ENTS Interests

ENTS Interests	Dec. 22, 2007

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TOPIC: Diversity Index
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/76682cad56ce47d0?hl=en
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== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Fri, Dec 21 2007 7:16 pm
From: "Edward Frank"

ENTS,

....

Other ways you can contribute:

I know that many of you are may not be as obsessed with volume measurements as Bobby L. and some of the other members are at the moment. James Parton has posted a series of posts on Celtic Myths relating to trees. Other efforts along those lines, poetry, and discussion of a lighter nature are welcome on the list and I encourage people to post things of interest to them. Talk about the aesthetics of the forest, the emotional, or spiritual nature of your forest walks. If there is an old tree in your home town, research the history associated with the tree. Interview people who have grown up with the tree. Maybe it held a child's swing. There are human attachments to certain trees that would be interesting oral histories to document. Are there old postcards or photos that showed a particular tree 50 years ago, or a hundred years ago -how has it changed over time? Write about things that interest you about trees or forests.

One of the important things that we as members of ENTS can do is to provided detailed descriptions of the sites we visit. This can include listings of the species we find, including trees, shrubs, ferns, moss, animals, birds whatever you find to the best of your ability to identify them. Descriptions of the lay of the land. Streams, structure of the forest, age of the tree, what species are in the understory. If we are to document these sites well, we should not limit ourselves to the heights of the tallest trees only. Most of the site descriptions can also be completed without the electronic instrumentation, so this is another avenue for people to get started and make a worthwhile contribution to ENTS even of they are not doing detailed height and volume measurements.

Another option for people who want to measure something is the Rucker Girth Index. This would be the numeric average of the fattest individual of each of the ten fattest species in the site. The RGI is explained in more detail in the measurement section of the website. The Rucker Girth Index is not limited to ten species, but can be expanded to as manby different species as can be measured. it is certainly a worthwhile goal to pursue and all it requires is a $10 tape from a hardware store..

Colby Rucker produced a series of profiles listing the heights of every species found on several sites in Maryland and nearby states. The common Rucker Index referred to in many posts is essentially just a foreshortened version of this expanded species profile for a site.

These are just some thoughts to get people started on projects and to becoming more involved with ENTS.

Ed Frank

(I am trying to remember to delete old posts from my replies and be conscious of changes of topics)

== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Fri, Dec 21 2007 9:30 pm
From: James Parton

Ed,

I intend to do more posts on Celtic Myths & would really be interested
in hearing some of the ones Bob Leverett surely knows. I would love to
see more variety on ENTS. I have nothing against forestry discussions
& tree measuring ( I hope to get more into that myself ) but would
love to see ENTS members become more " intimate " with trees. Yes, I
love the field reports too. Whether very basic or quite technical. It
enables all of us to see somewhere we may have never been. Will has
had some outstanding ones. His Cataloochee ones are always greatly
anticipated by me. I currently am awaiting a post of importance from
him concerning our Kellogg excursion. Your Cook Forest ones I like
too. Hopefully I will get to visit the Black River or Congaree in the
upcoming year & do a post on those. I have always enjoyed trees &
forests. Through ENTS I can share it & with a little luck contribute a
little knowledge about a specific forest/tree as well.

James Parton.

== 2 of 6 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 22 2007 8:36 am
From: James Parton

Bob,

Well said. It's not that I am complaining about ENTS. I really enjoy
being a member & enjoy participating in the discussion forum. It is
just that diversity would add so much. It would send ENTS from great
to AWESOME! ( I hope Ed don't get me for shouting! LoL ). I have so
much I would like to do with ENTS. Folklore/Legends, Tree Measuring,
Forest Conservation, etc. To contribute any way I can. People like
yourself, Ed, Jess Riddle, Larry Tucei & of course Will Blozan have
done so much for ENTS. Will's Tsuga Search Project and Vanishing
Hemlock Documentary ( I still gotta donate to his cause on that. The
Holidays have bout broke me! ) and Larry's Live Oak Project are both
outstanding ENTS projects. How can I hope to run in such elite
company? I plan to join the Asheville chapter of TACF also & can
serve as a rep or intermediary between them & ENTS. Anyway, I will
quit babbling.....

James Parton.

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TOPIC: ENTS interests
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/e849561a13c177eb?hl=en
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== 1 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 22 2007 3:57 pm
From: dbhguru

ENTS,

With everyone tired of reading about the spate of ENTS highbrow measuring projects, the esoteric interests of James and Larry are providing a real shot in the arm to our collective creativity. Of course, we can always count on Ed to be a fountain of ideas, but it hasn't always been clear to me who is interested in what. One subject that I would like to see us pursue is the bonding of an Ent to a particular site. For instance, my first visit to Cook Forest State Park let a forest genie out of the woods elixir bottle for me. I've been thinking about recapturing the feelings I had on my first visit and sharing them with my fellow and lady Ents. I'd love to be inside Russ Richardson's head as he lovelingly cruises the properties that he manages. I think we all recognize that forests are far more to Russ than an accumulation of board feet. How does Russ balance the necessary economic perspective with the spiritual one that I know he has. I'd like to be in Larry's head as he naviga
tes a southern swamp full of alligators and cottonmouths. There's a magic to the southern Spanish moss-draped swamps. Who better to share experiences with us than Larry. I could cast my imagining to include Beth, Lin, and other lady Ents. How do they see their favorite woodlands?

