Can We Save the Redbird Forest?: Nuance & Perspective
Our real power lies in perspective. The perspective through which we view the world and our role in it comes from, in a large part, the belief system we operate through. This belief system comes only in part from firsthand experiences. A lot of it is inherited from our family, culture, and society of origin. Another part is chosen through the ways we identify ourselves and whatever preexisting rhetoric comes with that identification. So, in this way, we can find that much of our perspective did not begin with us at all. And thus, the world we experience is largely the result of the narrative that this perspective creates as a way to interpret what we encounter. To understand, create, or change anything, we must be willing to shift our perspective to see through multiple windows. When we give words to our experiences we must recognize them as a potent catalyst for shaping our reality, and the reality of anyone who latches onto our words. Because of this, we must always be willing to rewrite and edit the way we describe experience.
Last weekend, I was asked to hike with a group of artists, writers, activists, scientists, and community organizers in the Redbird District of the Daniel Boone National Forest. We set out to bear witness to some old growth forest that is set to be logged. Old growth forest in the United States is actually rare. The Kentucky old growth forests are almost all near where I live in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. However, even in my forested mountains, true old growth is still rare. My mountains were logged out multiple times over as we have a history in my region with extractive industries like logging and coal mining. I come from a family of five generations of coal miners. I am proud to be a coal miner’s daughter.
In the area of the Redbird where we hiked, there is a champion red hickory tree estimated to be 300+ years old. The hickory stands in the area set to be logged. The Kentucky Heartwood advocacy nonprofit group, which organized the gathering and hike, have been seeing through efforts to quell the proposed logging. The area includes some of the most intact ecosystems in the area and the lands are among the few which are publicly accessible.
The question posed to the group is: Can we save the Redbird? My answer is, yes.
Do I think it will be saved? I lean more toward no than yes on that one. Though, I don’t count out possibilities prematurely. The reason I think logging is likely to happen is pretty simple. It is money, the stuckness of perspectives, and the tight marriage to rhetoric. It is ego and identity. It is a misunderstanding.
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What would have to be done is not likely to be done within the timeline it would take to stop the logging.
This is a truth buried into the historical realities of being from the mountains of eastern Kentucky. While there are always exceptions, this scenario is very familiar. The open mindedness needed to shape it differently is hidden behind the loudest voices on both sides of the spectrum. Something I am learning as I get older is to let go. The more I let go, the easier it is to see nuance and understand that nearly everything exists in shades of gray.
Everything develops at a different rate. The span of life different. The 300 year old red hickory has seen our generations, and the mountains that shaped our flesh and bone saw the birth of humanity. They understand being here better than any of us breathing can fathom. I wonder how good they are at letting go. There is a theory that creation is consciousness itself. That we are all aspects of this One. Perhaps the desire to save anything comes from our own awareness of our species potential to grow and be more alive. More radiant. More aware — conscious.
On our hike we noticed that trees once marked for logging around the red hickory had been canceled out, creating a buffer area around the champion tree. The marked road for logging seems to have been routed differently too. That’s something.
“There are none so blind as they that won’t see.” ~Jonathan Swift
