THE REACH OF THE WILD
Eighty percent of Americans live in urban areas, but that doesn’t mean they don’t connect to forests and grasslands every day.
Drink a glass of water in St. Louis, and you’re tasting the Mississippi River, the headwaters of which are in the forests of northern Minnesota. Drive an hour east of Seattle, and you’re likely in one of three National Forests.
For the millions of Americans who live within a few hours of a forest, an antidote to life’s pressures is never too far. Sit under a canopy of leaves for just a few minutes
and feel your heartbeat begin to slow. Look out from a mountaintop and let feelings of awe take hold.
Just as close, signs of distress: smoke from a wildfire thousands of miles away, water shortages from a river basin experiencing drought. Our reliance on green spaces near and far is ever-changing—and ever-growing.
In this issue of Light & Seed™ , we highlight the essential and sometimes surprising ways in which urban communities are connected to these lands.
Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Nevada.
Photo by Austin Williams
CONNECTIONS
Want to dig deeper into the content? Visit nationalforests.org/connections to listen, watch, and read more about the articles in this issue.
Check out the findings of the 2024 “Outdoor Participation Trends” report, published by the Outdoor Foundation, whose executive director, Lesford Duncan, is featured in “People of Public Lands” on page 10.
Discover Native ingredients, cooking techniques, and foraging tips from renowned chefs on the Youtube channel of Indigenous Food Lab (@IndigenousFoodLab), a kitchen and retail space founded by Sean Sherman, featured in “People of Public Lands” on page 12.
Track the growth of recreation pressure on urban National Forests, discussed on page 32, in the U.S. Forest Service report “Paths More Traveled: Predicting Future Recreation Pressures on America’s National Forests and Grasslands.”
Better Forests, Better Cities
Dive into the personalities and research behind “Heard in the Woods” on page 30 by following American forager and cook Alexis Nikole Nelson on Instagram @blackforager, or reading “Better Forests, Better Cities,” a report by the World Resources Institute that evaluates the beneficial relationship between forests and cities.
Listen to the episode “What Heartbreak Does to Your Body” by the podcast Good Life Project, which features writer Florence Williams talking about her 2022 book “Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey.” Florence speaks to the healing qualities of nature, a topic writer Caitlin Dewey explores in her tender essay on page 14 about recovering from a series of devastating losses by escaping to a National Forest.
Learn more about the various ways the National Forest Foundation is protecting Arizona’s crucial watersheds through the Northern Arizona Forest Fund’s annual report. The report charts 30-plus projects across the region, three of which we highlight on page 24.
Watch “Cascade Crossroads,” a short film produced by the I-90 Wildlife Bridges Coalition and Conservation Northwest, on conservationnw.org. The documentary charts how 40 different stakeholders collaborated on reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions and restoring essential ecological connectivity, a topic we investigate in “Right of Way” on page 18.
Photo by Q Martin
Photo by Liz Hastings
by Bill Phelps
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Photo by Lesford Duncan
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Q Martin
Forest Bathing
After writer Caitlin Dewey suffered a series of painful losses, she left her home in Buffalo, New York, to spend two winter months living in a cabin on the edge of Georgia’s Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.
While examining nature’s quiet cycles on her daily hikes, Dewey gained a new understanding of impermanence, and in turn, mortality. In her tender essay “A Forest’s Embrace,” Dewey writes about the healing power of close natural observation.
As she watches the sun set across the southern Appalachian mountains, she writes: “I reached, as I often did, for my sadness, but it shrunk down to nothing before that view.”
Read the full story on page 14.
Photo by Caitlin Dewey
A Bridge to Everywhere
Along Washington State’s I-90, a wildlife overpass enables up to 5,000 crossings of deer, elk, and coyote every year. The crossing will be one of at least 15 large wildlife crossings that will eventually dot the interstate’s Snoqualmie Pass area, an initiative that the Forest Service and Washington State Department of Transportation have been collaborating on since 2009.
Not only have the passes thus far resulted in fewer collisions, but they’ve reestablished animals’ natural pathways to food, water, shelter—and potential mates. “Ecological connectivity is not just the large animals not getting killed on the roadways, it’s about connecting whole ecosystems,” said Patty Garvey-Darda, a biologist with the Forest Service.
In “Right of Way,” Andrea Richards examines how a decades-long investment in restoring habitats cut off by roadways has culminated in the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which will soon reconnect Los Angeles’ urban mountain lion communities.
Read the full story on page 18.
Photo by Washington State Department of Transportation
Rivers of Many Returns
Pine Canyon, in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, is “the kind of place that keeps foresters up at night,” writes Ron Dungan. To report his story “Ripple Effect,” Dungan joins Trevor Seck and Shannon Smith of the National Forest Foundation in surveying the area that will soon be the center of crucial wildfire-mitigation work.
The project in Pine Canyon is one of 30-plus that’s currently overseen by the NFF’s Northern Arizona Forest Fund, a unique funding model that has been leading the restoration of the state’s critical watersheds since 2015. Three of these basins—fed by the Salt, Verde, and Little Colorado rivers—supply water that millions of people rely on.
“Fire is not a problem for watersheds in and of itself,” said Kelly Mott Lacroix, a hydrologist with Tonto National Forest. Rather, unnatural fires of a large scale turn absorbent watersheds into solid slides that can often cause flooding, threatening communities and natural systems.
Read the full story on page 24.
Photo by Q Martin
FORCE OF NATURE
Whether it’s introducing underrepresented youth to the outdoors or increasing diversity in the environmental workforce, Lesford Duncan has made it his mission to level the playing field.
INTERVIEW BY ERIN VIVID RILEY
From trail running in the Cleveland National Forest east of San Diego, to kayaking the lakes of the Ocala National Forest near Orlando, Lesford Duncan has always made the most of the wild places near his city homes. But it wasn’t until he started mountain climbing that his relationship to the outdoors changed. Feeling an overwhelming sense of possibility after summiting California’s Mount San Jacinto, Duncan realized he wanted to find a way to recreate this feeling in others.
Today, he’s working to make the outdoors more accessible for millions of people as the executive director of the Outdoor Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Outdoor Industry Association. The nonprofit creates equitable access to nature through direct community investments and research. For Duncan, that means “building communities that feel safe, welcome beginners, and reflect the diversity of the country.”
We talked to Duncan about his outdoorsy childhood, how he turned feeling into action, and how nature’s benefits need to be integrated into every industry.
What was your relationship to the outdoors like growing up?
I’ve always loved the outdoors. I remember riding my bike some five miles from my house in Long Island out to Bar Beach and my family would often go camping on our annual church trips.
Duncan at Humantay Lake in Peru. Photo by Lesford Duncan
But I’ll never forget something that happened during my senior year of high school. During spring break, a few of my friends went on a backpacking trip and didn’t invite me, and when I asked why, one of them, with the purest of intentions, said: “I didn’t know Black people did stuff like that.” I remember looking at him, like “What, why not?”
Does he know what you’re up to now?
Yes! We joke about it now. But it sparked a curiosity in me. So one of my biggest inquiries has been into what common narratives, both within and beyond communities of color, are pervasive across society.
How did you get started on this focus?
While I was working in child welfare and behavioral healthcare in Southern California, I’d see so many youth go through our systems and come out not much better off than when they had first entered. Around the same time, I had started exploring incredible mountains. The first I experienced were in San Bernardino National Forest, an hour east of Los Angeles.
I was looking out from the top of Mount San Jacinto one day and felt like anything was possible. I thought, ‘How do I cultivate this exact same feeling for the thousands of youth we serve?’ I soon moved to a nonprofit called Outdoor Outreach, which connects youth to transformative experiences in the outdoors.
How have those experiences impacted your work at the Outdoor Foundation?
It definitely fuels the work that I now do on the macro level, helping to support community-based efforts across the country. The Outdoor Foundation’s Thrive Outside initiative is all about collaborating with community-based organizations, including school and healthcare systems, to integrate outdoor recreation.
Across the 13 communities we currently work with, the programs range from youth outdoor mental health programs in Oklahoma City, to gear lending libraries in Grand Rapids, to environmental initiatives in Atlanta.
Follow the Outdoor Foundation on Instagram at @outdoorfoundation to see their work in action.
Lend a hand with one of the community partners involved in Thrive Outside’s city-based projects, whether that’s volunteering with Chicago Adventure Therapy to help guide kayaking excursions on Lake Michigan or supporting youth in D.C. through the Teen Respite Program.
Duncan leading an environmental education program at Olde Rope Mill Park outside of Atlanta with children at the Greening Youth Foundation’s summer camp. Here he’s helping them identify plants, fungi, and animals along the hike.
Photo by Edward R. Carter, courtesy of the Greening Youth Foundation
Duncan kayaking in Kellogg Creek on Lake Allatoona, Georgia. Photo by Lesford Duncan
WFORAGED FEASTS
He’s authored a James Beard Awardwinning cookbook and created the country’s foremost Indigenous cuisine restaurant, but Sean Sherman is only getting started on his greater goal: creating more access to ancestral food knowledge.
INTERVIEW BY ERIN VIVID RILEY
hile Sean Sherman was in his 20s, it occurred to him how little of the food consumed today could be traced to his heritage. Growing up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, he remembers occasional glimpses of his ancestor’s foodways—picking chokeberries, hunting pheasant—amid an expanse of government-subsidized provisions.
(Left) Sean Sherman’s restaurant Owamni won the James Beard Award for best new restaurant in 2022; (right) Sherman foraging for ingredients. Photos by Nancy Bundt
So he decided to change the menu, first with The Sioux Chef, a food truck and catering business, and then Owanmi, a restaurant in Minneapolis that quickly became the national exemplar of Indigenous cooking, winning the James Beard Award for best new restaurant in 2022.
