Re: forest

In Re: forest, my photographs from National Forests in the Platte Basin are enclosed by details of historical photographs from the US Forest Service archives. I follow the circular path from where the seeds are sown in Nebraska’s Bessey Nursery to where cones with seeds are gathered and seedlings are planted in Pike, Roosevelt, and Medicine Bow National Forests. Ideas and actions regarding climate change, afforestation, and reforestation span the 19th and 21st centuries here, linking the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains along Platte River tributaries. Bessey Nursery was founded at the turn of the 20th century to produce seedlings for a new forest in the Nebraska grasslands that would change what was considered an unfavorable local climate. Today the same nursery produces seedlings for reforestation in native forests suffering from climate change-driven catastrophic wildfire and beetle-infestation.

The Organic Act of 1897 established National Forests in the United States to protect water sources and to provide timber. Because industrial deforestation was already well underway, replacement tree planting was in the plan from the beginning. While many of us may not live near National Forests, we all benefit from their oxygen production, air filtration, carbon sequestration, and watershed protection. We also have a hand in shaping them, whether it is our use of paper and wood, our careless fires, our carbon emissions, or our taxes that fund reforestation projects. This collection of photographs, commissioned by Platte Basin Timelapse, loops from the nursery to the forests and back, reminding us that we are inextricably part of this process and that our work to maintain forests is ongoing.