Spring 2020 ForestLife

President’s Letter

Laurie Wayburn From the world’s hottest decade on record in 2010–2019, to California’s driest February on record in 2020, our lives and forests have been subject to the continuing extremes of climate change. Fires, floods, droughts, downpours: these disruptions and disasters are now becoming the norm—and that places ever-increasing stress on the forests that sustain us.

We rely on nature to provide us with the very air we breathe and water we drink. Forests are the key engine for both, the source of 65% of our drinking water, the lungs of our planet, and the critical sector for stabilizing our climate. We could not be here without them. So, amongst all the crises we face, it is essential for us to turn our care and attention to stewarding these systems, returning the favors and benefits they provide us.

2020 is the start of a new decade in which we can clearly see this path forward. Rebuilding our common ground—literally—is crucial to our survival and thrival going forward. And, there are enormous benefits culturally (bringing us together) and economically (regrounding our rural economies) that flow from this.

This issue of ForestLife highlights a number of examples of how we can do this together: working landowner to landowner to conserve well-managed forests; building the base of a new economy to support watersheds; restoring devastated forests; and pioneering partnerships between the rural communities that steward forests and the urban communities that benefit from them.

The Phoenix is our symbol for 2020, representing the rebirth and persistence needed to turn disaster into a robust, resilient new start. Join with us to invest in the forests we rely on!

Laurie A. Wayburn (signature)
Laurie A. Wayburn