Correcting the Narrative

Correcting the Narrative

Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) decorates a Washington (Olympic Peninsula) clearcut in this slide taken in the 1980s. A clearcut is hardly recognizable as such when it regrows, and it provides for a variety of wildlife dependent upon successional sites.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 If you care about the natural world, you’ve probably depended upon conservation organizations for information because you believe them to be knowledgeable and trustworthy. But can you take what they tell you as gospel? Not necessarily.

 

In the 1980s-90s, the Sierra Club provided the narrative regarding clearcuts (areas of forest cut down for timber), telling us how bad they were for the environment. Few people, if any, would have doubted this perspective because, to human eyes, a clearcut appears as a site of total devastation.

 

However, forest regeneration provides habitat for wildlife, too—although not for all the original inhabitants. A variety of other kinds of critters depend upon such “disasters” to create open habitat they need for the perpetuation of their kind, as I discovered while birding clearcuts. I found many species of avian creatures, along with butterflies, rabbits, lizards, etc. My experience belied the Sierra Club stance.

 

A close birding friend of mine had also realized clearcuts provided for warblers and other species when the land next door to his house was completely logged. But while he didn’t hesitate to admit that fact to me, he would never have dared to breathe a word of it to anyone else. People tend to be terrified to go against the prevailing narrative, lest they be ostracized. No one wants to be banished from his social circles.

 

But signing on to a false narrative is not at all helpful to Mother Nature. You can’t possibly make the proper choices about how to take care of the natural world if you base your decisions upon falsehoods or misleading information. So, I wrote an article about the true value of clearcuts.

 

I originally sent it to major conservation organizations, thinking they would surely want people to know the truth. Not a one would publish it. Tellingly, the editor of  a national birding organization's magazine phoned to admit I was right, but this group believed it would lose members if my article appeared in their publication. The realization that environmental organizations were required by their members’ beliefs (wrong as they might be) to kowtow to an erroneous narrative was revelatory and very disturbing to me.

 

Does any birder really want Ruffed Grouse to disappear? As of 2015, 15 states listed the Ruffed Grouse as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need, mainly because of loss of habitat. This species requires the young forest that clearcutting helps to provide, yet birders apparently would have opposed receiving this information. Why? Psychologists explain this as "herd mentality", which minimizes social harm to individuals, but poses significant risks for our environment.

 

My article got published—first, by RGS, the magazine for the Ruffed Grouse Society (hunters), followed by Michigan Forests, the magazine of the Michigan Forest Association (foresters).

 

If you love our natural world as I do, I hope you will subscribe to this blog so you can be privy to real-world truths. Mother Nature desperately needs folks willing to fight inaccurate narratives that perpetuate faulty and ruinous information.

 

NATURE ADVICE:

Despite people’s aversion to clearcuts, they essentially replicate them when they clean their gardens in fall (known horticulturally as “putting the garden to bed”). Instead, you should leave the dried plant stalks, leaves, etc., until spring because this material is used by wildlife to protect eggs, larvae, and adult organisms from harsh winter weather.