Old Growth Children is one of my favorite chapters in Braiding Sweetgrass. The Pacific Northwest has a special place in my heart; I treasure the memories I have made amongst the dampness and the fog and the towering trees. Kimmerer opens the chapter with an ode to the ancient rainforests that used to spread across the continent. I can only imagine the beauty and splendor of those unspoiled forests, how vibrant and teeming with life it must have felt. The trees, Kimmerer describes, served the native people as sources of boats, medicine, clothing, and spirituality.

I found myself reflecting throughout the chapter about the many ways trees serve both human and nonhuman species. The uses above hold cultural meaning, and so I believe do the uses which the trees serve for animals. Marbled Murrelets were found to nest in the overstory of the old growth forests of the pacific northwest, a shocking discovery to scientists who had assumed that the seabirds must be near their coastal haunts. These trees are their home and their refuge, a secret they held for millennia before us humans figured it out. To countless lichen and bugs, these trees are their entire world. To squirrels, they are their playgrounds.

When trees like these are clear cut, they too are serving a purpose for our desire for timber. The tragedy here, I think, lies within the fact that a being which once served the purposes of many is being reduced towards serving the purposes of the few. A truly inclusive environmental ethic would take into account how all species derive meaning and cultural significance from entities like the trees, and weigh the costs of cutting them down for timber accordingly.

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