“It was about putting myself in the shoes of my ancestors,” says Sherman about the restaurant’s “decolonized” approach. “I’m not trying to go back to 1491, I’m just looking at what was happening right before precontact, before disruption.” That means a menu heavy on wild game and heirloom beans, and lacking in processed carbs and sugars.
We talked to Sherman about bridging the urban-wild divide, creating more access to Native knowledge and products, and how his summers cataloging flora for the Forest Service in South Dakota’s Black Hills sparked his love of plants.
What was your relationship to ancestral foods while you were growing up?
We didn’t have much access to true Native foods because reservations are colonized concepts and are typically very oppressive. We had a lot of commodity foods and one grocery store that serviced the entire reservation, which is almost the size of Connecticut.
How did your time with the U.S. Forest Service influence you?
For two summers during my last year of high school and first year of college, I was a field surveyor. They would give us an aerial photo to plot out endpoints, and then we would name and age every plant in that circle. It was an amazing job because it was just hiking and being in nature. I was learning about so many plants and their great flavors. I had grown up grabbing berries around the Black Hills and during this time started to scratch the surface of mushrooms and herbs.
What made you decide to leave the Black Hills for Minneapolis?
I moved to Minneapolis after college to work in restaurants. Five or six years in, I had an epiphany. I saw the absence of anything that was related to my culture, which set me on a path to figure out: Why were and are Native American foods out of the conversation?
Soon after, I took a job at a lodge near the Beartooth Mountains in Montana. You have these two big ecosystems
up there, from all the mountainous Forest Service areas to the plains and grasslands. I thought it’d be a fun space to start to learn about from a culinary perspective.
How has that evolved into your current endeavors?
I came up with the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems to create access and distribution points, as well as focus on education.
In Minneapolis, we have a market space with over 50 Indigenous producers, a food lab where we’ve started creating educational videos, and a production space that makes items for distribution. We just finished an Indigenous baby food as a pilot project.
We’re now opening our first extension in Bozeman, and are looking at launching in Anchorage, Honolulu, and Rapid City. Each tribe has their own knowledge, so we want to create more pinpoints. Each outpost will act as an engine for job creation, for product movement, and for becoming a larger voice.
Follow Sean on Instagram at @the_sioux_chef to learn more about his work.
Shop for products at Indigenous Food Lab Market’s online store at natifs.org, where you’ll find everything from gift boxes of chili-lime cricket snacks to Sherman’s cookbook The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen
Sherman preparing for the dinner rush at Owamni. Photo by Bill Phelps
A FOREST’S EMBRACE
After a season of heartbreak, I found healing on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.
BY CAITLIN DEWEY
Raven Cliff Falls in Georgia. Photo by JOSHUA/flickr.com
“My grief had itself become a wilderness: a lonely, unrestrained, perilous place, with no roads in or out of it.”
For weeks last winter, I slept only in gasps—then woke, dazed and sweating, to the pitch before dawn. Nothing worked to vanquish the dreams I was having: not whisky, not podcasts, not meditation. In one of my dreams, I saw the grandmother I lost. In another, I saw children that I’d never had. I’d lay awake until I couldn’t bear the sound of my husband’s breath; then I’d get up and trudge out into the thin, yellow light that announces winter mornings in the Blue Ridge mountains.
Even in February, there’s immense beauty there for those that speak that language: the jumbled whistles and trills of unseen birds; the blades of hearty grasses scribed in frost; the scratchy silhouettes of oak, pine, and hickory, sketched like ink over watercolors. Our temporary Georgia home, which we’d rented for eight weeks, sat on a small residential outcropping against the greater bulk of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. Since 1936, the forest has grown to encompass almost 870,000 acres, roughly half designated Wilderness areas.
I saw the wild from the beginning—but not the beautiful. I’d lost three pregnancies and my only grandparent in the months before we drove down to Georgia from Buffalo, New York. This trip, I hoped, would clear my head. It would return me again to the living world. At home, in the rusted gray confines of the city, I had slipped into some sort of shadowy, in-between place, where I no longer understood or identified with the routine concerns of other people. Instead, I felt translucent, disembodied, unmoored—the loved ones I lost were more real to me than any landscape I
Dewey walking in the shallows of Chattahoochee-Oconee’s Lake Conasauga. Photo provided by Caitlin Dewey
“I stood facing southeast from Hogpen Gap and watched the mountains fade with distance from gray to gas-flame blue. I reached, as I often did, for my sadness, but it shrunk down to nothing before that view.”
traversed. My grief had itself become a wilderness: a lonely, unrestrained, perilous place, with no roads in or out of it.
Without roads, I took to walking: long, heedless, haphazard loops through the Georgia woods. In the mornings I traced the edge of the Chattahoochee-Oconee where it neared our deserted neighborhood. In the afternoons, my husband and I took an unmarked trail down a steep hillside to the shores of Lake Blue Ridge, inside the forest proper. This being Georgia, the beach was clay and clumps of granite: it looked like a graveyard for kitchen counters.
That sort of metaphor came easily to me, especially on days when the clouds sat cold and low. Or on mornings after nights in which I didn’t sleep, my nightmares interrupted by familiar ghosts. I couldn’t imagine returning home to the company of other people, now that I saw how fleeting our lives were: all our hopes and loves and
secrets, the things we hold most dear, little more than dust-like spores in a vast, indifferent universe.
For a time the mountains seemed to vindicate my morbidness, and I treasured them for that. The inert hulks of blue-gray granitoid, massed at most horizons, spoke to a longevity I couldn’t guess at. Many thousands of people had walked this forest, going back to before their violent seizure from the Cherokee, and now only the trees and rocks still remained. The Blue Ridge spoke of our brevity.
But the bitterness of mortality also mellowed as I spent time in the woods. I saw my first armadillo in the Chattahoochee-Oconee: a silly, scuttling thing that made me scramble for my phone. I spotted bands of bluebirds hung like baubles on a Christmas tree, a sight I’d never seen on a bird feeder at home. I watched stars so bright and numerous I needed an app to teach me the names of the constellations.
The view of Hogpen Gap on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. Photo by Larry Winslett Photography, courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service
One afternoon in late February, I stood facing southeast from Hogpen Gap and watched the mountains fade with distance from gray to gas-flame blue. A hawk wheeled in the updraft overhead; the air was still but for the drip of melting icicles. I reached, as I often did, for my sadness, but it shrunk down to nothing before that view. “Wilderness puts us in our place,” Barbara Kingsolver wrote. “It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd.” Our plans, yes—but our losses, too. I could not believe I’d given so much time to my grief, when spring thaws and Rayleigh scattering existed in the world.
During our last week in Georgia, my husband and I drove to a trail in the Raven Cliffs Wilderness. The day was bright and hospitable for March, like an earnest payment made on summer’s promise. “We couldn’t ask for better weather,” I kept saying, delighted, because by then I’d long returned to appreciating the sun. I also missed my friends at home and slept through the full night, no podcasts or yoga required.
We cleaved to the sunshine where it filtered through the trees, cutting abstract, fretwork shadows along the trail trail, which traces Dodd Creek to the Raven Cliff Falls, then doubles back on itself. There’s no sense of a journey coming full circle; no impression of continual forward progress. But you walk one way, and you walk the other, and you one day walk out of the wilderness.
Heading back across the parking lot after our hike, I noticed a sign I’d not seen before: “WHAT IS WILDERNESS?” it asked, in bold capital letters, before quoting from the 60-year-old law that created America’s Wilderness areas. Only later would I learn that Georgia is home to 10 such areas, or that many of them were formed from the wreckage of logging, mining, and environmental degradation. Later, I’d learn the 1964 Wilderness Act is widely considered one of the country’s most poetic pieces of legislation.
In that moment, however—after eight weeks in the forest— it felt as if the text was written for me: The wilderness, it stated, is a natural place “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
I stood reading the sign until my husband called me; he’d started the car and was ready to go. And so was I, I knew, happily: ready at last to return home.
You too can find a place to heal or rediscover yourself among a National Forest. If you’re in the Southeast, head to Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest’s Aska Trail System, two hours north of Atlanta, where 17 miles of trails offer incredible mountain views.
Caitlin Dewey is a freelance writer based in Buffalo, New York. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post for six years and has been published in The New York Times , The Atlantic , and The Guardian , among others.
Dewey on a forest hike. Photo provided by Caitlin Dewey
RIGHT OF WAY
How a decades-long investment in reconnecting animals isolated by roadways led to what will soon be the largest wildlife crossing in the world.
BY ANDREA RICHARDS
Birdseye view of the Annenberg Crossing in Los Angeles. Image by Rock Design Associates and the National Wildlife Federation
Between mileposts 61 and 62 on Washington State’s I-90, a herd of elk bed down on the gentle slope of what appears to be a forested hill. Only the animals are 60 feet in the air, relaxing on a bridge that has been designed to allow them safe passage over the busy roadway—and to look like their surroundings.
“They’re using the structures, they’re living in the structures, they’re nursing their young in the structures,” said Mark Norman, a biologist with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). “It’s really amazing to see.”
Norman monitors the 150-foot-wide overpass on remote cameras, observing around 5,000 crossings per year of deer, elk, and coyote. “That’s up to 5,000 times that animals did not get hit on the roadway,” he said.
The wildlife bridge is a part of the 15-mile Snoqualmie Pass East Project, a more than two-decade-long undertaking that will consist of at least 15 large wildlife crossings when completed in 2032. Most will be underpasses and culverts, structures drivers on the road likely won’t notice. But wildlife certainly will.
The WSDOT first began investigating Snoqualmie Pass for avalanche danger. The high-mountain route, which cuts through the Cascade Range and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, is notoriously prone to snow and rock slides. As Washington’s primary east-west route, its frequent closures weren’t only impacting travelers but costing the state. A four-day shutdown in 2008 resulted in a loss of $1.5 million in state revenue and $28 million in economic output.
Before the project launch, the U.S. Forest Service was already working in partnership with conservation groups to purchase thousands of acres bordering the National Forest. The goal was to connect habitats by easing the checkerboard effect of private-land ownership, including plots around Snoqualmie Pass.
When the WSDOT and Forest Service began collaborating in 2009, “it wasn’t easy at first—understanding where the other comes from,” said Patty Garvey-Darda, a Forest Service biologist. “The mission of DOT is highways and roadways, and the mission of the Forest Service is recreation and wildlife. We had to figure out how to make it a win-win.”
“Ecological connectivity is not just the large animals not getting killed on the roadways, it’s about connecting whole ecosystems.”
—Patty Garvey-Darda, Forest Service biologist
The project soon went from a typical highway improvement to something much grander—and far more collaborative. The agencies came together to create a Mitigation Development Team that used survey data on the location of frequent collisions to inform where wildlife crossings should go.
To better understand the kind of structure for a given location, the team studied a series of successful crossings in Canada’s Banff National Park. The agencies found that “grizzly bears, deer, and elk tend to use overpasses, while black bears and mountain lions use underpasses more frequently,” said Brian White, an administrator with WSDOT. The teams then designed roadside fencing to direct animals toward the corridors.
After a crossing is built, it can often take years for different species to start using it. After phase one’s completion at Snoqualmie Pass in 2019, for example, one
cougar was detected the following year, but in 2023 there were five. “For context, there are likely only a handful of cougars whose home ranges overlap with the project area due to territoriality,” said White.
The remote cameras allow biologists like Norman, from the WSDOT, to monitor these larger animals, but are ineffective in tracking “low-mobility species” such as amphibians and small mammals. These crossings require in-person surveying, a resource made possible through partnership with Central Washington University, whereby students from the school’s Department of Biological Sciences monitor animals as part of their coursework.
The monitoring teams have since tracked everything from coastal giant salamanders to hamster-like pikas.
“Ecological connectivity is not just the large animals not getting killed on the roadways, it’s about connecting whole ecosystems,” said Garvey-Darda.
In Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, mountain lion P-22 lived in isolation for more than a decade. Photo by Steve Winter
I-90’s overpass wildlife crossings recreate the surrounding environment.
Photo by Washington State Department of Transportation
In the United States, more than one million wildlifevehicle collisions every year cause $8 billion in property damage and at least 200 human deaths, according to a federal study. The same report identified 21 threatened or endangered species, including California’s bighorn sheep and the Florida panther, for which road accidents are the primary cause of death.
Local and state agencies have long prioritized traveler safety, often installing fencing or signage at highimpact zones. But in recent years, these entities have increasingly signed on to what the Forest Service has said all along: protecting wildlife on either side of a highway isn’t enough. “Habitat connectivity is essential to biodiversity,” said Garvey-Darda. Roads cut off natural pathways to food, water, shelter—and potential mates.
The federal government took note in 2021, when the Biden administration launched a grant program, as part
of the the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, that included $350 million to fund crossings. From increasing connectivity for Colorado’s largest bighorn sheep herd to the recent completion of Florida’s first wildlife overpass, the program kickstarted projects across the country. According to CBS News, there are around 1,500 structures in the United States as of 2024.
It’s also resulted in more scientific research into the viability of structures. “It’s incredibly place-based because we are reintroducing or continuing the natural world where we’ve erased it,” says Renee Callahan, the executive director of ARC Solutions, which studies, designs, and constructs wildlife-crossing structures. According to ARC, when properly sited and designed, crossings with fencing can reduce collisions by up to 90 percent.
“[Building wildlife crossings is] incredibly placebased because we are reintroducing or continuing the natural world where we’ve erased it.”
— Renee Callahan, executive director of ARC Solutions
Callahan is part of a large team currently at work on what will soon be the largest wildlife corridor in the world, connecting the Santa Monica Mountains to Simi Hills, just north of Los Angeles. When the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is completed in 2026, it will span 10 lanes across Route 101, one of the busiest freeways in the country.
As one of the few crossings of its scale located in an urban environment, Callahan says the design has unique challenges, such as harsh grading, utility infrastructure, and severe sound and light pollution.
Like Washington’s I-90 crossings, the Annenberg will serve a variety of species: “everything from monarch butterflies to, most crucially, mountain lions,” said Beth
A student from Central Washington University participating in the project’s surveying program. Photo by Washington State Department of Transportation
Pratt, the California Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation, which spearheaded the project’s campaign.
According to Pratt, the species is at threat of going extinct within the next 50 years if their habitat is not reconnected. In 2020, biologists started noticing signs of inbreeding in cougars residing in the Santa Monica Mountains, which they ascribed to isolation caused by the 101.
The plight was personified in P-22, the cougar that gained celebrity after traveling from the Santa Monica Mountains, across the 101, into Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, where he lived alone for over a decade. Ultimately, P-22 was struck by a car, found to have long-term health problems, and euthanized in 2022.
His death sparked an outpouring of grief and calls to give animals more freedom to move. “Crossings bring people
together,” said Pratt. “There are very few people who don’t support it—in a time when we don’t agree on much, this is one thing most of us agree on.”
Become a community scientist by reporting roadkill sightings to your state’s Department of Fish & Wildlife. Your observations could help inform the locations of future wildlife corridors.
Andrea Richards writes about cultural history, forgotten philosophical systems, and life in Los Angeles for a variety of publications, including Independent Weekly and the Los Angeles Times.
The key to ensuring wildlife use overpasses is directing them with roadside fencing. Photo by Washington State Department of Transportation
RIPPLE EFFECT
In the forests of northern Arizona, a series of high-impact efforts is restoring watersheds upon which millions of people—including more than half who reside in Phoenix—rely on.
BY RON DUNGAN
The NFF’s Trevor Seck and Shannon Smith view a zuni bowl, a rock structure meant to control the flow of water and prevent erosion, on the Tonto National Forest. Photo by Q Martin
Trevor Seck surveyed the landscape near Pine, Arizona, a high country community of about 1,900 people. A few roads snaked through thickets of oak, juniper, and ponderosa, past a tangle of brush and skinny trees, and along slopes that rose to rimrock cliffs in the Tonto National Forest. It was green and beautiful and combustible, the kind of place that keeps foresters up at night.
“There’s a lot of fuel in here,” said Seck, Arizona’s forestry supervisor for the National Forest Foundation. A few minutes later we moved downslope to Pine Creek, a sleepy little stream that feeds the local and downstream watershed.
After years of coordinating investments from a variety of partners, attaining access from private landowners, and lining up local contractors, crews can now begin to thin the overgrown forest and reduce the risk of unnatural wildfire.
“If our reservoirs are filled with sediment [from post-fire flooding] it means we have less capacity to capture water.”
—Elvy Barton, Salt River Project
The site is just one of 30-plus that’s currently overseen by the NFF’s Northern Arizona Forest Fund (NAFF), which has been shepherding the restoration of the state’s most crucial watersheds since 2015.
“Fire is not a problem for watersheds in and of itself,” said Kelly Mott Lacroix, a hydrologist with Tonto National Forest. The problem is big fires bake the soil, causing hillsides that once absorbed water like a sponge to work more like a concrete slide when the summer rains that follow fire season arrive. This can devastate small communities and muck up infrastructure downstream. In 2021, the Telegraph Fire that burned more than 180,000 acres on the Tonto led to significant post-fire flooding, damaging homes and infrastructure in the towns of Globe and Miami.
The Tonto ranges from ponderosa forests near Pine down to the Sonoran Desert hill country just outside of Phoenix. Its 2.9 million acres are home to three sprawling watersheds fed by the Salt, Verde, and Little Colorado rivers; a supply that millions of people rely on. What that means is a long to-do list. The Forest Service has a lot of resources, but not enough to restore every acre.
“The problem is too large to take on all at once,” said Mott Lacroix. The NFF helps navigate the resource needs, builds partnerships, puts boots on the ground, and raises funding.
The Forest Service has struggled for years to find ways to remove small trees while leaving the big, fire-resistant trees behind. The agency originally relied on profitgenerating logging contracts, said Sasha Stortz, the Southwest Region’s director for the NFF, but the need for a more holistic approach to restoration, in which forest thinning is just one component, requires a different model.
In turn, the team has focused on more targeted projects with big impacts, such as Pine Canyon.
“We’re able to complete projects that the Forest Service can’t do through the traditional contracting process,”
Stortz said. It’s not cheap, but leaving all that fuel would probably cost more in the long run. “We pay now or we pay later,” Stortz said. “If there’s a post-fire flood it’s going to be a lot more expensive.”
Salt River Project (SRP), an Arizona water and power utility with several dams and canals on the Salt and Verde watersheds, partners with the NFF and contributes $500,000 a year to support forest restoration in the region. Caring for watersheds can improve long-term storage capacity, says Elvy Barton, the sustainability senior manager for SRP.
Post-fire floods carry a lot of mud and ash, and “all that material winds up in rivers and streams and our reservoirs,” she said. “If our reservoirs are filled with sediment it means we have less capacity to capture water.”
Elk browsed along the road and clouds built overhead as we made our way 20 miles south to the Highline Trail, a 60-mile route that crosses small creeks that tumble off of the Mogollon Rim and offers a variety of popular hikes for Phoenix residents. The trail once connected Rim country settlers, but homesteaders followed the path of least resistance when they built it.