To be sure the numeric view of forests is quintessentially ENTS, but so should be our purely qualitative experiences. They are supposed to be. I firmly believe that sacred spaces can only be understood and fully enjoyed through meditations, and perhaps legends and myths. Some of us have to consciously suspend our academic or professional views of forests or all we see is a collection of surface features and their physical interactions - rather like knowing our grandmothers only as collections of body parts working together in purely physical ways.

I have no intention of abandoning or even reducing my personal effort along scientific lines. The book on dendromorphometry will bring together the collective numerical expertise of ENTS as a seminal work. The book will incorporate algebra, plane and solid geometry, analytic geometry, and differential and integral calculus. It will be truly a heavyweight accomplishment for us, but we need to think about an equally offsetting effort along aesthetic and spiritual lines. Only by achieving such a balance will ENTS realize its true potential.

I fondly recall woodland experiences with the late Dr. Michael Perlman that kindled in me feelings of the mystical. Both Mike and I were college teachers and full of exhuberance when in the woods. Mike was a woodland elf. Both of us let it all out when alone. However, I was more reserved than Mike when in the company of others. He was entirely uninhibited, the most unabashed tree hugger ever knew. Mike's wonderful, complex book "The Power of Trees - A Reforesting of the Soul" is an important work exploring the mystical connection between humans and trees.

I will soon dive into my former Indian wife's extensive library. There are more than 400 volumes. It is a daunting task, but one with the promise of great rewards. I have a feeling that ENTS will soar to new heights in the coming year. Now, to do my part, all I need to do is get ride of these infernal shingles.

Bob

== 2 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 22 2007 8:42 pm
From: James Parton

Bob,

Some of us ENTS I feel have bonded to certain places. You & Ed to Cook
Forest. Larry to the southern swamps & Will to Cataloochee. Myself, I
feel closest to the Graveyard Fields/Shining Rock Wilderness area of
Pisgah National Forest & like Master Will, Cataloochee ( GSMNP ). Many
of us have our " enchanted " place. I am sure of that.

I look forward to your delving into Jani's books. It would be a
fitting tribute to her, one that she probably would have approved of.
I would have loved to have been around at the time she was still here.
I bet corresponding with her would have been a treat. I am sure the
books have much to offer. More Celtic stuff will be seen from me.
Together we can " sprout " a new limb on the ENTS tree!

Hey, I have no problem with measuring projects. They in their own
right tell much about a forest. In that I hope to get more involved
while You, Will, Larry, Jess, BVP & Ed, among other ENTS, continue to
lead the way.

Does ENTS ever work any more with Robert Messick? I think he was a
member of the SAFC at one time. Will has had some dealings with him
before. It was reading about some of his finds that got my interest
peaked in studying old growth about 4 years ago, before I started "
lurking " in on ENTS.

James Parton

== 3 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 22 2007 10:11 pm
From: dbhguru

James,

I am proud to proclaim Rob Messick as one of my original disciples, although he can claim me as one of his now. In 1992, I helped train Rob to recognize old growth forest characteristics. If I recall, the area we chose was the Cosby area. Outside a group of avant garde scientists (guess who was one), in those days there were only a handful of us who could recognize old growth characteristics with relative confidence. In the South, Bob Zahner was one. Will was another. In the Northeast I was a third. The field was pretty darn thin. In terms of the discovery of acreage, Rob went on to smoke me. Rob was part of the original ENTS list, but his precarious financial situation caused him to periodically disappear of the radar screen.

I have often thought about writing a book about the eastern old growth forest discovery movement of the late 1980s and 1990s. Now that I am retired and settled with the second great love of my life, I just may do that. The book would include a about a dozen scientists as well as another dozen non-scientist activists. We've all come a long way. The story is well worth telling, but I would have to be careful in telling it not to allow myself to cross over into the negative zone. During that period, we were usually battling government resource managers who refused to acknowledge that there might be a scape of knowledge about forests that they didn't know. As it turned out there was quite a bit they didn't know and that story would be at least implicit in the story of the individuals.
It is hard to find balance in telling the full story of the discoveries of eastern old growth without being pretty judgemental. I remember when a regional manager of the Forest Service allowed as to how there might be 150 acres of old growth in Linville Gorge. The Green Mountain NF didn't think it had any old growth. Yet it hadn't always been that way in the Forest Service. Rob Messick knows that story best of all of us and I hope will one day tell it. Foresters like William Ashe were some of the best environmentalist we have ever had.

Bob

== 4 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 22 2007 10:32 pm
From: James Parton

Bob,

Hopefully Rob will find us again one day. He obviously has been and
still would be a great addition to ENTS.

Goodnight: James Parton.

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Sun, Dec 23 2007 2:27 pm
From: Elisa Campbell

Bob,
I truly hope you will write that book. It would be very informative for
all of us who already value Old Growth, and a great awakening for others.
Elisa

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