Publisher’s Notebook: Our promise to readers for the year to come

Happy holidays to you all!

2017 has been an eventful year for Treesource with our launch in March, the work preparing for the launch, applying and getting our 501(c)3 status as a nonprofit from the IRS and getting lots of positive feedback from people like you who have read our articles.

From drinking water and wooden skyscrapers to wildfires and climate change, we produced and aggregated some important, relevant journalism this year.

We hosted a public forum in Missoula following the state’s epic wildfire season. It focused on how we can learn to live WITH fire, whether you are in New Jersey or California.

The discussion that night was smart and thoughtful, and helped further Treesource’s mission as a member of the Fourth Estate: to provide information and perspective to productive, pragmatic citizens who want to make our society more sustainable in the long run.

Thanks to you, our readers, for validating the importance of in-depth journalism on forests and sharing us with your family, friends and colleagues. Thanks to my Board of Directors and staff for their dedication and thoughtful input, without which this would not happen nor be the quality that it is. Thanks to our contributing writers and photographers for their dedication to thoughtful reporting, analysis and writing.

We have plans for some interesting, fun and useful stories for you in 2018. In January, we will publish a series of stories on renewable energy derived from wood – the benefits it provides, from individual residences to commercial and utility-scale production.

We have just started preparations for a series on urban and community forests. Eight-three percent of Americans live in urban settings; the trees on their street, in their yards and parks have profound benefits to everyone who lives there, from human health, water quality, wood products, to the sheer aesthetic joy they bring.

We are also planning to cover the essential role forests play in sustaining the biological diversity of our planet, from clean cold streams supporting fish, to snakes, frogs, lynx and bears to amazing plants and fungi, some of which are really good to eat and others could poison you.

We are also planning to cover the important role communities, individuals, organizations, agencies and businesses have in coming together to make democracy work. As part of furthering those essential conversations, we plan to convene more public forums in communities across the West.

We are also looking to cover the amazing and innovative development of new products that come from our forests and the new ways we can monitor and study those forests to better understand and manage their plants, animals and water resources.

We are developing partnerships with other organizations to help share and tell these important stories. We will produce some podcasts, more videos, more photos, and new and compelling stories.

And we want you to help shape and inform this effort. Do you have some good photos? An idea for a story that needs to be told and shared? Do you have a favorite forest or tree that others would enjoy? Submit a Travel Through Trees article! If you have any of these, click on the “About” button and go to “Submit.”

You know the importance and value of forests and trees. You know that the coverage of these topics isn’t adequate in mainstream journalism. You know democracy runs on information, good or bad. If you think good information is needed, stories that tell the multi-faceted nature of what it takes to sustain people environmentally, economically and socially, then we ask you to do three things:

1. Share what we produce with friends, family and colleagues;
2. Sponsor: Ask your business, organization or agency to support us as a sponsor;
3. Donate by hitting the contribute button, no amount is too small, no amount is too large.

Thank you for believing in us as we go through the growing pains of starting a new journalistic endeavor. Here’s wishing you the best 2018 possible! That is our goal.