Long-term ecological reflections: A science-humanities collaboration at H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon

In a project designed to last for two hundred years,  the ‘Long-Term Ecological Reflections’ program brings together creative writers, philosophers, and ecologists at sites of long-term ecological research, in order to advance understanding of ecosystem change and our evolving relationship with the natural world. The LTEReflections program has been developed to parallel the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program sponsored by the National Science Foundation and other institutions.  A key element of the project is the writers-in-residence program at the H.J. Andrews Experiment Forest LTER site.  The project also organizes field symposia that bring together writers and scientists in important and evocative places, to reflect and share ideas on themes such as ‘new metaphors for restoration of forests and watersheds’ and ‘the meaning of watershed health.’  As published pieces and collected in a ‘Forest Log’ on the Andrew Forest webpage, the essays, articles, poems, and journal entries that grow from these conversations form an ongoing record of creative reflection on the relation of people and forests as they change over time.  This work gives fresh voice to the importance of taking the long view in ecological inquiry and in understanding the importance of metaphor and story in communicating with the public.  As writer-lepidopterist Robert Michael Pyle comments in his essay “The Long Haul” reflecting on a 200-year log decomposition experiment, “Maybe looking to the future is a way of hoping there will still be something to see when we get there.  Maybe it’s the only way to make sure of it.”