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Opening a forest dialogue Photo by Jim Craven Scientist and essayist Robert Michael Pyle talks to people Wednesday about the local bioregion at the Headwaters Environmental Center in Ashland. Pyle and other nature writers held a two-day workshop on nature literacy. Nature writers, environmentalists, forest managers work toward a shift from confrontation to conversation By BETH QUINN ASHLAND -- Home-grown environmentalists hoping to move the local forest wars from confrontation to conversation this week sought the help of an unlikely group of outsiders: nature writers. Not surprisingly, essayist Robert Michael Pyle and poets Kim Stafford and Linda Hussa offered the 30 activists, citizens and public officials who gathered Wednesday at Headwaters Environmental Center a writerly suggestion: Collect the region's stories from loggers and conservationists, miners and backpackers, old-timers and newcomers. "If you truly want it, you're going to have to go find those people," said Hussa, who likened the the region's environmental standoff to a woven basket with broken or missing strands. "If you want those stories, you have to go to them." The writers' advice to collect stories offers both practical and intangible benefits. On the practical side, those hoping to restore elk herds could learn where the animals ranged in the past, for example. On the intangible side, those hoping to have both healthy forests and a healthy economy could inspire more local people of all political persuasions to get involved in creating both. "We mustn't disenfranchise anyone of their stories," said Pyle. Promoting nature literacy is the goal of both the Massachusetts-based Orion Society, which sponsored the writers' visit, and the Klamath-Siskiyou Alliance, which hopes to involve hundreds of people in a conversation about the region's ecological and economic future by Earth Day 2000. To get the conversation started, the visiting writers conducted a two-day workshop for local people interested in writing about the natural world of Southern Oregon. Two evening events featured readings of the visiting writers' work. And Wednesday's community forum focused on helping activists and public officials find ways to include more average people in efforts to plan the region's future. "This is really where the biggest challenge is. How do you involve the public," said Dominick DellaSala, an Ashland-based forest ecologist for the World Wildlife Fund. The writers' focus on inclusion struck a chord with Rich Stem, interim supervisor of the Rogue River National Forest. "We've got stories that can fill this room up," he said. "Believe me these discussions are going on all around the country." And Headwaters activist Robert "Bobcat" Brothers knew exactly where to start gathering the region's stories. "Old-timer humans are an endemic species in this region," he said. For those who chided themselves for not already knowing the region's natural and human history, poet Stafford offered a simple explanation: "We know more about the future than we know about the past because it is ours to create." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA