
01:13:26,039 --> 01:13:28,439
you know, this is the species of tree that our

1461
01:13:28,479 --> 01:13:30,800
mills are set up for, right, and this is the

1462
01:13:30,840 --> 01:13:34,359
species and the size and the type of management that

1463
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:37,039
is a good fit for the logging equipment that the

1464
01:13:37,079 --> 01:13:40,840
logging contractors that we have is you know, and without

1465
01:13:40,880 --> 01:13:43,239
forgetting right that the reason that those loggers have that

1466
01:13:43,279 --> 01:13:46,600
equipment and the reason that those mills have that you know,

1467
01:13:46,760 --> 01:13:49,039
the capacity to take that one species and that one

1468
01:13:49,079 --> 01:13:52,560
size of tree is because of the management techniques that

1469
01:13:52,600 --> 01:13:54,880
was producing the wood for that right, So it's like

1470
01:13:55,399 --> 01:13:58,319
it feeds itself. And then at some point you just

1471
01:13:58,319 --> 01:13:59,840
got to ask a question. It doesn't have to be

1472
01:13:59,920 --> 01:14:02,800
like how do we end logging in Oregon? It's like,

1473
01:14:03,319 --> 01:14:05,439
how do we just do this in a little bit

1474
01:14:05,479 --> 01:14:08,840
of a better way so that we can still have

1475
01:14:08,960 --> 01:14:12,079
all of these all these economic benefits and all of

1476
01:14:12,119 --> 01:14:16,079
these cultural benefits and still you know, have this workforce

1477
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:19,039
that's there, but then just to infuse that with a

1478
01:14:19,039 --> 01:14:23,920
little bit more ecological you know, thoughtfulness and and you

1479
01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:28,920
know like maybe plants another species of tree.

1480
01:14:28,920 --> 01:14:31,279
Speaker 1: Or yeah, maybe you don't just want one that's just

1481
01:14:31,319 --> 01:14:32,960
that you know there seems like that might be a

1482
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:35,880
flaw in the thinking. I think, yeah, you know.

1483
01:14:36,079 --> 01:14:39,680
Speaker 2: I think maybe like let them like you know, just

1484
01:14:39,720 --> 01:14:42,840
like maybe have some areas where you let them grow

1485
01:14:42,920 --> 01:14:47,319
bigger than forty years old. I think, like it's not hard.

1486
01:14:47,840 --> 01:14:49,680
Speaker 1: You know, if I bet if you take some of

1487
01:14:49,720 --> 01:14:52,000
those beef boys, and I said it with respect, it's

1488
01:14:52,239 --> 01:14:54,239
like a lot you know. The because I lived in

1489
01:14:54,239 --> 01:14:58,640
sisk County for a while, Siske County California, Northern California

1490
01:14:58,680 --> 01:15:01,279
where I saw it was brutal. Some of the shit

1491
01:15:01,319 --> 01:15:03,000
I saw up there. In terms of forestry, it was

1492
01:15:03,039 --> 01:15:07,239
all Southern Pacific Lumber Company, which I think was affilly

1493
01:15:07,279 --> 01:15:09,399
with a railroad. And then it was Sierra Pacific. And

1494
01:15:09,479 --> 01:15:11,600
I had friends that were botanists that would do surveys

1495
01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:15,159
for Sierra Pacific, but they would just God, they just

1496
01:15:15,279 --> 01:15:18,800
fucked up some of these forests. Man, just do the plantations,

1497
01:15:19,279 --> 01:15:22,600
and then you'd get an understory of a Ceanotha's species,

1498
01:15:22,640 --> 01:15:26,479
which is in buckthorn family, rim theycy and you'd get arctostaphlos.

1499
01:15:26,640 --> 01:15:28,760
I think it was Pachela, which is a beautiful plant

1500
01:15:28,760 --> 01:15:32,520
relative of blueberries. It's ay like really red skin relative

1501
01:15:32,520 --> 01:15:35,359
of uber ersi, which you probably get in Vermont. And

1502
01:15:35,640 --> 01:15:37,840
so that would grow in the understory, and then you'd

1503
01:15:37,840 --> 01:15:42,720
get as the forest would grow, they would get you know,

1504
01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:46,720
the lower limbs of pines. It was mostly Ponderosa pine

1505
01:15:47,159 --> 01:15:51,319
would die, Ponderosa and Jeffrey and then you know, they

1506
01:15:51,359 --> 01:15:54,079
would just they would just be sitting there. But these

1507
01:15:54,119 --> 01:15:56,319
and these pines are planted way too close together. Like

1508
01:15:56,359 --> 01:15:59,359
when you plant them is a plug is a little

1509
01:15:59,359 --> 01:16:02,079
tube seedling. It's great. Yeah, they got ample space, but

1510
01:16:02,119 --> 01:16:05,199
in ten years suddenly their branches are touching. Now. I

1511
01:16:05,199 --> 01:16:07,800
saw this in Chile too, which is a fucking nightmare.

1512
01:16:07,920 --> 01:16:09,840
Like all the forestry that was done in Chile during

1513
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:12,439
the Pinochet, the fascist regime in the seventies and eighties,

1514
01:16:12,960 --> 01:16:16,079
like those are just tinder boxes now. And with California

1515
01:16:16,119 --> 01:16:17,920
and Sisky County was the same way, Like the lower

1516
01:16:17,960 --> 01:16:21,319
branches die. So now you've just got this dry kindling

1517
01:16:21,319 --> 01:16:23,560
that's still attached to the trees. The branches are dead,

1518
01:16:23,560 --> 01:16:28,880
they got shaded out. All the understory species of like Persia,

1519
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:31,520
which is in the rose family archdel staffelos. See and

1520
01:16:31,600 --> 01:16:34,479
know this. They're understory species that were growing with these

1521
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:36,840
pines when there was still ample sunlight growing there now

1522
01:16:37,039 --> 01:16:39,520
but now they're in the understory, they're starting to die.

1523
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:43,159
So you've just got this massive inferno waiting to go up.

1524
01:16:43,199 --> 01:16:46,399
And you know that guy, he's a good kid, Jesse,

1525
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:49,520
the Sacramento Food forest guy. He's always talking about the

1526
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:51,399
He's always you know, he's always like, this is why

1527
01:16:51,920 --> 01:16:55,680
the fucking pine forests, you know, they burn and blah blah.

