Our forests are being stolen! One tree at a time! And it can all be blamed on poverty. After logging towns are surrounded by protected areas and all of the industry has stopped, what are the people who have created a life there for generations supposed to do? It is their identity, who they are, it is all they know, logging, and it has been taken away. Some of those desperate people continue to do what they know, and it is costing the rest of society dearly.
Resources
PRE-ORDER: Tree Thieves: Crime And Survival In North America's Woods
2018 National Geographic Explorer
Thieves take 800-year-old red cedar tree from Vancouver Island
Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation
Sponsors
West Fraser: https://www.westfraser.com/
GreenLink Forestry Inc.: http://greenlinkforestry.com/
Damaged Timber: https://www.damagedtimber.com/
Forest Proud: https://forestproud.org/
Giveaway
Enter YourForest10 at checkout at the Damaged Timber store for a 10% discount!
Quotes
13.30 - 13.51: “We understand that we’re humans fitted in nature and that’s why people who… might actually be more disconnected from it might think they are actually feeling heartbreak around a tree being logged because… that disconnect actually creates the heartbreak, not the logging itself anyway.”
32.43 - 32.52: “Because old growth is a carbon sink,... For an old growth to be stolen has quite an impact on the environment and a forest’s ability to adapt.”
Takeaways
Tree-fecta (04.49)
Lyndsie graduated in journalism, worked as a freelance reporter then pursued her master's in environmental history when she learned about oral history and became interested in the intersection of journalism, history and the environment. She was the 2018 National Geographic Explorer and used grant funding to explore the stories of timber poaching. She was honoured and elated to receive this title and this impetus for her research.
Tree sleuthing (8.43)
The first time Lyndsie heard about tree poaching was when one of the largest red cedars in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on Vancouver Island was poached in 2012. When she moved to Haida Gwaii, she realized the significance of 800-year-old trees and began seriously researching this cultural, political and environmental issue. She decided to publish her work as a story of the people involved, interlaced with environmental commentary.
Following the trails (17.21)
On Vancouver Island, Lyndsie shadowed natural resource officers and discovered that old growth douglas fir and cedar are the most poached there, which could be discovered by the presence of “duff” or organic matter remaining from having felled the tree. The poachers sell the wood to smaller mills or online or turn it into firewood. She notes how heat from wood is preferred by many people over gas-burning since it is affordable.
The underbelly of poaching (21.33)
Lyndsie explains that there is widespread drug use in the poaching community, so the poacher takes the wood directly to the drug dealer. It is practised differently in Washington state in the USA, where maple poaching is more common for artisan products and in Oregon and California, where redwood burls are poached and sold to artists. Redwood burl is smooth, has no knots, and has a beautiful distinct pattern but is also ecologically important for the health of the tree.
The calculation of damage (29.24)
In the USA, poaching of forest service land is valued at 20 million dollars a year, accounting for 1 in 10 felled trees being poached. Some of Lyndsie’s interviews claimed that this takes place in every natural forest but since crime scenes are hard to discover, the actual loss may be higher. A forest service study claimed this to be 100 million dollars worth of timber stolen every year. This amount of poaching has reduced the amount of old growth left in North America.
The person behind the poacher (34.15)
Lyndsie’s love for history led her to explore the history of poaching when she began researching timber poaching. Some of the poachers she interviewed were in their mid to late 30s, who grew up during the timber wars in the USA, and they expressed anger towards the conservation approach during the late 70s, a reflection of the deep tradition of distrust. The poachers shared the challenges of living in a community that never recovered from stopping industrial logging.
Lumber families (37.49)
Lyndsie shares that one of the towns she went to had families who had moved there for logging and saw it as a part of their lineage and identity. She found that if she was authentic and honest, interviewees opened up to her. She comments on how changing the narrative around an issue is as important as changing the policy through activism, since intergenerational anger continues against mismanaged transitions and ignored connections between trades and the land.
Revenge poaching (50.25)
In the pacific northwest, logging towns that were once stable economies degenerated into hubs of unemployment, homelessness and drug use after logging was stopped. For example, in 1978, the expansion of the Redwoods National Forest claimed driftwood collection illegal. Lyndsie claims that poaching comes from such resentment. Bureaucracy has been introduced in collecting wood off the beach where families rely on firewood for heating and eating.
Million little missteps (56.05)
Lyndsie believes that the poachers need to be listened to and systems changed since many mistakes have been made over the history of conservation to lead to this place. The poachers shared with her their connection to the national forests they used to work in, which the people who displaced them didn’t have. Being local and being known is important to them.
Huge multinational economy (1.01.01)
Lyndsie found some similarities in her research in Peru and BC. The Indigenous community managing a conservation land showed her the poached trees similar to old growth douglas fir or redwood. The tourism manager opined that poaching takes place due to migrant squatting and the motivation to sell trees on other lands easily. Immediate financial security from poaching has taken away from the consequences of reducing old growth and the loss of biodiversity.
Whose land? (1.05.29)
Lyndsie highlights the complications of poaching practices - hiring people in desperate poverty to poach a tree on a foreign land who may not question what they are being asked to do, damages the Indigenous people’s ancestral property and makes them lose face with respect to the grant they are receiving to protect those lands. She speaks about the various land titles in Peru and how they are planned for communities to benefit from them.
Trees changing hands (1.09.39)
Lyndsie outlines the many places a tree goes when it is poached, and how difficult it is for investigators to intercept the process, due to its transport process and challenges in proving the source of a poached tree. Researchers are developing a DNA profile method to trace trees correctly, but it is a big undertaking. Some have adopted a forest warden approach. However, activists believe that anti-poaching measures need to begin with socioeconomic changes.
Community to replace fortress conservation (1.19.01)
There is a community forest right outside Lyndsie’s door and she sees community forests as providing a way to conserve that also incorporates use. She argues that fortress conservation, where park rangers guard a plot of land set aside, is not working. Community forests, on the other hand, address rural working-class perspectives. The local community can explain their ethos to a poacher better than a park ranger and profits can compensate for the logging lags.
A perfect storm of cultural forces (1.25.58)
The last line in Lyndsie’s book shows a poacher acknowledging that it is all Indigenous land after all, and the history of clearing land in North America is associated with disenfranchising Indigenous peoples. People have multitudes of emotions ranging from empathetic to frustrated. Impatience, anger and resentment combine with the patriarchal traditions of logging and forestry to make this issue a highly contested political one.
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