In reporting earlier this week on the Bush administration’s decision to open areas of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging, road-building and mining, I stumbled across photographer Amy Gulick, who was up there in 2007. Below you’ll see two examples of her work. I can’t wait to take in the whole book! (Working title: Salmon In the Trees.)
As our recent story explained, the Bushies followed through on what they’d been planning to do — but with some important changes that pleased enviros. I asked Gulick, of North Bend, to explain why she did the work. Her answer:
The Tongass issue is usually framed as a divisive fight and I understand totally why that is, and it’s a fight worth fighting. It’s one-third of the remaining coastal temperate rainforest in the world. And it’s the largest stretch of old-growth forest we have left in the United States. . . . (But) most Americans have no clue. And if they’ve heard of Tongass and they sort of know about it, they’d tell you it’s trees and logging and there’s a lot of fighting over it. …
For years and years we’ve been hearing what’s wrong with the Tongass … It kind of surprised me that we weren’t hearing what’s right with the Tongass and why it’s worth saving. If you don’t fall in love with a place, you’re not going to care when it’s gone.
Well, readers, see if these photos do the trick. Originally I asked for just one that best told the whole story. She sent the one above. If you can’t see it, it’s a bear. In a tree. Eating a salmon. Perhaps better than anyplace on earth, the Tongass shows how, as the expression goes, “salmon grow on trees.”
Here’s what Gulick had to say about why she chose this shot:
When the adult salmon return to fresh water, their bodies contain elevated levels of nitrogen-15 derived from marine nutrients. When animals in the Tongass National Forest, particularly bears, eat the salmon, they pass nitrogen-15 into the soil through their urine. The trees then absorb it through their roots. So in effect, salmon grow in trees and help feed the forest. Not to be outdone, the trees return the favor by nurturing the salmon. Trees keep water temperatures cool for developing eggs by shading the spawning streams, and fallen trees create protected pools for young salmon. Trees also help stabilize the stream banks and prevent erosion from fouling the clean water that developing salmon eggs need to survive.
Luckily for us, Gulick also sent us this shot, which she says helps show just how interconnected the land and the sea are in the Tongass. It’s a national forest, sure, but one that’s on a zillion islands as well as a good-sized chunk of oceanfront real estate.