Sacred Places, Trees, and Songs

Today we recognize the children who never came home and the families who were harmed by the Indigenous boarding school policies. Here are some ideas about how we all can observe:   1.              Learn about this part of our history. There are many resources available. “I Am Not a Number” is a book by Kathy Kacer. “ Sugar Falls ” is by David A. Robertson. Many more books for children and teens, recommended by Orange Shirt founder Phyllis Webstad, are here .   2.              Urge your friends, family and connections to learn about and observe on September 30. There were more boarding schools in the U.S. than in Canada, but our neighbor to the north has been more proactive in uncovering the truth. In fact, if Canada hadn’t revealed how many children’s graves are on the grounds of boarding schools, we may have never learned about the U.S. boarding schoo...

New NFS Landscape Plan Guidance Threatens Modified Trees in Old Growth Forests The first I heard about new Old-growth forest regulation changes was on September 18th when I read an op-ed by Dr. Peter Brown in the Colorado Sun . He cautioned that the oldest trees in these forests may not look very old and may have a smaller circumference than many younger trees.  He should know. Dr. Brown is a dendrochronologist, a scientist who can date trees by analyzing their growth rings. He has found that circumference doesn't necessarily equate to age and is concerned that if smaller trees are removed from the landscape haphazardly, old growth trees may disappear.  This is already happening. In the foothills above Boulder, Colorado, I visited a landowner's newly acquired property adjacent to her home. She purchased the 13-acre plot to keep it from being developed into a large residence or ranch. All over her original land as well as the new property, trees were marked for removal with blu...

A large and diverse group met in person this morning at an environmental consultancy in Golden and even more people joined in via Zoom. The topic was wetlands mitigation, somewhat mysteriously. More than one attendee agreed with my thought that we were beginning in the middle of the water quality control and waterway preservation process.  Mitigation means to remedy the negative effects of one action with another action. So, mitigation comes after a company, be it a home developer, road and bridge builder, or other infrastructure constructor has been allowed to destroy or harm a wetlands by building next to it or on it. They are then required to "mitigate" the harm by purchasing credits or offsets in a wetlands "bank" elsewhere, working with a nonprofit such as Ducks Unlimited to create or rehabilitate another wetlands elsewhere, or do their own mitigation by creating a wetlands somewhere, which can be similar to the one they've destroyed or different. And they ...