For the Love of Birds & Trees: Save Every Roadless Area

An Urgent Call for Action

“To find climate refugia, I look for the roadless areas—the glorious blank spots on maps free of roads.”— Marina Richie, Feathered Forest: Aloft with Birds in Ancient Forests

In two weeks on Tuesday, September 8th, my new book, Feathered Forest, will be on bookshelves and my ambitious tour schedule officially begins. I will read and share my love of birds and wild forests, the way birds guide us upwards into a hidden realm of wondrous ecological relationships. I’ll tell stories from the field of scientists, volunteers, and environmentalists who give me hope for our future and I’ll weave in memoir of growing up in ways relevant to the book’s structure of understory, midstory, and overstory. I’ll define what makes a forest “feathered.”

What I didn’t know when writing the book is that the great unraveling of our precious public lands would be happening at a pace and scale meant to overwhelm all opposition. So now I have a platform and I will use it.

Here’s one “take action” of the many groups allied for protecting roadless areas before a September 21st deadline.

Portals Connect Us to Roadless Wilds We Must Protect

In my new book, I make the case that our future depends on protecting our last wild forests, especially roadless areas. I also write of portals as openings to roadless wilds that can be far away.

It’s human nature to be most connected to an individual tree targeted to be cut down or a local plot of open space slated for development. We fall in love with the birds in our backyard and want to protect them.

(My photo below of Rufous Hummingbird—record holder for longest hummingbird migration, some nesting in British Columbia and Alaska and flying to Mexico for the winter. On the trek, this hummingbird relies on mountain wildflower meadows now threatened by snowpacks melting faster.)

Many of us are planting native species supporting an abundance of insects that in turn are feeding chicks. However, when hummingbirds we’ve watched all summer at feeders and flowers fly off in the fall to migrate thousands of miles, they link us to the greater whole of which we are one small part. It’s then up to us to take that flight of caring for what’s far beyond our home perimeters.

The photo below is my favorite ponderosa pine in a small sliver of Deschutes National Forest in my neighborhood. I’ve named this centuries-old pine the Grandmother Tree and she is in my book, too. Lingering there, I breathe in the vanilla fragrance from the bark on a sunny day and soak in the wisdom of an elder. I feel linked to every last great ponderosa remaining, especially in roadless areas.

The Power of Naming

Taking action locally is important. Scaling up to then also speak up for the wilds beyond our small sphere is the natural next step. When we do know the roadless areas, it’s important to call them by their names, to help others see each one as exquisite as a favorite national park.

Where I live in Bend, Oregon, I name the threatened roadless wilds of the nearby Deschutes National Forest— many roadless areas around Mount Bachelor, including Tumalo Mountain, forests surrounding Elk and Hosmer Lakes, and wild areas buffering the Three Sisters Wilderness. Others on this forest alone include roadless wilds around Paulina and East lake and the Bridge Creek watershed, supplying most of Bend’s drinking water.

Name what we know and love. There’s power in naming that I reflect upon in my book through another thread—one of honoring the wisdom of author Ursula K. Le Guin and a special connection with her from long ago.

Go Out in the Wilds and Be Amazed

There’s nothing like delving into wild places with naturalists, birders, and other guides who can open our eyes to breathtaking diversity. When we experience that, we know wonder that can never be replicated by reading—although as an author I do strive to take people virtually to the complex world of ancient forests and on the wings of birds.

I took the photo below in a roadless area linked to Hardesty Mountain roadless area not far from Eugene, Oregon, from a field trip with Charles LeFevre and his truffle-hunting dogs who sniffed out eleven species of truffles in a quarter mile in this old-growth or ancient forest. Log this forest and all those delicate and essential relationships will be lost. (And yes I have a chapter on truffles in the book from my outing with Charles and the Eugene Natural History Society).

“In the rich humus are truffles, fruits of fungi in relationship with root tips and dependent on flying squirrels and voles to eat and spread their spores that will power the forest.” — Marina Richie, Feathered Forest

Climate Refugia —a Lifeline to the Future

In my book, I write often of climate refugia—a term referring to the places with the best chance of surviving the extremes of the climate crisis. Birds lead us to what they need to thrive—wild areas that like a feathered bird insulate and buffer from the extreme weather of climate change.

We often take for granted what we do not see right in front of us. The wildest places remaining on Earth are what’s keeping our climate from spiraling completely out of control with all the human-induced burning of fossil fuels and wood choking our atmosphere with excess carbon, which in turn causes global warming. Roadless areas are havens for biodiversity that are lifelines for all survival in ways we are still learning. And of course they are glorious.

Therefore, let us all speak up for the roadless wilds today. Please pay attention to all the action alerts coming your way and take a few minutes to personalize and send. And you can do more—write letters to the editor, opinion pieces, and contact Congressional representatives asking them to speak up and put forward the Roadless Area Conservation Act. Remember, we only have until September 21st.

Thank you. I hope to see you on my upcoming book tour, or you can listen or watch one of my virtual events. For the birds and the wilds—Marina

“ Save every wild feathered forest left, every roadless area, every big tree, old tree, dead tree, and all the secret relationships that birds can divulge if we attend. Renew and heal what we have harmed. As humans have heated up the world, the very Earth is responding and striving to keep our planet stable. The forests are taking up 30 percent of the additional carbon dioxide we’ve added. The largest trees are capturing and storing the most. To cut them down is to be cavalier with our future.”— Marina Richie, Feathered Forest