Michigan forests are not as “pristine” as some in the media would have us believe. Nearly all Lake States forests are the product of severe human disturbance and all the forests are facing significant threats.

I stood quietly overlooking the Maggia River valley in southern Switzerland contemplating the differences between the forest around me the forests of home. I looked downslope, across a stone terrace that was once a piece of a vineyard, and marveled at the leaf pattern of some young chestnut trees where grapes no longer grow.

The long serrated leaves, forming a unique pattern of distribution, were once one of the most common sights in eastern North America. No more. Not for over a century. Our New World chestnut has been all but eliminated from the forest by a blight imported from A

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