Among my first “discoveries” when we moved to Vermont 26 years ago was Downer State Forest.
The 705-acre parcel is about 2 miles from our home, situated on the north boundary of the town of Sharon. It is an example of the prescience of conservationists in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is also a canary in the cage of rampant greed and environmental neglect.
Since 1991, I’ve run, cycled or skied several thousand miles on the roads and trails of this small gem of semi-wilderness. On a recent mountain bike ride I had tears in my eyes at the serene beauty of the eastern view from a cleared perch along the forest loop road. (The tears may have been partially due to the relief/euphoria resulting from cresting the grueling climb on the clockwise circuit of the loop road.)
The forest is named for Charles Downer, a Sharon resident who donated the land that established the forest in 1910. It was, at that time, mostly abandoned farmland. Stands of trees were planted in the following 20 years and are now magnificently mature. Downer wished the forest to be a model for forest management and public use. His wish became a delightful reality.
The forest roads are maintained for vehicle use in dry season and by Vermont Association of Snow Travelers (VAST) for snow machines and cross country skiing in winter. In my 26 years of trail use for skiing, I’ve had nothing but courteous exchanges with snow machine operators. As many local folks know, Downer Forest was also the site of a Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camp that has been leased for many years to a 4-H camp. On summer hikes or rides, the serenity of the forest is embellished by distant shouts and giggles.
In recent years a series of trails through the woods have added recreational options for hiking, skiing and mountain biking. During October, I’ve been at Downer Forest nearly every day. I’ve seen one other human. It is not exaggeration to say that it has become among the most meaningful places in my life. But it is not my selfish pleasure that prompts this column. I suppose I may be soiling future solitary outings by bringing the forest to broader attention.
Among the triumphs of the American experiment was this kind of commitment to the future. In the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln responded to naturalist John Muir’s elegant pleas to preserve Yosemite. Ulysses S. Grant made Yellowstone into a national park. Theodore Roosevelt created five national parks during his tenure and preserved 100 million acres of national forest. Six years after Charles Downer gifted our local treasure, Woodrow Wilson established the National Park Service to manage these national treasures in perpetuity.
Now this is all at risk. Powerful forces, led by plutocrats like the notorious Koch brothers, see our Earth as a resource to exploit for endless profit. Oil and gas drilling on public lands is a growth industry aided and abetted by climate change skeptic Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Zinke, among his other sins against nature, has developed a fast track for approval of drilling and fracking. Millions of wilderness acres in the West, critical habitat to threatened or endangered species, are being opened for more mining, drilling and transportation of fossil fuels.
The Environmental Protection Agency is headed by Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier who never met an oilman he didn’t love. It is as though the company you hired to protect your home ransacks it with impunity in broad daylight. Air and water quality regulations are being deleted by red slashes of executive orders. Chemical regulation is being dismantled in the service of rapacious corporations that don’t wish to be inhibited by pesky concerns, like for human life.
Downer Forest is not at immediate risk, given the relative sanity of Vermont and Vermonters. But none among us can survive the desecration of our environment. We live on one fragile planet, together. Climate change and the degradation of our natural resources are an existential threat … and we are distracted by a childish president’s Twitter account.
I recall a particular night, perhaps in the late ’90s, when I skied the Downer Forest road under a canopy of stars and a sliver of moon, tree limbs crackling in the sub-zero air. The stillness was exhilarating. I’m not religious, but if one can ever be in the presence of a god, I was that night. She must be heartbroken at our misbehavior.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo