Welcome to Treesource!
We are so pleased to welcome you to the launch of Treesource.org, our new site dedicated to forest journalism for a sustainable future.
Research shows pervasive misconceptions about our nation’s forests. For example, many Americans believe deforestation is a significant problem in North America. Most also believe that our national parks and designated wilderness areas are being logged, and that wood is not a renewable resource. None of those notions are true.
Hearteningly, 84 percent of the Americans who participated in one recent survey wanted to learn more about our public and private forest lands. But most had not seen, heard or read a news story about forests in the past year.
Into that landscape comes Treesource.org.
With original stories, photo essays, videos and podcasts, we will take readers into North America’s forests and the cities that rely upon them for everything from drinking water and building materials to carbon storage, renewable energy, recreation and biodiversity.
We’ll provide the contextual narratives so often missing in daily, hurry-up journalism by explaining why these complex and essential ecosystems are important to our everyday lives.
We will inform with accuracy, fairness, depth and a passion for storytelling. Every now and then, we’ll take readers along on road trips to see fascinating forests, scenery and wildlife – just for fun.
We will also aggregate stories from a variety of respected sources, providing the context and making the connections so important to a deeper understanding of the issues. We’ll also welcome your contributions, stories from your own communities and fields of study that highlight the importance of our forested ecosystems.
Treesource will be a fun, interesting, myth-busting, dogma-bending source of information about how we as a national and global society, with more than 7 billion people now and projections of over 9 billion by 2050, can be more sustainable.
In fact, sustainability is a bedrock of our reporting and analysis. By that we mean we will report on how the environment is affected, how the economy is affected and how people in local communities, nearby cities and states, and around the world are affected. A nice alliteration to remember the triad is people, planet and profit.
In our view, it isn’t environment vs. the economy vs. social justice. The goal is to find the balance point that serves all three goals. If we pursue maximization of one leg of the stool to the detriment of the others, we will lose our balance, our sustainability.
Who is going to read Treesource? People who care about having a healthy forest environment, a healthy economy and a healthy society. Treesource’s mission (see below) is to explore and research the tension points, and to inform you about the benefits and trade-offs between them.
Our aim is to be a trusted, fact-based source of information to keep you informed about forests and a sustainable society. To learn about who is on the staff and board, check out our biographies below.
Democracy relies upon an informed electorate. Treesource will help fill this need. Please sign up for free delivery of our latest stories to your inbox. Share our site with your friends, family and colleagues; email a link to Treesource, post it to Facebook, give us a shoutout on Twitter. Then send us your own stories, and your comments and suggestions for improvement.
Welcome! We hope you’ll join us for this journey.
— Dave Atkins
TreeSource Mission Statement
Our purpose is to provide a journalistically rigorous perspective on the value of forests, as well as the goods and services they produce. These goods and services include: water, wildlife, wood, energy, carbon storage, recreation and spiritual renewal that can serve communities and all of society sustainably. We strive to gather, analyze and synthesize information on whether or not forest-land management, manufacturing, maintenance of biodiversity, water, and recreation are being integrated into a healthy environment, a healthy economy and a healthy society for the long term, that is sustainably.
Staff
David Atkins, President/CEO is a “Sustainabilist”; his passion is to bring together the social, environmental and economic elements needed to create a sustainable society. A Forester and Forest Ecologist by training and practice; attended Humboldt State University, where he got a B.S. in Forest Science. He worked for the US Forest Service in Oregon, Montana. In mid-career, he got a M.S. degree in Forest Ecology at the University of Montana. He developed and managed the Fuels for Schools Initiative starting in 2001, which used waste wood to produce heat. He finished his career in the Forest Service national office working with the office of the Secretary of Agriculture and multiple USDA agencies, DOE, EPA and nongovernmental partner organizations and the private sector managing the Wood to Energy program and starting the Wood Innovations initiative, which expanded the use of mass timber products in commercial mid- and high-rise buildings.
Sherry Devlin has been a Montana journalist since 1979, when she began work at the Missoulian as its environment and natural resources reporter. In 2006, she was named the Missoulian’s editor, serving in that position for a decade and leading the newspaper’s transition into the digital age. She was the first female editor of a major Montana daily newspaper. Over the years, Sherry also has been a reporter for the Associated Press, Longmont (Colorado) Daily Times-Call, Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera and the Summit County (Colorado) Journal. In addition, she taught reporting at the University of Montana for more than 10 years. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado in news/editorial journalism, and took graduate courses in politics and economics at American University.
Leland Buck is a digital media consultant and content producer. He holds degrees in History, Russian Language and Literature, and a graduate degree in Computer Science. He has worked in Film & Television production, Education and Journalism with over 25 years experience building digital publishing and educational platforms and producing content. As a consultant he has helped launch a variety of publishing ventures, incorporating print, digital, audio and video production. He is the founder of Indigitis Digital Media, and is the Digital Director at Mamalode, a parenting-focused media company in Missoula, Montana.
Board of Directors
Frank Edward Allen has been a writer and editor for more than 50 years, working mostly as a journalist. Before joining The Wall Street Journal, he worked at prominent daily newspapers and news-wire services in Oregon, Arizona and Minnesota. For the WSJ, he helped establish a Second Section of the paper in 1979-1982, served as a news-bureau chief for nine years and became the paper’s first environment editor. He left the WSJ in 1994 to become dean of the University of Montana’s School of Journalism. In Montana, he also founded and served for 18 years as president and executive director of the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources, a nonprofit journalism-education operation that has helped more than 1,000 reporters and editors gain a deeper understanding of complicated natural-resource issues. He remains a member of the IJNR Board of Trustees.
Dale Bosworth was the United States Chief Forester 2001-2007, responsible for the 192 million acres of National Forests and Grasslands, the world’s largest forestry research system, the State and Private Forestry programs as well as the International Forestry Program. He was raised in northern California, the son of a Forest Service employee. He graduated from the University of Idaho in 1966 with a B.S. in Forestry and immediately joined the U. S. Forest Service. He served in a variety of positions in Idaho, eastern Washington, California, Washington DC and Montana. In 1994 he became Regional Forester of the Intermountain Region of the Forest Service headquartered in Ogden, Utah. In 1997 Bosworth became Regional Forester for the Northern Region in Missoula. He retired in 2007 after 41 years with the agency. Since retirement he does volunteer work for the Forest Service’s International Programs and serves on multiple organizations boards.
Arnie Didier has 31 years of successful Sales and Business Management experience primarily focused in the Building Materials Business, including: Management, Profit & Loss responsibility, Sales, Distribution, Independent Sales Reps, and Production, much of it with Georgia Pacific. He served as Vice President of Riley Creek Lumber in Denver in 2006. He served as the Director of Sales and Marketing for the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation in 2007- 2008. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer and a Principal of the Forest Business Network since 2007. He received a B.S. in Forest Resource Management and a minor in speech communication from Southern Illinois University in 1985.