The Many Illusions of the ‘Illusion of Preservation’
A Reader Response
Editors’ Note: We always welcome and encourage responses from our readers. The following piece is a response to the Beyond the ‘Illusion of Preservation’ report, featured in Looking for Balance: Wildlands, Woodlands, and Wood Consumption from our Spring 2024 issue. Read other responses.
“It was so pleasant, as we laid down to reflect, that we were in the heart of a tract of virgin timber about 40 miles square… And yet, we could not help regretting that there should be so very few of such tracts left, due to the almost criminal lack of foresight of our legislatures of the 19th century.”
– Bob Marshall, August 1923In 2005, Harvard Forest produced Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts. Recognizing inadequate progress toward forest conservation, the authors called to “maintain and enhance…biodiversity while offering future generations environmental services, recreational opportunities and economic benefits in a permanently forested landscape.” Was this the paradigm-shifting, holistic vision that would finally help New England make space for the Wild?
Twenty years on, tragically little progress has been made toward securing Wildlands in New England, while conservation of woodlands has catapulted forward. Meanwhile, as if in reaction to growing momentum for Wildlands and recovery of old-growth forests, a report released in March, Beyond the ‘Illusion of Preservation,’ throws cold water on recent progress.
Despite pronouncements of “whole-hearted.. support [for] expanding Wildlands,” Beyond the Illusion relies on straw man arguments and other illusions of its own creation that buttress the status quo instead of helping to realize the Wildlands and Woodlands vision. Let’s examine three of those illusions:
Illusion #1: The problems with Beyond the Illusion of Preservation start with the title, as its own authors recently admitted.1 Spend a week in the Five Ponds Wilderness of New York’s Adirondack Forest Preserve, in the same old-growth forest where Bob Marshall penned the opening quote of this article, and you will leave certain that there is nothing illusory about preservation (I prefer the term “Wildlands”2). The myriad values of Wildlands (for biodiversity, clean water, climate change mitigation and resilience, and human mental health, to name a few) are well established in scientific literature; Wildlands also have a right to exist for their own sake. To imply that Wildlands are little more than an illusion, especially when the authors acknowledge the faults of their claim, is counterproductive at best, and reckless at worst.
Marveling at old-growth forest in New York's Five Ponds Wilderness, Adirondack Forest Preserve. © Zack Porter
Illusion #2: Beyond the Illusion’s authors write: “[T]he notion that preserving more wild forest in our own backyard is the best way to counteract poor management elsewhere…is at the heart of the illusion of preservation.” This comment betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Wildlands and reinforces a flawed argument, oft-stated by state and federal land management agencies, that it is important to log these trees in this place, as opposed to obtaining the same wood products from a different location.
Wildlands are inherently place-based. Places, by their nature, are neither replicable nor exchangeable. In contrast, commodity wood products within the context of New England or beyond are placeless and can come from anywhere.
The author’s family on a recent trip to Baxter State Park in Maine, where humans connect deeply to the Wild. Baxter is New England’s largest Wildland. © Zack Porter
The Wilderness Act of 1964 celebrates its 60th birthday this September. Should Wildland supporters feel remorse for the 112 million acres that the Act has protected, because—as the authors imply—we are allowing “poor management” to continue elsewhere? Societal decisions to protect Wildlands are exemplary expressions of a functioning democracy. If we are ever going to realize the Wildlands vision of Wildlands and Woodlands, it will be thanks to hundreds of decisions to “preserv[e] more wild forest in our [New England] backyard.”
Illusion #3: Beyond the Illusion argues that expanding wildlands to 10 or even 20 percent of New England “would be compatible with…our wood product needs.” And yet, the report misleadingly asserts that expanding wildlands, especially in public forests, “will fail to provide the full suite of benefits we seek from our forests—here in New England and beyond.”
“Wildlands are inherently place-based. Places, by their nature, are neither replicable nor exchangeable.”
The vast majority of New England’s forests are available for timber harvest. The leading cause of tree mortality in the Northeast is logging, inhibiting the recovery of old forests. Wildlands comprise just 3.3 percent of New England. State and federal forests, encompassing 11 percent of New England, provide 3.8 percent of the regional annual timber harvest. In contrast, state and federal forests harbor, on average, 30 percent more carbon than private forests in New England, and contain many of the largest, most resilient, and best-connected blocks of forest habitat in the region. Beyond the Illusion points to public forests as locations where “ecological forestry” is practiced, but this term is undefined, and the claim is unsupported by evidence from public land timber sales.
No organization in New England has taken a position that Wildlands are a standalone solution. However, a growing chorus is asking scientifically-informed, fiscally-prudent questions about why public lands shouldn’t be the logical foundation for regional rewilding as they are in New York, where the forever-wild Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves were established in 1892.
“Societal decisions to protect Wildlands are exemplary expressions of a functioning democracy.”
Bob Marshall would be appalled to learn that our society’s “criminal lack of foresight” persists in the twenty-first century. Across New England, state and federal agencies are busy undermining a century or more of forest recovery, taking aim at beloved and ecologically-important landscapes including Vermont’s Worcester Range and New Hampshire’s Sandwich Range.
Despite two decades of Wildlands and Woodlands reports, New England’s cultural bias against Wildlands remains pervasive and systemic. Change is afoot in the form of Vermont’s 30x30 and 50x50 legislation, Massachusetts’ Climate Oriented Forest Management Guidelines, and an expansion of Maine’s Ecological Reserve System. But until bold pronouncements of support for Wildlands are coupled with equally bold actions on the ground, the paradigm shift that many New Englanders hoped for in 2005 will continue to be as illusory as ever.
1 “Preserving more land in a passively managed natural state is not illusory; it is necessary and good,” wrote three authors of Beyond the ‘Illusion of Preservation’ in the third issue of From The Ground Up.
2 The term “preservation” connotes a jar of jam or a museum artifact. When “preservation” is used as a synonym for Wildlands, as with this report, it cheapens and distorts the critical importance of protecting places that are, in reality, anything but frozen in time. Wildlands are where ecosystems evolve and adapt on their own terms. If there is anything “preserved” in Wildlands, it is the sovereignty of natural processes; the freedom of expression of wild nature.
Zack Porter is Executive Director of Standing Trees, an organization that works to protect and restore New England’s public lands. He writes from Montpelier, Vermont.