The Fragmentation of Consciousness begins with the Destruction of a Forest

We have ignored the warnings and now we have become blind

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

The term “plant blindness” was coined by the botanists and biology educators J. H. Wandersee and E. E. Schussler in their 1999 publication 'Preventing Plant Blindness'. Scientists have suggested that the reason some people don't notice plants is because plants are stationary and similarly coloured, although other research has suggested that plant blindness is affected by cultural practices. A US study looked at how plants and animals are perceived using "attentional blink" (the ability to notice one of two rapidly presented images). The study showed that participants were more accurate in detecting animals in images, rather than plants.

Some scientific research suggests that human brain chemistry and visual processing systems are inherently biased to ignore plants in the environment. Studies have shown that human visual systems cannot effectively process all the information that is seen. Thus, research suggests that priority is given to variable colors, movement, and familiar objects in order to most effectively detect threats and potential food sources. As plants do not often fit these criteria, many scientists think the human brain tends not to fully process their visual presence. Additionally, primates have been shown to have a preference for organisms that behave similarly to their own species. As plants behave very differently than humans, this also suggests an intrinsic component to plant blindness.

Civilization has conditioned us to see differently than our more tribal ancestors who had a greater and more direct connection with nature. Today this disconnection continues to widen and those who serve as dissenting voices for how this might end badly are often relegated to a radical view that should be ignored.

However time and events have proven them to be prophets.

Barry Commoner was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He believed that there are four laws of ecology, as written in The Closing Circle in 1971. The four laws are:

1. Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.

2. Everything must go somewhere. There is no "waste" in nature and there is no "away" to which things can be thrown.

3. Nature knows best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, "likely to be detrimental to that system"

4. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.

A decade or so later, environmentalist Paul Watson, suggested that there are three basic laws of ecology:

1. The law of diversity – that the strength of an eco-system depends upon the diversity in it

2. The law of interdependence – that all those species are interdependent

3. The law of finite resources – that there is a gross limit carrying capacity.

We were warned long ago that we are separating ourselves from nature – an element that remains intrinsic for our survival both physically and spiritually, And now we can’t see the forest for the trees.

There are public assumptions when it comes to the idea of planting trees and creating or restoring forests and political and corporate leaders support these assumptions which are largely deceiving. First of all we really need to understand that there is a difference between a wild natural forest and an anthropogenic forest, that is, a forest which is planted solely for the benefit of human beings or for the benefit of an environment that humans “believe” to be natural. True wild natural forests don’t necessarily have economic values that benefit human beings. For example, on average treeplanters are paid to plant about 215 million seedlings per year in British Columbia, and they are paid by forest companies in an effort to restore tree harvests on crownland as an agreement with the provincial government to harvest the timber on those lands. The trees being planted are industrial varieties that will grow fast for a future lumber harvest in 30 to 70 years. We are creating a form of tree farm on wildlands.

A second example is one of planting trees because we as human beings need to mitigate the pollution that we have created through our economic consumptions. We believe, and we can prove that trees will restore a certain balance so that we may continue to grow our economic consumptions.

Saskatoon Blossoms at the Wildcraft Forest

These two motivators, lack a key understanding which is this – trees naturally exist as part of primeval relationships that include plant and animal species which collectively create a sensitive biodiverse ecosystem which is then part of a web of life – this all includes biotic and abiotic factors. When we do not consider this “whole” system we are creating more imbalance and an unhealthy local and planetary environment.

There are a growing number of scientific reports that represent examples of seeking to understand forests from only a great distance and then putting together a recommendation based on largely human needs – which seems to be the current scientific and social trend.

Its not that the analysis is wrong from such scientific perspectives – it’s that the terms of reference that served as the platform for the research is flawed.

I think it’s absolutely wonderful that there is heightened awareness about trees, forests and the need to encourage them, but now it’s up to you and I and a group of others to grow consciousness so that humans everywhere understand what regenerating “true wild nature” is all about – and this requires a new set of ethics that can be infused within industrial and social economics.

The Forest Industry in British Columbia creating clear and present dangers which places nature and wildness at risk everyday.

In British Columbia alone, we are anticipating that we will need to plant 300 million trees per year because of heightened timber extraction, and climate change; and while reforestation demands are growing, the treeplanting workforce is dropping. I believe this is largely due to ethical gaps that include low wages and working conditions due to exposure to toxins in the seedlings as well as the philosophical dynamic that the treeplanter is exposed to from the forest industry.

We could change this by creating a new culture of treeplanting that includes a mission of good work regenerating local wild natural ecosystems. This boots on the ground culture would eventually change the culture of the forest industry.

At present we are planting more than 200 million trees but not 300 million. There are two questions that we need to ask:

What percentage of those seedlings will survive to maturity?

Within this survival rate, are we replacing the forests that we have harvested?

Answering these questions really allows us to understand what the future of our forests might look like.

Our wild forests have been transitioning to tree farms for quite some time. The first plantations in this province were established about 1930 and by 1941 we were fully engaged with replanting forest stands with industrial species; and that year the cumulative total trees planted surpassed 10 million.

Today we are well into the second and third cuts of industrial timber within tree farm licenses. This begs another important question. After nearly a century why have we not adopted forest policy around the notion…”Only harvest what you plant”?

Such a policy would immediately remove any notion of harvesting old growth. It would also allow for expanding the role of stewardship and creating new and future old growth areas.

“Only harvest 70% of the trees you planted” the balance supports regenerating “the balance”.

This whole impression that we plant trees to create a legacy of life that will survive for eons is one of the great lies that our society has bought into. There is no legislation that protects trees within a long view of 500 years or more. We don’t even consider that our oldest trees will eventually die and we have made no effort to support new future old growth forests.

We have embraced an illusion that when we create sprawling cities that a bit of green space or planting a few trees will offset our destructive consumption. Imagine we enroll our children into believing this lie by getting them to plant a tree – but we neglect to tell them that at any time it may be destroyed if it threatens any part of civic infrastructure or urban development.

Or maybe somebody’s view.

The idiom "you can't see the forest for the trees" means that you are so focused on the details or parts of a situation that you can't grasp the bigger picture or overall context. It's about being unable to understand a situation fully because you are too absorbed in the small details to see the broader picture. And now we have become completely blind to this broader picture. Ignoring the warnings for so long has caused us to become blind to reality and this has led to the fragmentation of nature and now this is killing us all.

I think that the more we fragment the natural world the more we fragment ourselves and the human condition.

Learn about what we do: www.wildcraftforest.com