This meant placing the route along streambeds and tributaries, which has led to erosion, trail degradation, and sediment flows into local waterways. The NFF is raising money and working with local contractors to reinforce or reroute the trail and shore up local springs.
Watershed health has drawn interest from a variety of groups that believe clean water matters: from Arizona breweries, which want clean water for their kettles, to the City of Phoenix, which provides water for 1.7 million urban residents who live miles from these high country forests yet depend on the watershed. Although Colorado River shortages have made headlines, Phoenix gets more than half of its water from the Salt and Verde River watersheds.
Lidar map of the area downstream from the Little Green Valley Fen on the Tonto National Forest. Photo by Q Martin
Pine Creek feeds the local and downstream watershed. Photo by Q Martin
The NFF is working to revitalize Little Green Valley Fen, which feeds an important tributary of the Salt River.
Photo by the NFF
“A healthy watershed is a healthy drinking water supply.”
— Cynthia
“A healthy watershed is a healthy drinking water supply,” said Cynthia Campbell, a water resources advisor for the City of Phoenix, which contributes $200,000 annually for Salt and Verde River watershed projects.
As the afternoon passed, the clouds spun away from Little Green Valley, a bright meadow 20 miles east along State Route 260. I walked with Shannon Smith, Tonto stewardship coordinator for the NFF, in a basin that lies upslope from a part of the meadow that was once a fen, a type of wetland that produces peat.
The history of the basin and fen is not well documented, but it’s believed that road builders created the basin by digging and bootleggers burned the peat to make moonshine, diminishing its ability to store water. The fen’s Green Valley Creek, which feeds Tonto Creek, a major tributary of the Salt, does not flow as well as it once did.
Most of the land in the area is managed by the Forest Service, and maps frequently mark the boundary with a green line, said Mott Lacroix. The rest belongs to a rancher. The agency will soon fill in the basin and repair the meadow ecosystem to help increase flows to the creek. Now that the NFF has brought the rancher on
board, work could begin within the year. “Watersheds don’t care about ownership,” said Mott Lacroix. “You have to be able to go beyond the green line.”
The next time you’re visiting the Tonto, hike the Highline Trail. The route winds through 60 miles of vistas, creeks, and pine forests across the Mogollon Rim. The section between the Washington Park and Pine trailheads has been restored by the NFF and its community partners. Keep an eye out for signs of trail health, marked by little erosion, good drainage, and cleared vegetation. Phoenix-based Ron Dungan is a reporter for KJZZ, a public radio affiliate, and has been a staff reporter at The Arizona Republic His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Gray’s Sporting Journal, and USA Today, among others.
Water in Pine Creek on the Tonto National Forest. Photo by Q Martin
Campbell, City of Phoenix
HEARD IN THE WOODS
“The fates of cities and forests are deeply intertwined.”
“Access to public lands is fundamental for economic vitality… Outdoor recreation continues to be a driving force for entrepreneurship, workforce development, talent retention and recruitment, and the cultivation of thriving outdoor recreation communities.”
Amy Allison, Director, WNC: MADE X MTNS, as quoted in Smoky Mountain News
Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, World Resources Institute, as quoted in the report “Better Forests, Better Cities”
“We lose touch with the vastness of this country, and with all the wonderful places to explore, when we’re sitting at home.”
Jeffrey Olson, Communications Director, NPS Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Department, as quoted in Sierra
“There might be a great trail system that’s reachable from the city, but if I go and get this feeling that it’s not for me, then that is a barrier. Each of us has a responsibility to change the narrative surrounding who is welcome in the outdoors.”
José González, Founder of Latino Outdoors, as quoted in Outside magazine
Cleveland National Forest, California. Photo by John Bienvenida
“We all live in a watershed, and we can all take care of the lands that provide our water supply.”
Erika Mack, Information Technology Specialist, USFS Southern Research Station, as quoted on fs.usda.gov
“I think because people love food, especially when the food is good and unique, foraging has become a great way to get people outside, again…it’s really cool to watch this reclamation happen, especially within the Black community.”
Alexis Nikole Nelson (@blackforager), Forager, Cook, and Influencer, as quoted on Aspen Public Radio
“It is encouraging from the public health perspective that — amidst one of the more challenging periods in recent history — a new group of outdoor recreationists have emerged.”
B. Derrick Taff, Associate Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University, as quoted in Penn State News
“Increased visitation is certainly not equal across all our public lands…[it is] those places closest to urban population centers that are experiencing some of the largest use increases.”
Robert Dvorak, Associate Professor of Recreation, Parks, and Leisure Services Administration, Central Michigan University, as quoted in Central Michigan University News
“The visitation that we typically saw on the weekend, we were seeing during the week [during the pandemic]. And the visitation that we typically saw during a holiday weekend, like the Fourth of July, we were seeing on weekends.”
