The Whole Deal
The Whole Deal – From Attractive Concept to Impactful Action:
Reciprocity: “the quality or state of being reciprocal : mutual dependence, action, or influence” - Merriam Webster
Of the too many questions that circle in my head, two keep pushing to the front of the line: “of the many things that humans yearn for is there one category of story that we’re most hungry? And, if so, is that category stories of justice, fairness, courage over fear, care and kindness over greed, hope over despair?”. Experience teaches me that the answer to both questions is “yes”. Not only do we seek to be inspired by these stories but, more importantly, many of us yearn to be contribute to the creation of these stories. I’ll admit that I do. There is a subset of these stories concentrated on harmonious relationships between people. As an antidote to the too common stories – and sights - of human’s degrading land and ecological systems, aren’t we nourished by the stories of the needs of the land and the pursuits of humans finding harmony – whether it’s grasslands still vibrant after a century of careful grazing, the fishery that greed and/or ignorance has not degraded, the farm whose soils, productivity and profitability keeps increasing yearly, or the ecologically rich forest that continues to sustain reliable prosperity for the human communities that depend on it? If the answer to my question is “yes, these are stories that many of us yearn for”, then my next question is “do we adequately understand and appreciate the roles that the choice that we each make play – for better or worse – in shaping these stories?”. Are you? Are the entities that you support and shape? What follows is a real life story about opportunities that we all have. The forests are my teacher, and here is a central lesson.
For decades, our family’s forest stewardship has strived to understand and practice reciprocity. Day by day, decision by decision, we work to convert the well intentioned concept into tangible, forest-shaping results. By reciprocity I mean succeeding in not taking more that we give. Ideally, our contributions to the forests outweigh the benefits that come to us. Our goal is to invest in creating regenerative conditions in the forest and the dependent human communities by putting the needs of the forest ahead of our desires to benefit from the forest. We do this in hopes of shaping and testing approaches to forest stewardship that work well for us and others, today and into the future. Though our results are far from perfect and we can point to plenty of mistakes that we’ve made, on the question of achieving practical reciprocity between us and the forests, I’m confident that we’re trend positive. While our experiments in practicing reciprocity have created upward trend lines in measures of forest vitality, productivity and resilience, they have also shown us a major barrier to progress standing between us and reaching our goals. True reciprocity, at scale, is only possible when there is genuine commitment to practicing reciprocity running all of the way from the forest to the wood’s end use – not only between the forest steward and the forest. Those harmonious relationships that we seek with forests only happen when all involved understand and practice practical reciprocity. Once again, experience with growing and selling wood over the past thirty years teaches me that this is a hard concept for most wood users to grasp, commit to and act on, often in spite of their best intentions.
A useful way to explore this is to clarify the distinction between partial reciprocity and full reciprocity. The former is the norm in our mainstream economy; the latter is what harmony between people and the rest of the world depends on. In the partial reciprocity that our family business works within, there is a strong commitment to practicing reciprocity between us and the forests, but too often a lack of understanding of or commitment to reciprocity through the chain from which the wood flows from the forest’s gate to the finished project. Driven by deeply ingrained business habits, the focus is not on balanced parity between what one takes and gives but on getting the best deal possible. As they’ve done for centuries, the sawmills pay us as little for the logs as they can in order to get the logs, and same from the lumber broker, to the lumber yard to the contractor all of the way to the finished project. The costs of partial reciprocity include our participating in exciting and publicly lauded projects but with the experience that those using our wood benefit don’t care about having a reciprocal relationship with us and our forests. It is hard for relationships to endure and grow when one partner takes more than they give. A related cost of partial reciprocity is that without full reciprocity the work we do fails to provide a viable model for promising ways to treat forests into the future, because it doesn’t pencil well enough to be the replicable model that we’re committed to it creating.
With full reciprocity, understanding and commitment is practiced in all parts of the system from the living trees to the finished structure, including every link in that chain. When home owners, contractors, architects, lumber brokers and processors look to the proven examples of reciprocal forest stewardship in our region and say “we like what they’re doing and want to use the wood coming from those forests”, in full reciprocity they each need to shape their relationships with the upstream links in the supply chain in ways that provide fair balance between what they get and what they give in return. Because it costs more to grow wood responsibly, the user should reasonably pay more and that premium must make it back to the forest. When this happens it will create the reliable and meaningful economic incentives that harmonious relationships between people and forests require. As an owner of a forest business, I see that the culture of partial reciprocity that we operate within has very limited potential for positive impact and that a central key to achieving our shared goals is understanding, committing to and – most importantly – practicing full reciprocity, the whole deal. “Are we there yet?” – We will know that full reciprocity in northwest forestry and wood markets has been achieved when the practices of those foresters who create truly reciprocal relationships with the forests become the most economically rational and desirable. When our land ethic is supported by an equally rigorous consumption ethic. When your involvement with a forest leave it with more options, resilience and adaptive rather than less. When conceptual commitment to reciprocity is solidly linked to practical and measurable applied practice, throughout the system. This exploration focuses on forests and wood, but conversations with fellow growers (farmers, fishers, ranchers...) show that the dynamics in their worlds are essentially identical.
The long, challenging and rewarding road of completing the first phase of the renovation of the Portland Airport taught those who are paying attention many lessons. Among those is verifying the genuine yearning that people in our region have for positive stories about the relationships between the people of our region and land. It also taught us that, in spite of good intentions, when it comes to wood, there is room for improvement in making the transition from partial reciprocity to the full reciprocity that we need. I hope that all involved feel good about both what was accomplished and about the ways that we better understand how the two-way flows of wood and resources between forests and projects can continue to be improved.
Participating in the celebrations related to the airport, brought to my mind the powerful and provocative question that Lewis Mumford posed to members of Portland City Club back in 1938. He commented and asked, in paraphrased form: “You live in a remarkably wonderful part of the world; do you have what’s needed to successfully live here – over the long haul?”. What is needed to meet Mumford’s challenge? As we each look to the future and compose our “to do” list, I hope that we will each add to our list the opportunity and need to better understand the meaning and practice of reciprocity. I also encourage as commitment to making the transition from partial reciprocity to full and strong reciprocity. For those of you who would like to see forestry in our region practiced with greater respect, humility, equity and commitment to reliable prosperity, please keep in mind that foresters can only do what you want us to do when you take responsibility for doing what we need you to do, practicing full reciprocity. I’m committed to and working on this transition, how about you?