1528
01:16:55,760 --> 01:16:57,399
This is not this is not a forest. This is

1529
01:16:57,399 --> 01:17:00,600
a fucking plantation. Blah blah. I mean, he's right that

1530
01:17:00,880 --> 01:17:03,479
they're horrible. I mean, I had a friend that inherited

1531
01:17:04,560 --> 01:17:07,359
a bunch of land. Well, they bought this property that

1532
01:17:07,439 --> 01:17:09,520
was abandoned lumber company in like two thousand and six,

1533
01:17:09,560 --> 01:17:12,680
and man, it was just rows of planted pines and

1534
01:17:12,720 --> 01:17:14,680
we had to go in limb up all the trees,

1535
01:17:14,920 --> 01:17:19,479
remove a bunch of trees like every third one, remove

1536
01:17:19,520 --> 01:17:22,520
all the dense underbrush like the manzanita and the sea

1537
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:25,479
and of this, and then set up burn piles because

1538
01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:27,680
you can't you have to be really really on top

1539
01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:29,239
of it when you burn out west because it's so

1540
01:17:29,359 --> 01:17:31,079
dry and the wind is so bad. It's not like

1541
01:17:31,119 --> 01:17:33,159
in the East where like don't have to be on

1542
01:17:33,399 --> 01:17:35,600
as on top of it. And it was just a

1543
01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:37,520
mess to deal with. And we were doing it not

1544
01:17:37,680 --> 01:17:40,159
to like I mean, it was all the collegests there

1545
01:17:40,319 --> 01:17:42,119
like who have the land, but we were doing it

1546
01:17:42,119 --> 01:17:44,119
just because we were worried about the fire risk. It

1547
01:17:44,159 --> 01:17:47,039
was so fucking dangerous, you know. And then actually there

1548
01:17:47,079 --> 01:17:50,520
ended up being a big fire in Weed, California a

1549
01:17:50,560 --> 01:17:52,920
few years later. It was a fucking nightmare. But I mean,

1550
01:17:52,960 --> 01:17:56,920
I imagine and you would see like foresters all the time,

1551
01:17:56,960 --> 01:17:58,680
like at the school there whatever. But if you take

1552
01:17:58,720 --> 01:18:01,520
somebody's beef boys and you make them take in ecology

1553
01:18:01,600 --> 01:18:04,439
class and then you know, maybe even take them on

1554
01:18:04,520 --> 01:18:06,399
a field trip and give them some mushrooms and get

1555
01:18:06,479 --> 01:18:08,720
them to you know, fucking let them, you know, do

1556
01:18:08,880 --> 01:18:11,439
like have them go on solo vision quest or something

1557
01:18:11,439 --> 01:18:14,399
for I'm only half joking too, because then you know,

1558
01:18:14,399 --> 01:18:15,880
you start to think about it, You're like, man, this

1559
01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:17,600
is actually cool. Like I met so many people that

1560
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:20,520
got into forestry. They're like, I was just getting into forestry.

1561
01:18:20,560 --> 01:18:22,800
I was just getting into agriculture management, and goddamn, I

1562
01:18:22,800 --> 01:18:24,520
thought that was actually kind of cool. Like people that

1563
01:18:24,560 --> 01:18:28,199
were from cultural backgrounds that were not environmentalists at all.

1564
01:18:28,239 --> 01:18:30,079
And I'm not an environmentalist at all. I don't call

1565
01:18:30,119 --> 01:18:33,039
myself an environmentalist. But people that weren't from backgrounds that

1566
01:18:33,199 --> 01:18:35,840
even really appreciated nature that later got into it and

1567
01:18:35,880 --> 01:18:38,319
they started to see and those are the people that,

1568
01:18:38,359 --> 01:18:41,079
it seems like, yeah, like yourself, that are best equipped

1569
01:18:41,760 --> 01:18:44,439
to run these living systems. And that's what it is.

1570
01:18:44,520 --> 01:18:46,640
You're running a living machine.

1571
01:18:47,000 --> 01:18:49,079
Speaker 2: I hope. So yeah, and I think there's other people

1572
01:18:49,159 --> 01:18:51,439
out there like me, which is just like, you know,

1573
01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:56,000
people who are interested in thinking outside of the box

1574
01:18:56,039 --> 01:18:58,960
a little bit, you know, and like being disruptors a

1575
01:18:58,960 --> 01:19:01,880
little bit. It doesn't take much. And it's like a

1576
01:19:01,920 --> 01:19:04,560
lot of these things like that. There are all these

1577
01:19:04,600 --> 01:19:09,520
little innovations that I've been using as I work with

1578
01:19:09,600 --> 01:19:12,479
loggers that they're not used to, you know, and and

1579
01:19:12,960 --> 01:19:16,560
make the work that they do more ecologically responsible, and

1580
01:19:17,119 --> 01:19:18,840
you know, they don't cost him any more money. Most

1581
01:19:18,840 --> 01:19:21,600
of them actually save them money. Yeah, And it's just

1582
01:19:21,640 --> 01:19:25,279
about being willing to You don't have to give anything

1583
01:19:25,359 --> 01:19:29,119
up except for you know, just breaking the norm a

1584
01:19:29,119 --> 01:19:31,840
little bit, and if you're comfortable doing that, you can

1585
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:35,199
actually really you know, change how this stuff is done.

1586
01:19:35,319 --> 01:19:37,760
And the other thing I wanted to say too, speaking

1587
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:42,279
of California, is you must follow Redwood's Rising.

1588
01:19:43,159 --> 01:19:45,640
Speaker 1: I don't, and I don't think so may platforms.

1589
01:19:45,680 --> 01:19:50,880
Speaker 2: This guy, griff Griffiths, he he works for Redwoods Rising,

1590
01:19:50,920 --> 01:19:56,880
which is this partnership between oh California's State Park, Save

1591
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:59,239
the Redwoods League, and a couple other organizations. And one

1592
01:19:59,239 --> 01:20:02,479
of the things that they do is basically the same

1593
01:20:02,560 --> 01:20:05,119
management that I do, or similar management to what I

1594
01:20:05,239 --> 01:20:07,880
do in these redwood forests that have been clearcuts. So

1595
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:10,399
the redwind forests were clear cut and then they naturally

1596
01:20:10,399 --> 01:20:13,239
regenerated or they compassed or they were aerial seated with

1597
01:20:13,319 --> 01:20:17,119
redwoods and they grew up into these really dense even

1598
01:20:17,159 --> 01:20:19,319
age stands of redwood trees. And so what they're doing

1599
01:20:19,800 --> 01:20:23,479
very similar to what I'm doing, is harvesting trees strategically

1600
01:20:24,000 --> 01:20:27,680
to try and create this like multiage structure. And as

1601
01:20:27,680 --> 01:20:30,520
they're doing that, like I am, you know, they are

1602
01:20:30,520 --> 01:20:35,199
generating forest products and it's totally fine. They're like, you know,

1603
01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:39,840
this is what allows this work to occur. And we

1604
01:20:39,880 --> 01:20:43,600
were harvesting redwood timber and we're actually not taking anything

1605
01:20:43,640 --> 01:20:47,520
away or enriching the forest, you know, and that's like

1606
01:20:47,560 --> 01:20:50,039
the ultimate to me, with the ultimate windwin.

1607
01:20:50,439 --> 01:20:53,159
Speaker 1: So explain to me what like the management that you

1608
01:20:53,680 --> 01:20:58,199
advocate for and how it differs from what is what

1609
01:20:58,239 --> 01:21:00,720
it's been the norm for so long. What do you

1610
01:21:00,760 --> 01:21:01,199
call that?

