The Fight for Urban Forests

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People make the mistake, Kershner says, of assuming that once European settlers arrived, the ancient forests disappeared as a result of logging and agricultural clearing.  It’s true that 80 percent or more of the Northeast’s forests were cut down, and most of what we see today is second growth. But he maintains that approximately 400,000 acres of old growth remain in the region.

Practiced at making his case, he enumerates the reasons to value even the smallest old-growth forests. They harbor the country’s oldest, largest, and tallest living things. They are “living laboratories” for studying a forest’s natural processes. Old-growth forests are concentrated habitats for endangered species. They are “genetic banks” for the strongest and most valuable genes of a species. They have commercial value for ecotourism. They are precious examples of our historic heritage, places to glimpse what North America looked like prior to the arrival of European settlers.

Most important, perhaps, to Kershner, they provide the intangible quality of inspiration. “Inspiration is what I’m after,” he says.

Bruce Kershner died in 2007, after this passage was written. Adapted from The Way of the Woods: Journeys Through American Forests (Oregon State University Press, 2009), which explores woodlands from the hemlocks of Appalachia to the giant sequoias of Northern California.

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