The Trees are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forest by Lynda V. Mapes

​Book Review by Lisa Dekker

Photo by Lisa Dekker

In her new book, “The Trees are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forest,” author Lynda V. Mapes travels to regions in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia to learn how research has radically changed our understanding of so-called ‘legacy forests’ in the space of just 60 years. The term was first coined by Stephen Kropp, founder of the Center for Responsible Forestry, who describes a legacy forest as a “naturally regrown, mature forest that preserves the biological, functional and structural legacies of the forests they replaced.” Although not everyone respects the term [it is not yet a designation used by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)], there are legacy forests scattered throughout publicly-owned lands in Washington which are managed by the DNR.

Through interviews on site and forest walks with luminaries like Dr.Jerry Franklin, often called the ‘father of modern forestry’ for his work at the University of Washington, the first part of Mapes’ book eloquently describes why these forests matter.

We learn how research has radically changed our understanding in the space of just 60 years. Likely due to their dark understories, where little sunlight reaches some plants and trees, older forests with big trees went from once being described as “biological deserts,” to currently being recognized as the complex, life-giving, carbon-capturing, watershed-preserving treasures we know them to be today. 

In the chapter titled “Salmon Forests,” Mapes travels for a week among both the remaining healthy forests and the desolate clearcuts of Vancouver Island with Teresa Ryan (traditional name Sm’hayetsk), an Indigenous Knowledge and Natural Science lecturer at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Susan Simard, an eminent forest ecologist, also at UBC. 

Both Ryan and Simard are part of the Mother Tree Project, a crew of researchers looking at the changes in soil health, especially the decrease in the amount of carbon in the soil after successive clearcuts on a site. Simard has also led the project’s deep dive into examining the richly complex soils of the uncut forests, bringing insight, for example, into how the trees connect via the mycorrhizal fungi network between them. [These findings are controversial because if the logging industry were required to adjust their practices in order to retain these “biological legacies” for successful regrowth, it would be costly.]

Also evidence of the value of preserving older forests are the proven ‘sustainable’ traditions of the Tribes, stewards of these lands and forests for centuries before colonization. Their practices and protocols recognized that, by caring for the forests, the forests would care for them. New evidence for this appeared in a paper published in 2022, based on an archeologic study done in the land of the Nuun-chah-nulth peoples of British Columbia (whose family ties and culture extend down to the Makah reservation in northwest Clallam County). Botanists and archaeologists found that “old growth trees [still there] are witnesses” to the fact that these people were more than hunter-gatherers and that they “took care of and managed…forest gardens abundant with crab apples, berry patches, and wild rice root crops.” At the same time, because they stripped off only narrow pieces of cedar bark for their shelter and clothing, these same cedar trees have lived on for centuries. 

In the preface, Mapes declares that “[t]he need for a paradigm shift is readily apparent.” After many  real-world examples to support that belief, she concludes with stories of successful restoration projects, new ideas for community solutions, and a belief in the potential for people to change their way of thinking. This should encourage the reader to hope, as the author hopes, for a “new ethos of conservation, based on reciprocity and respect in our relations with one another, and with nature.”