1611
01:21:01,399 --> 01:21:05,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we would call it ecological forestry, So basically,

1612
01:21:05,640 --> 01:21:08,880
like you know, what the old school way would be, like,

1613
01:21:09,199 --> 01:21:11,239
you know, we're doing all these techniques and ultimately we're

1614
01:21:11,279 --> 01:21:15,039
trying to do is you know, maximize return. We're trying

1615
01:21:15,039 --> 01:21:17,560
to grow as much timber of the highest value as

1616
01:21:17,560 --> 01:21:20,680
we can. We're working with multiple species, so as many

1617
01:21:20,840 --> 01:21:24,960
you know, high value species, high high value timber that

1618
01:21:25,039 --> 01:21:28,239
we possibly can get from ever given acre, and everything's

1619
01:21:28,279 --> 01:21:30,800
sort of focused on that. But here we don't have

1620
01:21:30,840 --> 01:21:33,399
a lot of plantation forestry, so it's within the context

1621
01:21:33,399 --> 01:21:37,680
of like utilizing natural regeneration, harvesting trees in such a

1622
01:21:37,720 --> 01:21:41,079
way that trees naturally regenerate, and trying to like, you know,

1623
01:21:41,119 --> 01:21:44,039
grow that timber as fast as possible. What I do

1624
01:21:44,319 --> 01:21:48,680
is we look at natural disturbance regimes, and we look

1625
01:21:48,680 --> 01:21:51,680
at old growth forests, and then we try to utilize

1626
01:21:51,840 --> 01:21:56,840
like how forests naturally experience disturbances to inform then how

1627
01:21:56,880 --> 01:22:02,159
we cut trees to create these natural structures, you know.

1628
01:22:02,279 --> 01:22:06,279
So like it's not true everywhere, but like the most

1629
01:22:06,279 --> 01:22:09,399
common thing that we're trying to create is we're harvesting

1630
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:13,439
individual trees and small groups of trees, which are mimicking

1631
01:22:13,560 --> 01:22:18,800
individual tree mortality and small group mortality, you know, to

1632
01:22:18,880 --> 01:22:22,239
create this multi layered canopy with this multi aged forest,

1633
01:22:22,439 --> 01:22:25,640
with gappy, irregular canopy with tons of dead wood on

1634
01:22:25,680 --> 01:22:28,960
the ground. The other thing that's that's different is that historically,

1635
01:22:29,520 --> 01:22:32,800
when a tree got large, you would always cut it,

1636
01:22:32,920 --> 01:22:35,000
and you would cut it for one of two reasons.

1637
01:22:35,319 --> 01:22:37,840
One reason you would cut it would be because it

1638
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:40,720
was big and not valuable. And if it was big

1639
01:22:40,760 --> 01:22:44,079
and not valuable, they would call it decadent. In quotes,

1640
01:22:44,680 --> 01:22:46,560
they'd call it decadent and said they had to cut

1641
01:22:46,640 --> 01:22:47,880
it to get it out of the way so you

1642
01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:52,239
could grow younger, more valuable, faster growing quote unquote rifty trees.

1643
01:22:52,840 --> 01:22:55,119
And if it was big and it was valuable, you

1644
01:22:55,199 --> 01:22:57,880
had to cut it because it was economically mature and

1645
01:22:57,920 --> 01:23:01,760
it had matched out actium potential value relative to the

1646
01:23:01,840 --> 01:23:04,119
risk of keeping it in the woods. So the results

1647
01:23:04,119 --> 01:23:07,000
of that is you just never had this one critical

1648
01:23:07,640 --> 01:23:11,119
piece of forest ecology, which is these big old trees.

1649
01:23:11,239 --> 01:23:14,720
And so like we also I also retain tons of

1650
01:23:14,760 --> 01:23:17,279
what we call biological legacy trees, which are these trees

1651
01:23:17,279 --> 01:23:21,119
they're almost like a like a micro reserve within a

1652
01:23:21,159 --> 01:23:26,119
managed stand. They're like they're basically they're being retained in perpetuity,

1653
01:23:26,439 --> 01:23:30,000
and their whole job is just to be big, to

1654
01:23:30,079 --> 01:23:33,800
be old by become a snag fall on the ground.

1655
01:23:34,960 --> 01:23:37,359
You know, all of those things that are attained by

1656
01:23:37,399 --> 01:23:40,880
trees at these later stages of life, so that the

1657
01:23:41,000 --> 01:23:43,520
risk and with a lot of these things, like I

1658
01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:46,159
get so excited just to like put deadwood on the ground,

1659
01:23:46,800 --> 01:23:48,840
you know, and to like create all these structures and

1660
01:23:49,359 --> 01:23:52,479
this multi aged structure, to have this dense understory and

1661
01:23:52,520 --> 01:23:55,560
overstory at mid story and these gaps and ecanopy. And

1662
01:23:55,600 --> 01:23:58,840
the thing that I remind people all the time is like,

1663
01:23:59,359 --> 01:24:02,880
if you're a bird, you know, and and you're a

1664
01:24:02,880 --> 01:24:05,399
bird that nests in the understory, and because all of

1665
01:24:05,399 --> 01:24:07,279
our forests are even age, there are all trees at

1666
01:24:07,319 --> 01:24:10,720
the same age, there's there's not really any good multi

1667
01:24:10,800 --> 01:24:13,439
age forests around. You just have nowhere to go, you know,

1668
01:24:13,640 --> 01:24:17,159
or you're you're working in a suboptinal habitat. When that

1669
01:24:17,239 --> 01:24:22,039
habitat appears on the landscape, you don't care if that

1670
01:24:22,079 --> 01:24:23,960
tree fell over on its own or if I cut

1671
01:24:23,960 --> 01:24:26,560
it down. All you care about is that that habitat

1672
01:24:26,600 --> 01:24:30,239
is there now. And I think that like we need

1673
01:24:30,279 --> 01:24:33,479
to stop being purists about some of this stuff and

1674
01:24:33,560 --> 01:24:38,119
just be like, how do we actually you know, create

1675
01:24:38,159 --> 01:24:40,880
these forests that are that are that are more full

1676
01:24:40,880 --> 01:24:43,359
of life. But again, so like the parts of that

1677
01:24:43,359 --> 01:24:47,960
that are different from old school forestry are keeping big

1678
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:50,800
trees there, keeping dead wood on the ground. There's also

1679
01:24:50,840 --> 01:24:55,520
this this you know in the air quotes utilization mentality,

1680
01:24:55,560 --> 01:24:58,960
which is that we had almost like the moral imperative

1681
01:24:59,079 --> 01:25:01,439
to remove every stick a wood that we cut from

1682
01:25:01,479 --> 01:25:05,239
the woods, which a lot of these you know trees,

1683
01:25:05,279 --> 01:25:07,479
they by the time they get out to them, you know,

1684
01:25:07,600 --> 01:25:10,319
the latter cut them down and puts a chain around

1685
01:25:10,359 --> 01:25:11,680
and pulls them off to the log land and get

1686
01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:13,920
them on a log truck, they actually have negative value.

