The Spirit and Soul of Stewardship in the Forest

We are not setting aside landscapes to plant or create new wilderness parks or preserves. In other words we are not designing old growth forests from seed. We are only trying to protect existing ones.

If we don’t plan and secure the future of new old growth forests we will eventually be without them because old trees will eventually die. We still have a very temporary view of the future.

When you get close to nature, when you touch it – it gets close to you. It touches you. Then everything changes within you and this experience opens you to discover the treasures hidden along the edge of the forest

In this photo we see a wildcrafter at the Wildcraft Forest providing support for a songbirds nest next to a trail. We perform a method called “trail browsing” where we widen trails and prune back wild shrubs. We cut and shape the branches so that we can intentionally create strong and secure branch architecture so that birds can build a secure nest – this then attracts certain songbirds because we have created a supported environment for them. These songbirds prefer having secure well hidden nests beside wide trails or open areas, so that they may have effective escape routes away from predators.

You can observe this for yourself. A narrow animal trail through a dense forest will provide plenty of big branches where birds of prey can perch and wait close to the nest. The songbird has little opportunity to navigate around the threat. But with some open space, a predator is no match for the sharp navigation skills held by a small bird.

Humans are the only species that will be moved to do this sort of work. We are not creating a trap or any other purpose whereby we would achieve value other than the beautiful notion that we are helping another species to survive and thrive.

There is an inner voice that resides within us that I like to think becomes the expression of a human soul. This expression becomes unique within each of us and the process of how it unfolds is like a conversation between ourselves, our soul and nature.

For this exchange to happen there are certain elements that become self-evident. The beauty of nature itself becomes the stage from which this visit occurs; the quiet and the sensory infusions mixed with the air and biology that envelopes us, forms a place from which natural creativity occurs.

But what of the intimacy that might reside here. Will this place share its secrets with me – am I to be trusted?

Well I know the birds are on my side, and if I support the trees and the plants then they might see me as kin?

I believe this to be true.

As humans we can help restore balance in nature and we can do this in our backyards or in remote forests. It remains important to realize that community engagement, responsibility and stewardship will be the prime instrument for combating climate change and delivering conservation at a local level. Today this remains a challenge, there are fewer people engaged with backcountry stewardship than there was 20 years ago. This is primarily due to an aging population of volunteers and their work mission has not transitioned very well to a new generation.

There are also fewer local people working in the backcountry so there is a widening cultural disconnect which is resulting in the disappearance of trails, the recovery of wild habitat and an over-all lack of first-hand observation for how local areas are transitioning.

If stewardship is to occur, community engagement of wildland areas must be restored because it will take scores of people to do the work required as small places are impacted by Earth changes.

The question becomes what needs to happen for people to abandon their games, phones and cafes for even a short time in order to devote energy towards stewardship? The first thing we need to understand is that this isn’t for everyone. It will always be a small percentage of people who will embrace this sort of mission. But even with just these small numbers, incredible achievements can take place.

What needs to spread into the wider population are the ethics to support nature as a sentient intelligent agency. This then becomes a mission to support the spirit and soul of the forest as though she were our kin.

It took me a long time to be at peace with an idea about my own mortality. It did not happen until I came to understand my relationship with a Mother Tree and her forest. Contrary to popular common perspectives Mother Trees are not necessarily the oldest or most perfect trees in the forest, they are in fact trees that the wider forest designates to specifically expand a forest and carry the genetic diversity that is contained within that whole forest.

A Mother Tree holds an incredible amount of natural intelligence connected to a system that is pretty much a mystery to us.

Forests in remote places carry wild systems rich in biodiversity; and these are the places that still hold a natural balance required for our planet to survive. These wild places also carry the cosmological platforms which link our logical selves to the greater essence of our soul-self. Such places can teach us a great deal about ourselves and our connection to wild relationships. Here the elements of spirit, sentience, science, semiotics, stewardship and sanctuary are pillars, and they support an archway which becomes the architecture for all that is a sanctuary forest.

The foundation for supporting all of this is what we might call “love” – but nature might define it as having forms of mutualism which contain “connections” and “relationships”. For humans we have an inherent love for the natural world – but often we don’t know how to express this. This expression would become complete within us if we recognize that this love is driven by meaningful and tangible connections and relationships with nature.

What might make humans unique in the cosmos is this relationship we have to things that are driven by our love for them. To love someone or something more than we love ourselves, is agape love and it becomes a powerful emotional driver within acts of stewardship – it is what makes us extraordinary.

We really have a lot to learn about how everything works – and how everything is connected. Love becomes an activator for stewardship when humans become present in the natural world. Love is like a seed which triggers a natural reciprocity - it activates life-force.

As ancient humans we had a great understanding about all of this, and our role was one of navigating stewardship so that we could regenerate biodiversity within the Earth’s natural systems. We sought to retain high levels of life-force for both local ecosystems and the planet. This natural presence of wild biodiversity provided us with food, shelter, community and medicine and became the original economy for humans – nature was our kin. Eons later this wild kinship, this biodiversity, still provides critical support for our survival – however we seem to have forgotten this.

We can create our meaning and purpose by taking responsibility for nature and this planet. Plant a tree, restore bird or pollinator habitat; help to regenerate the plant and tree guardian guilds. These actions will restore ones soul and together we will find ourselves within the greater design of the cosmos – then each of us will rediscover our child within.

Even though human beings depend on wild biological relationships, our society continues to ignore them, and chooses to create industrial practices that will extract whatever it is that we need, without considering the great balance that the Earth and her life support systems depend on.

Clearcut logging, open pit mining and others forms of industrial resource extraction continue to plague our home. A significant proportion of drugs and nutraceuticals are derived, directly or indirectly, from wild biological sources: at least 50% of the pharmaceutical compounds within the US market are derived from wild plants, animals and micro-organisms. About 80% of the world population depends on medicines from nature (used in either modern or traditional medical practice) for primary healthcare.

And this represents only a tiny fraction of the wild species that have been investigated for medical potential.

This process of creating wealth by destroying nature has us forgetting our role as stewards. We are acting without love. We are acting without responsibility. We are ignoring our ancient soul and by doing so, we are placing ourselves and everything else at risk.

What continues to be clear is that politics will not solve these problems. Now more than ever you and I need to put together systems and tangible actions that will restore, regenerate and steward this planet….one small place at a time.

Humanity needs to embrace the long view. We need to make 300 year plans and put them into action. We must grow more old growth habitats because they become a producer of “living air”. It will not be long before scientists will be able to measure the amount of living microbes that travel in the currents of our air; much like they travel in the currents of our oceans, as part of communities of plankton.

Living air provides us with much needed nutrients.

“Living air” is being replaced by “dead air” as toxins poison it; and thus we are being deeply impacted…in fact the whole planet is becoming deeply impacted. It is our forests and wild environments that produce living air…and it’s up to you and I to retain that natural life-force process.

There is not enough money in the world to buy our way out of the problems that we have created.

The only way that we will be able to regenerate this planet and her ecosystems are through acts of love and connections with nature.

All of this begins with the expression of one’s soul.