Reconnecting and Restoring Old Forests through “Future Forests Reimagined" - An Interview with Christine Laporte
Christine Laporte, M.E.S., our Eastern Program Director, leads our U.S.-Canada transboundary initiative, Future Forests Reimagined (FFR), with the goal of identifying and protecting existing old forests. We do so by bringing ecological forestry to our work with Indigenous communities for future old forests and connectivity in the Northern Appalachian-Acadian-Wabanaki (NAPAW) bioregion of Canada and the United States.
The NAPAW bioregion encompasses the largest intact broad-leaved temperate forest in the world at nearly 82 million acres! NAPAW includes unceded Wabanaki Confederacy lands, five U.S. states, and four Canadian provinces. It’s home to over five million people and thousands of species of plants and animals.
However, less than 10% of this ecoregion is currently protected.
Christine and partners from Two Countries One Forest launched this audacious international initiative in 2022, presenting a robust series of workshops with close guidance from indigenous leaders. Elders opened each day with intentions, and indigenous speakers were featured, along with researchers, forestry professionals, agency staff, community members, and conservation organizations.
Over 240 people participated in the series, with highly lauded results detailed in our summary publication. Recently, FFR was also awarded a grant to bring this unique forest planning model to eight UNESCO Bioregions in eastern Canada and one in the northeastern U.S.
Christine‘s experience working across political and cultural boundaries offers a unique perspective on forging authentic cross-cultural relationships committed to a shared purpose: to restore, reconnect and rewild North America.
Why are you passionate about restoring, reconnecting and rewilding North America?
My Wildeor experiences such as swimming with bottlenose dolphins in a marshy river, hearing wolf howls in Ontario, witnessing a sea turtle in her nesting trance under a Van Gogh starry night, or meeting a protective mother black bear and her three comical cubs while riding my horse in the forest – these deliver jolts of joyous connection, and an urgent call to protect against the hubris of humans, relative newcomers on the planet.
“Restoring, reconnecting and rewilding” offers exciting opportunities to protect evolution and imagine conservation successes beyond extinction crises and climate catastrophes.
What types of viewpoints and perspectives do you bring to your work at Wildlands Network?
Political boundaries are imaginary lines, nearly always disruptive to wildlife and ecological and human communities. My colleagues and I pursue conservation objectives that can succeed beyond jurisdictional limitations across the expanse of the Eastern Wildway, with its numerous “lines on maps”. This requires us to sustain productive and creative partnerships across those lines.
Personally, I trained in zoology and visual arts, and the Wild inspires my creative work. My graduate studies at the Yale School of the Environment focused on conservation biology. I also previously directed a private conservation philanthropy (awarding Wildlands Network Founder Dave Foreman one of his first Wildlands Project grants!).
What perspectives do our partners bring to Future Forests Reimagined (FFR)?
Because of its transboundary nature, FFR partners bring a wonderful diversity of perspectives, too numerous to mention. A prime example is Mi'kmaw Elder Marshall sharing a foundational view: “Etuaptmumk“or “Two-eyed seeing”, a core guiding principle for our community interactions, project development and implementation. It applies lenses of Western and Indigenous experiences and knowledge to a question or situation. This is our starting point.
How do you work with Tribes and First Nations toward more ecologically diverse forest management?
Firstly, with respect, and an openness to the personal transformation work required along the way. “Progress at the pace of trust” is our adopted FFR motto. We are working in unceded Indigenous lands to improve the forest ecosystem, which in many places is privately managed solely for timber harvesting. Following the successful workshop series, we now meet regularly with the FFR Advisory Group, which includes Indigenous members.
We are conducting outreach with Indigenous leaders in Canada as groundwork for our 2024 project with UNESCO Bioregion communities, keeping two-eyed seeing centered and remaining sensitive to complexities like the Rematriation / Land Back efforts.
I will soon be moving to the bioregion, to continue relationship building and collaboration with Wabanaki communities and other partners in Maine and the eastern provinces of Canada. This is a return to my roots; my people are from what is now called Canada.
How is forest management in the Future Forests Reimagined initiative different than other management approaches?
FFR is bringing ecological forestry to meet Indigenous knowledge with a history of thousands of years of sustainable living with forests. Ecological forestry is a management framework that maintains forest complexity and biological diversity, supporting wildlife and their habitats.
For example, timber harvests mimic natural disturbances rather than clearcutting or monoculture trees grown in straight rows. Silvicultural practices can be designed to create or sustain landscape connectivity by promoting heterogeneous structure and function.
Multiple benefits include carbon management, non-timber forest products, clean waterways, protection of old forests, forest growth that will become future old forests, and climate change resilience.
Many wildlife species depend on these diverse forest structures, including the Canada lynx (a threatened species in the US), the American marten, moose and migratory wood thrush.
What challenges have you faced while working across cultures?
The planning team worked very hard for two years without direct funding, so diverse financial support for this ambitious Initiative is needed. Many conservation organizations are now asking Indigenous peoples across North America for their time and talent, so FFR has a policy of compensating our Indigenous partners for the paradigm-shifting insights they can bring to shared goals.
We are also engaging in resolutions to cultural challenges by reaching out to private timber companies and nearby communities that depend on the forests for livelihood. We hope to break bread together with all communities involved and discuss how to move the needle towards resilient NAPAW forests.
What has made these partnerships successful?
We nurture trust by working on challenges from various angles and lenses. We are wildlife biologists, forest ecologists, artists, Indigenous, settlers, land managers, foresters, modelers, social scientists and agency staff from many jurisdictional levels, and we foster reliability and reciprocity through inclusive, mutual respect. As we spend more time together on the land, our relationships deepen. Circular connectivity is at the heart of our work.
What is social connectivity, and how does it play into the Future Forests Reimagined initiative?
Thank you for this question! Circular connectivity is a term we use to reflect our deep connections with wildlife and other relations who co-inhabit the Eastern Wildway, a mandate to protect their rights to thrive.
This includes the recognition that our Indigenous neighbors have rights and insights to share, and we listen, ready to authentically collaborate across boundaries toward shared objectives and visions. Here in the Eastern Wildway, we have a LOT of humans, some living in massively built environments, not to mention innumerable jurisdictional lines. Implementing work to restore ecological connectivity in the Eastern Wildway, including resilient Future Forests, cannot succeed without circular connectivity.
Can you briefly walk us through the process of building an initiative like Future Forests Reimagined from scratch?
It begins with asking questions, imagining new solutions and generating a collective vision. Wildlands is fortunate to have leadership who understands the importance of this long-term work, and the unique approach it will require.
We invested two years in creative planning with passionate partners, building trust and sharing expertise and Rolodexes. Concurrently, we sought and continue to listen to Indigenous leaders and work to create science-driven, landscape-scale plans. From there, we’re working toward building out specific projects to bring these values and shared management practices to life.
What are the long-term goals of the initiative? How do you envision Wildlands Network shaping the region’s conservation landscape in the future?
The FFR vision is transformative, reaching towards a future of biodiversity-rich forests, landscape connectivity, vibrant and resilient habitat for wildlife complete with predators and prey, and cultural continuity for human cultural needs and communities.
Through our work with Indigenous communities and their adaptive ways of living in harmony with the forests and waterways, we will lend our science-driven, policy-forward methods to create a synergy to achieve our landscape connectivity goals.