1687
01:25:14,279 --> 01:25:15,800
And so I'm like, well, why don't we just lead

1688
01:25:15,840 --> 01:25:18,840
those in the woods to create this deadwood habitat that

1689
01:25:18,880 --> 01:25:22,800
we really need and everybody will make more money and

1690
01:25:23,039 --> 01:25:27,000
will do a better job in the forest. So that's

1691
01:25:27,039 --> 01:25:30,319
a change. And also not trying to create like these

1692
01:25:30,399 --> 01:25:35,000
just generation after generation of like timber trees, but to

1693
01:25:35,039 --> 01:25:38,199
actually like to be harvesting trees within the context of

1694
01:25:38,239 --> 01:25:39,600
a more complex forest.

1695
01:25:40,760 --> 01:25:42,439
Speaker 1: So you guys, I mean, that's what I was going

1696
01:25:42,479 --> 01:25:45,199
to ask you about too, is the diversity of species

1697
01:25:45,239 --> 01:25:48,520
that you have. I mean, you guys are planting obviously too, right,

1698
01:25:50,119 --> 01:25:52,720
No no planting, just natural regeneration or.

1699
01:25:52,640 --> 01:25:54,880
Speaker 2: What natural regeneration.

1700
01:25:55,039 --> 01:25:57,840
Speaker 1: Well, that's cool that you guys have have enough of

1701
01:25:57,880 --> 01:25:59,119
a seed bank for that. Yeah.

1702
01:25:59,439 --> 01:26:01,880
Speaker 2: Now, I mean I think I think now we're going

1703
01:26:01,960 --> 01:26:05,000
to end up planting, I think just because of climate change,

1704
01:26:05,359 --> 01:26:08,000
but we're really not doing it on a large scale net.

1705
01:26:08,079 --> 01:26:10,640
Speaker 1: Yeah you don't need to, right yeah. So, but so

1706
01:26:10,680 --> 01:26:14,199
it's already like a diverse forest. It's not a plantation.

1707
01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:17,680
Speaker 2: It's not a monoculture, correct, Yeah, And we also have

1708
01:26:17,920 --> 01:26:24,000
like you know, for us with these natural processes, these

1709
01:26:24,000 --> 01:26:27,119
disturbance processes. You know, of course we're doing more than

1710
01:26:27,199 --> 01:26:30,920
just like recruiting many different species of trees, right Like

1711
01:26:31,439 --> 01:26:34,279
when we cut trees down, we're also have this explosion,

1712
01:26:34,359 --> 01:26:37,279
the temporary sort of explosion of herbaceous plant diversity that

1713
01:26:37,439 --> 01:26:40,640
shrubs that are recruiting trees, and so we actually get

1714
01:26:40,680 --> 01:26:43,720
you know, not just like a bunch of different species

1715
01:26:43,760 --> 01:26:47,640
of trees, but like this whole succession of different cool stuff.

1716
01:26:48,039 --> 01:26:50,520
Speaker 1: So you so, how do you how do you determine

1717
01:26:50,560 --> 01:26:52,760
what individual trees to cut?

1718
01:26:54,800 --> 01:26:56,800
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends, it depends on a lot of

1719
01:26:56,840 --> 01:27:00,319
different stuff. What I try to do is is there's

1720
01:27:00,359 --> 01:27:02,399
this concept out here. I don't think it's widespread, because

1721
01:27:02,439 --> 01:27:04,079
I've talked to folks all across the country about it,

1722
01:27:04,079 --> 01:27:05,880
and I think it seems like only folks in the

1723
01:27:05,920 --> 01:27:09,880
Northeast know about it, which is this concept of a

1724
01:27:10,000 --> 01:27:14,720
natural community. And basically the concept of a natural community

1725
01:27:14,760 --> 01:27:16,840
is it's a it's a more expansive definition for like

1726
01:27:17,000 --> 01:27:19,560
the thing that we call a forest or another ecosystem

1727
01:27:19,600 --> 01:27:22,319
as the case may be, where it's like inclusive of

1728
01:27:22,479 --> 01:27:24,960
all of the living in trees, the plants, the animals,

1729
01:27:25,319 --> 01:27:28,880
all the living stuff, the physical environment, the non living stuff,

1730
01:27:29,399 --> 01:27:32,560
and then the natural processes and all of that is included,

1731
01:27:33,560 --> 01:27:36,520
and then it's kind of like an attempt to describe

1732
01:27:36,520 --> 01:27:41,880
that ecosystem beyond even like what it is now. So

1733
01:27:42,079 --> 01:27:45,239
when we have this landscape of these altered ecosystems, you know,

1734
01:27:45,279 --> 01:27:47,359
I might be looking into a stand that is one

1735
01:27:47,399 --> 01:27:50,680
hundred percent eastern white pine, and I might be able

1736
01:27:50,720 --> 01:27:55,600
to tell from the indicator plants, you know, especially, and

1737
01:27:55,720 --> 01:27:58,000
you know other you know, things I can tell about

1738
01:27:58,039 --> 01:28:01,520
the soil and whatever blow up the aspect where it

1739
01:28:01,560 --> 01:28:07,319
is located, the position on the slope that it's actually this,

1740
01:28:07,319 --> 01:28:10,079
this forest that is today one hundred percent white pine

1741
01:28:10,359 --> 01:28:12,439
is actually original of their harwood forest, which should be

1742
01:28:12,439 --> 01:28:15,960
this multiaged forest that's comprised of these rich site tree

1743
01:28:16,000 --> 01:28:19,880
species like sugar maple, American basswood, white ash. You know,

1744
01:28:19,920 --> 01:28:21,560
in the understory we see some of our rich site

1745
01:28:21,560 --> 01:28:24,800
indicator plants which would be here, like blue cohash and

1746
01:28:24,840 --> 01:28:29,199
searsucker sedge, some of our spring ephemeral love flowers made

1747
01:28:29,239 --> 01:28:35,159
in hair fern aty anthem and like all this like really,

1748
01:28:35,920 --> 01:28:38,520
you know this very specific site, but you know, you

1749
01:28:38,640 --> 01:28:41,920
might have none of that stuff that's present at the moment.

1750
01:28:42,000 --> 01:28:43,479
And so what we try to do is to look

1751
01:28:43,520 --> 01:28:46,680
into those forests that we have today, compare that to

1752
01:28:46,800 --> 01:28:50,079
that sort of natural community character that we can deduce,

1753
01:28:50,800 --> 01:28:52,880
and then to manage, you know, to cut trees in

1754
01:28:52,920 --> 01:28:54,920
a way that sort of steers them in that direction,

1755
01:28:55,039 --> 01:28:58,119
and sometimes you need to. It takes multiple steps. So

1756
01:28:58,159 --> 01:29:00,000
like if I'm looking at a hundred percent white pine forests,

1757
01:29:00,399 --> 01:29:03,680
I might not I might, but I might not just

1758
01:29:03,720 --> 01:29:05,359
go cut all the white pine trees, Like we might

1759
01:29:05,399 --> 01:29:08,560
want to create small openings to start to recruit those

1760
01:29:08,560 --> 01:29:10,880
hardwoods that are going to then naturally regenerate, and then

1761
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:13,760
over time, over the next thirty years, we're going to

1762
01:29:13,840 --> 01:29:17,279
gradually remove that white pine overstory, probably retaining some of

1763
01:29:17,279 --> 01:29:21,239
those trees as biological legacies anyway, but then bringing it

1764
01:29:21,319 --> 01:29:25,319
along into this multi aged forest that's well suited to

1765
01:29:25,359 --> 01:29:25,840
the site.