Lawrence Lujan, Former Public Affairs Specialist, U.S. Forest Service, as quoted in National Geographic
UNDER PRESSURE
Squeezed by the flow of urban traffic, forest managers rely on partners to support recreation infrastructure.
BY CAROLYN BUCKNALL
In Los Angeles, skyscrapers tower over the city alongside the San Gabriel Mountains. Just an hour’s drive from Orlando, the Ocala National Forest beckons urban residents with jewel toned waters. And dominating Portland’s skyline, Mt. Hood is a year-round escape for residents, attracting hikers in the summer and skiers in the winter.
Every year, thousands of urbanites retreat from the hustle of the city to these nearby natural oases to slow down, connect with others, and nurture their well-being. But with such high demand, many of these forests’ most popular destinations are buckling under immense strain: jammed parking lots back onto congested roadways, crowds overwhelm busy trails and campgrounds, and trash tarnishes scenic overlooks.
Beyond degrading visitor experience, crowding also harms the ecology of these landscapes — putting the future of many urban forests in jeopardy.
As visitation pressure on National Forests continues to grow, the U.S. Forest Service relies on organizations like the National Forest Foundation to help maintain and repair critical infrastructure that protects public lands
from overuse. With support from our partners, the NFF is restoring trails and campgrounds, building additional restroom facilities, and installing new signage across the country to ensure these forests continue to support recreation for all.
These backyard forests are a lifeline for our urban communities—and rely on us to be their stewards. Recreate responsibly and remember to Leave No Trace.
Open the foldout to learn more.
Viewing platform at Catawba Falls just outside of Asheville. In 2024 the NFF and our partners celebrated the reopening of the popular trail after constructing a new boardwalk, which was later damaged by Hurricane Helene. The NFF remains committed to supporting the recovery of this and many beloved recreation sites on the Pisgah National Forest. Photo by the NFF
Crews install a prefabricated restroom at the Cha’chaany Hamuk Trailhead on the Cleveland National Forest outside of San Diego. With support from local partners, including the Wildlife Conservation Board Public Access Grant Program, the NFF completed much needed improvements to the popular trailhead in 2023, installing restrooms, picnic tables, shade structures, and trash bins. Photo by the NFF
National Forest Foundation
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406.542.2805
© 2024 National Forest Foundation.
No unauthorized reproduction of this material is allowed.
Light & Seed™
Editor-in-Chief: Hannah Featherman
Editor: Erin Vivid Riley
Writers: Carolyn Bucknall, Caitlin Dewey, Ron Dungan, Andrea Richards, Erin Vivid Riley
Designer: Shanthony Art & Design
Why We Print
At the National Forest Foundation, we believe forests and grasslands are as vital to all communities as clean air and water. Through Light & Seed™, we aim to share stories that connect you to the incredible lands of the U.S. National Forest System.
Sustainable Printing
Light & Seed™ is printed on recycled paper made of 30% post-consumer content. This FSC-certified paper ensures the highest environmental and social standards have been followed throughout the process of wood sourcing, paper manufacturing, and print production. More at fsc.org.
Photos by Q Martin, Nancy Bundt, Lesford Duncan, and the Washington State Department of Transportation
AMERICA’S BACKYARD FORESTS NEED OUR HELP
National Forests and Grasslands offer some of the most accessible outdoor experiences in the country. They rely on each of us to be good stewards.
VISITS TO NATIONAL FORESTS
More than
National Forests and Grasslands are surrounded by 1+ million people of visits to National Forests and Grasslands are from people who live within 50 miles Almost
Reduce Your Impact
Plan ahead. If you are headed to a popular trailhead, have a backup plan if the parking lot is full. Don’t park along the road.
Stay on the trail. Walk in the middle of the trail and don’t use unofficial paths or shortcuts.
Know how to go. Plan on using the restroom at the trailhead or know how to go responsibly in the wilderness. If you do not know, do not go.
Pack in, pack out. Don’t leave any waste, even if it is biodegradable. Go even further by picking up trash left by others, too.
Keep it wild. Stay a safe distance from wildlife and leave everything you find where it belongs — in the wild.
Practice fire safety. Always check for fire risk and burn bans in the area before starting a fire, and only use existing fire rings at established campsites.
THE IMPACT OF CROWDING
Compacted soil and erosion: Trails can become too deep or wide when over-used while muddy or if hikers step on their edges, causing soil degradation.
Degraded visitor experience: Crowded parking lots, noisy trails, and piles of trash prevent people from finding peace and solitude in wild places.
Reduced water quality: Litter, erosion, and human waste from crowded trails will often wash into the area’s streams and rivers.
Damaged vegetation and wildlife habitat: Using unofficial trails and picking flowers destroys sensitive plants and food and shelter for wildlife.
National Forests and Grasslands have a profound impact on our emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Celebrate Nature’s Power and give to ensure a more AWEsome tomorrow. nationalforests.org/celebratenaturespower
Flathead National Forest, Montana.
Photo by Jordan Lefler