Helping Forests Walk 04 - Helping Subcanopy Trees Migrate

Subcanopy trees, Pawpaw and Florida Torreya, of the eastern USA are the subjects of this November 2021 exploration by Connie Barlow of "assisted migration" — citizen style. Timecoded table of topics are below a short list of key web resources.

• Video series "Helping Forests Walk": https://thegreatstory.org/climate-trees-legacy.html

• "Torreya Guardians" website: http://www.torreyaguardians.org/

• "Pawpaw Ecological Survey in Michigan": http://www.torreyaguardians.org/pawpaw-ecological-michigan.html

• "Finding Good Redwood Habitat in Coastal Pacific Northwest":
https://thegreatstory.org/redw/redwood-habitat.html

• Wikipedia: "Assisted Migration of Forests in North America": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_migration_of_forests_in_North_America

00:05 - Introduction to Pawpaw (Asimina triloba); Michigan as northern range — fruit likely carried there by Indigenous as glaciers retreated.

02:15 - "I wonder why everyone isn't doing this." Barlow and Dowd's 18 years of itinerant travels and work, now retired to home state of Michigan. Need for helping plants walk during climate change.

04:18 - Barlow sorts seeds out of surplus pawpaw fruits gathered at Marc Boone's pawpaw and persimmon orchard.

06:12 - Traditional Indigenous value pawpaw for fiber as well as fruit. Pawpaw ideal for organic horticulture (no pesticides needed). "Even if you don't own property, why isn't everybody doing this?"

08:30 - "I'm a collapsitarian. I've already experienced governmental collapse with an endangered species that I work with, Torreya taxifolia: Florida torreya." Loophole in Endangered Species Act permits citizens to lead. Torreya is a "glacial relict." Collapsitarian means, we're not getting back to normal. Rise and fall of civilizations, as presented by William Ophuls. "This civilization needs to go down."

10:45 - History of Anishinaabe people in Great Lakes region. Robin Wall Kimmerer recovers traditional values and communicates those widely. Sustainable cultures. Also, Kyle Whyte. "These are people living in two worlds. The fear of collapse: that's settler culture. They've experienced collapse — worse than we're going to experience it."

13:45 - "I live in two worlds, and it's a shocking two worlds" — since 2012, when woke up to climate change.

14:16 - Three kinds of "ecological knowledge": traditional, scientific, local. Barlow's 4 science books; "The Ghosts of Evolution" includes pawpaw. Scientific creation story: the "epic of evolution" expands one's sense of identity, beyond our species and this time. 5 mass extinctions. "If our species makes it through, this has got to be recorded mythically, saying, 'You don't do this again!'" Instead, recover Indigenous values. "It's a worldview shift — living in two worlds." Indigenuity must be recovered.

18:00 - Western science needs to recover "natural history." Paul S. Martin, Pleistocene ecologist: "I'm a naturalist first, a scientist second." Example by Barlow of natural history observation: "Might this wild pawpaw patch be old growth?" Early scientists, Charles Darwin, used natural history observations for discoveries. "We don't need high technology to be able to continue working at that level."

26:12 - Traditional ecological values offer "kinship" forms of Earth values: respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence.

26:47 - "Living in two worlds" of values and modes of observing ecological change — along with expectations of whether science and civilization will continue. "Everything that we call public lands used to be ancestral Indigenous lands."

28:30 - Story of how Torreya Guardians' focus on private lands for planting this endangered species is not robust for long term: when ownerships change, the plantings may not be preserved. Two examples.

32:08 - Barlow "outs" herself in moving into guerrilla rewilding: she plants seeds on non-private properties. Whether our species continues or not, "at least the trees will carry on."

33:41 - Barlow visited the Torreya species in California to learn best habitats for planting the Florida species. Map of the southward river route that floated seeds from Appalachians to glacial refuge in Florida. Advocates moving California torreya north, too, and for helping every native tree whose seeds are not wind-blown. "Learn as much as you can." Use Google scholar.

36:44 - "There's no reason to go into despair and feel that you can't do something. Anybody here in the United States can help native plants move north." Barlow's video series: "Climate, Trees, and Legacy," renamed to "Helping Forests Walk."

41:00 - Steps for beginning to help forests walk. Importance of "indicator plants" for finding best habitats.

44:41 - Pawpaw has "recalcitrant" seeds; cannot be stored. "Use it or lose it."

46:05 - Live video of Huron River field site where Barlow discovers an ideal "indicator plant" for guerrilla rewilding the river slope with Florida Torreya.