1766
01:29:25,960 --> 01:29:27,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say so it would be you know,

1767
01:29:28,439 --> 01:29:30,239
because I would think if I if I was doing

1768
01:29:30,279 --> 01:29:32,000
something like that, it would be Okay, there's too many

1769
01:29:32,039 --> 01:29:36,199
of this one thing. So the higher density species, if

1770
01:29:36,239 --> 01:29:38,159
there's more of a density there's one species, I would

1771
01:29:38,159 --> 01:29:40,399
remove a few of those and let in some more

1772
01:29:40,439 --> 01:29:43,560
diversity or a part of it.

1773
01:29:43,600 --> 01:29:46,960
Speaker 2: I mean, but it depends like the we want to

1774
01:29:47,199 --> 01:29:51,920
We want species diversity for like climate resilience reasons, and

1775
01:29:51,960 --> 01:29:54,399
we want and for habit because we're very vulnerable, you know,

1776
01:29:54,439 --> 01:29:56,600
if we only have one species of tree, all these

1777
01:29:56,640 --> 01:30:00,680
different elements of global change. But but then you know,

1778
01:30:00,720 --> 01:30:04,359
you you could also have forest types like that rich

1779
01:30:04,399 --> 01:30:08,680
near the Harbord forest that might be naturally seventy sugar maple.

1780
01:30:09,239 --> 01:30:10,840
So then it's like you have to balance the need

1781
01:30:10,880 --> 01:30:13,720
for that diversity with the thing we also need to

1782
01:30:13,760 --> 01:30:16,199
manage for which is like you know, forests that are

1783
01:30:16,199 --> 01:30:21,000
well suited to where they're growing species. Yeah, it is, yeah,

1784
01:30:21,079 --> 01:30:23,520
and you have you know, other systems. So like you

1785
01:30:23,600 --> 01:30:25,000
got to come out here and check out the forest,

1786
01:30:25,000 --> 01:30:27,039
because you'll have like you'd be walking up a north

1787
01:30:27,039 --> 01:30:29,439
facing slope and you'll have all that stuff sugar maple,

1788
01:30:29,760 --> 01:30:32,479
white ash, bass woods, maine hair fern and the understory.

1789
01:30:32,840 --> 01:30:35,920
And then you'll you'll crest the top of a hill

1790
01:30:36,319 --> 01:30:39,119
and go down into a south facing slope and it'll

1791
01:30:39,159 --> 01:30:42,520
be American beach and red oak and red maple, this

1792
01:30:42,720 --> 01:30:47,159
rich or this dry poresite community, you know, and you'll

1793
01:30:47,199 --> 01:30:52,119
have like blueberry and huckleberry and bracken fern and these

1794
01:30:52,119 --> 01:30:54,600
poor site species just just based on the aspect of

1795
01:30:54,640 --> 01:30:54,960
the hill.

1796
01:30:55,159 --> 01:30:57,439
Speaker 1: That's gonna be so important to me. Man, I've never

1797
01:30:57,520 --> 01:31:00,479
been to New Hampshire for my careful way careful inviting me.

1798
01:31:00,520 --> 01:31:02,119
I'll actually do it. Man, Can I sleep on your

1799
01:31:02,159 --> 01:31:02,600
floor right?

1800
01:31:02,680 --> 01:31:04,199
Speaker 2: No? I saw you went and visited Kyle.

1801
01:31:04,520 --> 01:31:07,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll come out there. I'll

1802
01:31:07,760 --> 01:31:10,199
make time next streak do it.

1803
01:31:10,239 --> 01:31:11,239
Speaker 2: I'll show you. I'll show you.

1804
01:31:11,319 --> 01:31:11,520
Speaker 1: I mean.

1805
01:31:11,720 --> 01:31:14,239
Speaker 2: So it's like we think about it too here. You know,

1806
01:31:14,279 --> 01:31:16,279
you sort of have to think about it on multiple scales,

1807
01:31:16,439 --> 01:31:18,880
so you're like, you know, one of the other in

1808
01:31:18,920 --> 01:31:22,920
addition to like, because of land use history, we don't

1809
01:31:22,960 --> 01:31:27,279
have level of diversity like within our forests that we

1810
01:31:27,319 --> 01:31:29,239
would have had thousands of years ago, you know, that

1811
01:31:29,359 --> 01:31:32,680
multi generationality, of these other qualities we also don't. We're

1812
01:31:32,680 --> 01:31:37,159
also lacking landscape level diversity. You know. So three even

1813
01:31:37,199 --> 01:31:39,600
just three hundred years ago, there were these you know,

1814
01:31:39,680 --> 01:31:42,960
beavers that were creating these areas of young forest on

1815
01:31:42,960 --> 01:31:45,199
the landscape where all the trees over a large area

1816
01:31:45,199 --> 01:31:48,720
would die and then regenerate these megaflocks of these hundreds

1817
01:31:48,760 --> 01:31:53,239
of or even billions of passenger pigeons that were you know,

1818
01:31:53,319 --> 01:31:56,920
creating these massive holes in these forests just by by

1819
01:31:57,039 --> 01:31:58,960
nesting there and destroying all the trees.

1820
01:31:59,119 --> 01:32:00,680
Speaker 1: That's gonna be wild and you.

1821
01:32:00,640 --> 01:32:03,920
Speaker 2: Know, and so we're also seeing all of the species

1822
01:32:03,960 --> 01:32:06,359
of wildlife that are associated with what we call early

1823
01:32:06,399 --> 01:32:10,119
successional forests are also declining on the landscape, and so

1824
01:32:10,199 --> 01:32:13,680
we like, sometimes we want to also create these areas

1825
01:32:13,720 --> 01:32:16,880
where we're creating larger openings to create habitat for those species.

1826
01:32:18,600 --> 01:32:21,119
And then we want to think about you know, sometimes

1827
01:32:21,119 --> 01:32:24,119
you're just in a forest and you're like, well, there's

1828
01:32:24,199 --> 01:32:26,960
just a healthy oak tree right there, and even though

1829
01:32:28,520 --> 01:32:30,399
you know, maybe it's like not the best suited for

1830
01:32:30,439 --> 01:32:33,439
this site, it's the only oak tree for a few acres,

1831
01:32:33,479 --> 01:32:35,479
and so you sort of think about it on the

1832
01:32:35,520 --> 01:32:39,720
individual tree level as well. So with all the management

1833
01:32:39,760 --> 01:32:42,239
that I do, I think about it sort of on

1834
01:32:42,279 --> 01:32:44,520
all those different levels. And one thing that I always

1835
01:32:44,520 --> 01:32:48,079
do is I am I'm part of a new program

1836
01:32:48,479 --> 01:32:51,720
from Audubon. I'm an Audubon endorsed forester, which is like

1837
01:32:52,520 --> 01:32:55,239
spoocy receive this pest special training and endorsement to manage

1838
01:32:55,239 --> 01:32:57,039
forests for bird habitat. And one of the things that

1839
01:32:57,079 --> 01:32:59,760
they do is when you make a forest management plan,

1840
01:33:00,399 --> 01:33:03,880
you take like you take a shot of a twenty

1841
01:33:03,920 --> 01:33:07,399
five hundred acre area around the given parcel where you're working,

1842
01:33:07,880 --> 01:33:11,119
and you identify all of the different habitat types and

1843
01:33:11,199 --> 01:33:14,199
all the different forest ages and you know, in the

1844
01:33:14,199 --> 01:33:17,880
different compositions within that twenty five acre area, because we

1845
01:33:18,000 --> 01:33:20,199
want to have sort of like you know, a certain

1846
01:33:20,239 --> 01:33:23,960
amount of early successional forests, a certain amount of especial

1847
01:33:24,039 --> 01:33:27,479
forests and other qualities within each twenty five hundred acre

1848
01:33:27,520 --> 01:33:29,680
block on the landscape. And so if you're looking at

1849
01:33:29,680 --> 01:33:31,399
that twenty five acre block and you're like there's no

1850
01:33:31,520 --> 01:33:34,479
young forest, or there's a lot of young forests and

1851
01:33:34,520 --> 01:33:37,760
no older forests, then you might make choices on how

1852
01:33:37,800 --> 01:33:39,000
you manage a forest based on that.

1853
01:33:40,600 --> 01:33:43,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. But the thing that I think is

1854
01:33:43,560 --> 01:33:45,800
really cool that you're doing is you're obviously out there

1855
01:33:46,000 --> 01:33:49,640
every day or every other day. You're out there a lot,

1856
01:33:49,920 --> 01:33:54,279
basically walking around on the land and observing things and

1857
01:33:54,359 --> 01:33:57,760
noticing things and then making decisions based on that, which

1858
01:33:57,760 --> 01:34:01,520
I don't think most forests are doing. I don't. I

1859
01:34:01,600 --> 01:34:04,479
just don't they've got, you know, from what I could tell,

1860
01:34:04,560 --> 01:34:07,000
especially you know what, from what I've seen out west.

1861
01:34:07,039 --> 01:34:08,600
I mean, people get hired to go out there and

1862
01:34:08,640 --> 01:34:11,920
do survey something, but it's it's a chain of command,

1863
01:34:11,920 --> 01:34:15,319
and the people making the decisions are far removed from

1864
01:34:15,880 --> 01:34:19,279
you know, the boots on the ground observations and decisions

1865
01:34:19,319 --> 01:34:19,960
that are made.

1866
01:34:20,720 --> 01:34:24,039
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool to work for myself, I'll say that, yeah,

1867
01:34:24,159 --> 01:34:27,560
you know, and just to do like you know, someone

1868
01:34:27,600 --> 01:34:30,199
who's who's a little bit. I think the way that

1869
01:34:30,239 --> 01:34:32,159
my mind works, I'm always like trying to think of

1870
01:34:32,439 --> 01:34:36,359
a better ways to do stuff, and and so I

1871
01:34:36,399 --> 01:34:37,680
don't I don't think i's trying to do that I

1872
01:34:37,680 --> 01:34:38,920
think a lot of people are just trying to do

1873
01:34:38,960 --> 01:34:41,920
the job that they were trained to do well, you know,

1874
01:34:42,000 --> 01:34:43,319
and a lot of and a lot of them are.

1875
01:34:44,279 --> 01:34:46,800
But that doesn't you know, it doesn't mean that the

1876
01:34:46,880 --> 01:34:49,479
job that a forester was trained to do forty years

1877
01:34:49,479 --> 01:34:52,159
ago was a good fit for what we're actually being

1878
01:34:52,199 --> 01:34:59,600
asked to do now, you know, I think there is Yeah,

1879
01:34:59,840 --> 01:35:05,079
I I think there's just uh a need for update,

1880
01:35:05,159 --> 01:35:07,920
updating our mindset of what our goals are, like, what

1881
01:35:07,920 --> 01:35:09,840
are we actually trying to do and to be like

1882
01:35:10,199 --> 01:35:12,279
our job as foresters needs to care for for us,

1883
01:35:12,399 --> 01:35:15,319
A for us is an ecosystem that can provide stuff

1884
01:35:15,359 --> 01:35:17,960
for us, but is also its own thing. And the

1885
01:35:18,000 --> 01:35:20,840
point of all of this is, you know, a force

1886
01:35:20,920 --> 01:35:26,039
to sustain human communities and apps to also sustain these

1887
01:35:26,159 --> 01:35:28,960
natural communities. And it can't be one of those things,

1888
01:35:29,359 --> 01:35:31,279
you know, it can't be that we're just managing a

1889
01:35:31,319 --> 01:35:36,000
first human benefits without reference to its to it's you

1890
01:35:36,039 --> 01:35:38,119
know the fact that it is also an ecosystem. Yeah,

1891
01:35:38,359 --> 01:35:39,600
it's beautiful in its own right.

1892
01:35:39,760 --> 01:35:42,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I mean, that's an insane outlook and it's

1893
01:35:42,159 --> 01:35:45,399
also thoroughly stupid, and it's it causes so many more

1894
01:35:45,439 --> 01:35:48,159
problems down the line. Again, short term gain, long term loss.

1895
01:35:48,279 --> 01:35:50,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think doesn't it doesn't work.

1896
01:35:50,399 --> 01:35:53,319
Speaker 1: You're someone you're someone that obviously loves the land and

1897
01:35:53,359 --> 01:35:55,960
the things that you're seeing on at the living organisms

1898
01:35:56,000 --> 01:35:57,840
you're seeing on it. Do you think this kind of

1899
01:35:58,439 --> 01:36:00,920
First off, how many aggres do you have are you

1900
01:36:00,960 --> 01:36:01,359
in charge of?

1901
01:36:01,560 --> 01:36:04,439
Speaker 2: I own? I own? Oh, I own one seventy five

1902
01:36:05,079 --> 01:36:07,000
that I live on that's Fair Island, and then I

1903
01:36:07,079 --> 01:36:12,600
manage I don't know, maybe fifteen thou like that.

1904
01:36:12,600 --> 01:36:15,399
Speaker 1: That's a I mean, it's it's significant acreage. Yeah, that's

1905
01:36:15,439 --> 01:36:18,720
a large question. Do you think that do you think

1906
01:36:18,800 --> 01:36:21,039
that this kind of I mean what you're doing as

1907
01:36:21,079 --> 01:36:23,920
a single person up or single you know, running your

1908
01:36:23,920 --> 01:36:26,239
own business, do you think that do you think this

1909
01:36:26,279 --> 01:36:29,560
could ever be applicable on a large scale? Say you

1910
01:36:29,640 --> 01:36:32,279
got someone in charge of a major company who wasn't

1911
01:36:32,279 --> 01:36:35,840
a greedy shithead and wasn't disconnected from this.

1912
01:36:36,600 --> 01:36:39,640
Speaker 2: Oh, I know it is. I know it is, and

1913
01:36:39,760 --> 01:36:42,920
you know, like it's it's really like the stuff that

1914
01:36:42,960 --> 01:36:47,960
I'm talking about too, is you know, like when I

1915
01:36:48,000 --> 01:36:50,239
work with I work with timber companies, and I work

1916
01:36:50,319 --> 01:36:53,520
with bloggers, and I work with mills, and I work

1917
01:36:53,600 --> 01:36:57,119
with all kinds of different people and and you know,

1918
01:36:57,199 --> 01:37:01,159
none of the stuff that I'm asking for is has

1919
01:37:01,199 --> 01:37:03,039
to be like a threatening thing. And like I have,

1920
01:37:03,520 --> 01:37:05,880
I have a whole group of loggers that I work

1921
01:37:05,920 --> 01:37:08,199
with all the time, Like I have that I keep

1922
01:37:08,199 --> 01:37:11,079
them busy, we're cutting wood all the time. They're happy,

1923
01:37:11,800 --> 01:37:14,640
you know, they're doing well for themselves, they're making good money.

1924
01:37:14,600 --> 01:37:18,079
And part of this is like approaching this stuff in

1925
01:37:18,079 --> 01:37:20,479
the right in the right way sometimes where it's not

1926
01:37:20,600 --> 01:37:24,319
like I'm not coming for you. I'm not coming for

1927
01:37:24,439 --> 01:37:27,680
your job. I'm not I'm trying to help you, and

1928
01:37:27,720 --> 01:37:30,479
I'm trying to like to bring us all along in

1929
01:37:30,479 --> 01:37:33,239
a way that is good for everybody. And it's not

1930
01:37:33,359 --> 01:37:36,439
it doesn't have to be this like big scary thing.

1931
01:37:36,520 --> 01:37:38,199
It can be this thing about like how do we

1932
01:37:38,239 --> 01:37:40,279
all do better? And like the loggers that work for me,

1933
01:37:41,279 --> 01:37:43,800
they don't make less money than the loggers that don't

1934
01:37:43,840 --> 01:37:46,560
work for me, they make more, right, because it's not

1935
01:37:46,680 --> 01:37:51,560
just about uh, you know, austerity.

1936
01:37:51,279 --> 01:37:55,319
Speaker 1: Number right, there's not a numbers get away with underpaying

1937
01:37:55,319 --> 01:37:57,880
our employees, you know, while pleasing the shareholders.

1938
01:37:58,560 --> 01:38:02,039
Speaker 2: You know, I want everybody to do well and and

1939
01:38:02,039 --> 01:38:04,319
and it's a proof of concept, right that we actually

1940
01:38:04,399 --> 01:38:11,760
can do environmentally responsible ecosystem management and everybody can do better. Yeah,

1941
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:13,720
And that's like I think that that's a big, a

1942
01:38:13,720 --> 01:38:18,920
big part of it that makes it less threatening, makes

1943
01:38:19,039 --> 01:38:21,479
less people freak out a little bit less is when

1944
01:38:21,520 --> 01:38:23,880
we do it, we start from a place of respect

1945
01:38:24,720 --> 01:38:28,319
and like care and compassion and we go forward from there.

1946
01:38:28,479 --> 01:38:30,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, I mean those loggers are the people you

1947
01:38:30,880 --> 01:38:33,119
need to get on on board. You know. It's like,

1948
01:38:33,239 --> 01:38:36,520
it's it's crazy. I mean, they're they're out there. You know,

1949
01:38:36,560 --> 01:38:40,359
I was. I was fucking border patrol down here and

1950
01:38:40,399 --> 01:38:43,840
I you know, these guys, it's it's whoever you encounter

1951
01:38:44,359 --> 01:38:46,520
in the brush. I mean, most of these dudes are

1952
01:38:46,560 --> 01:38:49,840
just working class mooks who are like, you know whatever.

1953
01:38:49,880 --> 01:38:52,279
They're not like all gung ho about the political side

1954
01:38:52,279 --> 01:38:53,960
of it. They just need a job. But they'll come

1955
01:38:54,000 --> 01:38:55,680
on and they'll they'll come up on me and they'll

1956
01:38:55,720 --> 01:38:57,720
sniff on me whatever. I don't care. I've used to it.

1957
01:38:57,720 --> 01:38:59,199
They'll sniff on me like a dog. What are you

1958
01:38:59,239 --> 01:39:01,720
doing here? And I I just love talking to them.

1959
01:39:01,760 --> 01:39:04,479
It's so fun. I just fucking I just you know,

1960
01:39:04,520 --> 01:39:07,720
most of the time they just get bored and quickly

1961
01:39:08,000 --> 01:39:11,479
disperse and run away, which is fucking great. That's kind

1962
01:39:11,520 --> 01:39:13,840
of part of why I do it. But sometimes if

1963
01:39:13,840 --> 01:39:16,279
they're bored, you know, I'll tell them and I'll be like,

1964
01:39:16,319 --> 01:39:19,319
you should log things, do ie net. You should start

1965
01:39:19,399 --> 01:39:22,439
trying to to look take pictures the cool stuff you

1966
01:39:22,520 --> 01:39:24,760
see instead of just sitting in your truck. Man, get out,

1967
01:39:24,960 --> 01:39:27,800
like you got opportunities to see stuff you have. You know,

1968
01:39:27,840 --> 01:39:30,000
you can go all these like take pictures, I mean

1969
01:39:30,199 --> 01:39:32,880
with the hope that like maybe one of them will

1970
01:39:32,920 --> 01:39:37,319
get you know, indoctrinate. It's like it'll be slow, you

1971
01:39:37,359 --> 01:39:38,079
know what I mean.

1972
01:39:37,800 --> 01:39:40,199
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the thing you were talking about

1973
01:39:40,199 --> 01:39:43,600
with like the individual person versus individual people being great

1974
01:39:43,680 --> 01:39:46,159
versus like groups of people. Is I'll bet if you

1975
01:39:46,239 --> 01:39:50,079
like drill down with those guys, you know that they'll

1976
01:39:50,079 --> 01:39:52,680
tell you they're like, you know, like these with these loggers.

1977
01:39:52,680 --> 01:39:54,640
You're talking to them and they first they're like, they

1978
01:39:54,640 --> 01:39:56,239
don't want to talk to me, and then they're like,

1979
01:39:56,760 --> 01:39:59,359
next thing, you know, we're talking about how their grandpa

1980
01:39:59,680 --> 01:40:03,000
used to like make his own baskets. He go collect

1981
01:40:03,000 --> 01:40:06,199
willow shoots and make his own baskets and they transplant

1982
01:40:06,199 --> 01:40:10,079
showy orchids. Yeah, it's like all this cool stuff like that,

1983
01:40:10,199 --> 01:40:14,000
where you know, I think a lot of this stuff

1984
01:40:14,640 --> 01:40:17,079
we just like build up all these like structures and

1985
01:40:17,600 --> 01:40:19,800
worldviews around a lot of this stuff that's just so

1986
01:40:19,920 --> 01:40:22,520
common sense and it's for everybody. And if we can

1987
01:40:22,600 --> 01:40:24,720
like break it down a little bit, I think we

1988
01:40:24,760 --> 01:40:27,800
can arrive it at a bed place just strategically.

1989
01:40:27,880 --> 01:40:30,359
Speaker 1: And I'm just thinking like a criminal here, if you know,

1990
01:40:30,439 --> 01:40:34,359
my strategy is to convince people to see what I'm seeing.

1991
01:40:35,039 --> 01:40:37,159
And if my strategy is that, the last thing I

1992
01:40:37,159 --> 01:40:40,439
want to do is, you know, I want to recruit people.

1993
01:40:40,760 --> 01:40:42,600
I don't want to just shit, I'm not going to

1994
01:40:42,640 --> 01:40:45,159
fight them and ship on them and shame them, you know.

1995
01:40:45,239 --> 01:40:47,279
I want to recruit people. And so like I had

1996
01:40:47,279 --> 01:40:51,399
a fucking guy at I got sent the secondary inspection once, uh,

1997
01:40:51,479 --> 01:40:53,760
when I was crossing the border on foot down here

1998
01:40:53,760 --> 01:40:55,760
in South Texaco. I live round on the Mexican border,

1999
01:40:55,760 --> 01:40:59,920
Like I can smell Mexico's garbage fires every night. But uh,

2000
01:41:00,479 --> 01:41:02,159
you know, and the guy, the guy recognized me, like

2001
01:41:02,159 --> 01:41:05,079
are you that that crime pace guy? And I was

2002
01:41:05,159 --> 01:41:08,319
like yeah. I was like, yeah, it's me and and

2003
01:41:08,359 --> 01:41:10,399
he was like, oh man, I like that stuff. It's

2004
01:41:10,600 --> 01:41:12,399
but what's up we kill you lawn, you know, And

2005
01:41:12,439 --> 01:41:15,079
I was I was like, here's my ind you know.

2006
01:41:15,119 --> 01:41:17,840
I'm like, man, have you ever spent time in some

2007
01:41:17,920 --> 01:41:20,199
of the like remnant crumbs of habitat there down here?

2008
01:41:20,239 --> 01:41:23,039
It's fascinating. There's so much cool stuff down here, you know,

2009
01:41:23,159 --> 01:41:25,399
like there you have no there's plants that grow here

2010
01:41:25,560 --> 01:41:27,960
that don't grow anywhere else in the world. And he's like, oh, really,

2011
01:41:28,359 --> 01:41:30,119
you know, and he was I mean, I'm sure he

2012
01:41:30,199 --> 01:41:32,600
never thought about it again, but it was you know,

2013
01:41:32,720 --> 01:41:35,720
that's a that's an opening. I think you can convince

2014
01:41:35,800 --> 01:41:37,840
some of those it's yeah, man, there's a better way.

2015
01:41:37,880 --> 01:41:40,199
There's a better way, and it's not shutting down all logging,

2016
01:41:40,239 --> 01:41:43,119
and it's not I mean, people need wood. It's about

2017
01:41:43,359 --> 01:41:46,600
learning how to run the living machine, for the health

2018
01:41:46,600 --> 01:41:49,560
of the living machine being the main focus, and then

2019
01:41:49,600 --> 01:41:53,079
getting you know, the the lumber is a benefit like

2020
01:41:53,159 --> 01:41:57,760
har harvesting the the fruits of it, you know, like

2021
01:41:57,800 --> 01:42:00,439
the and they'll be abundant fruit. There'll be a abundant

2022
01:42:00,640 --> 01:42:02,399
you know fruit. If you can run it, right if

2023
01:42:02,439 --> 01:42:04,399
you can keep it for the health of everything else,

2024
01:42:04,479 --> 01:42:06,920
the health of the beavers, the understory species everything.

2025
01:42:08,000 --> 01:42:10,199
Speaker 2: It's really an analogy for the whole world, right, which

2026
01:42:10,239 --> 01:42:14,359
is that we have this planet which is actually abundant, right,

2027
01:42:14,439 --> 01:42:17,039
And and then it's our responsibility not to just be like, what,

2028
01:42:17,600 --> 01:42:19,680
you know, what can we mind from here? What can

2029
01:42:19,720 --> 01:42:22,560
we you know, pull out of here? And instead to

2030
01:42:22,640 --> 01:42:25,600
be like what does this place have to offer us?

2031
01:42:25,840 --> 01:42:28,560
You know, and like how do we sustain this place?

2032
01:42:28,680 --> 01:42:32,880
And then reaped the fruits of all of the amazing

2033
01:42:32,920 --> 01:42:35,720
things that it has to offer within this that that

2034
01:42:35,760 --> 01:42:39,479
it already has, right, Yeah, Like there's enough stuff here

2035
01:42:40,000 --> 01:42:43,880
for us to be alive. Yeah, And it just is

2036
01:42:44,000 --> 01:42:48,079
it just is like about shifting that flipping that mindset.

2037
01:42:47,680 --> 01:42:49,520
Speaker 1: Around, I think, yeah, and it goes you know, it

2038
01:42:49,560 --> 01:42:52,720
goes for people too. It's like I want everyone to

2039
01:42:52,800 --> 01:42:57,680
be educated and have the opportunities and not be worrying

2040
01:42:57,760 --> 01:43:00,239
about you know, how am I going to pay for

2041
01:43:00,319 --> 01:43:02,359
healthcare if I get sick? Or how am I gonna

2042
01:43:02,520 --> 01:43:04,279
I mean, it goes so much, you know, you could

2043
01:43:04,319 --> 01:43:07,479
take it everywhere, Like I want the collective society I'm

2044
01:43:07,520 --> 01:43:10,760
a part of to do better and be more well

2045
01:43:10,800 --> 01:43:13,960
off and more enlightened and more intelligent and you know,

2046
01:43:14,680 --> 01:43:17,079
and uh and we're definitely not there, but you know

2047
01:43:18,439 --> 01:43:19,159
it's possible.

2048
01:43:20,880 --> 01:43:22,439
Speaker 2: By the next time you and me talk, we'll have

2049
01:43:22,520 --> 01:43:23,159
this all clean.

2050
01:43:26,359 --> 01:43:28,359
Speaker 1: Yeah god, yeah, man, I could keep talking to you.

2051
01:43:28,359 --> 01:43:30,840
I'm so curious about some of the forests up there

2052
01:43:30,880 --> 01:43:31,840
and the stuff you see.

2053
01:43:31,840 --> 01:43:36,079
Speaker 2: But yeah, let's uh, let's try again soon.

2054
01:43:36,520 --> 01:43:39,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I appreciate your time. Thanks again, and uh

2055
01:43:39,119 --> 01:43:41,399
yeah man, I'll stay in touch and I'm gonna come

2056
01:43:41,479 --> 01:43:43,720
I'll probably come busy you at some point here next

2057
01:43:43,760 --> 01:43:44,119
year or two.

2058
01:43:45,359 --> 01:43:46,439
Speaker 2: Let's do it, all right, man,

