This story was originally published by The Revelator. Subscribe to their newsletter.
The first time I was asked to explain why a forest was dying, I expected to face the most difficulty in diagnosing the problem. Instead I experienced an even more complex challenge — one my training had not prepared me to expect.
It happened during a field excursion in Denmark as part of my master’s program, where my cohort of forestry students and I were brought to a small-scale, family-owned forest. Denmark has experienced a steady increase in forest cover since the introduction of the Danish Forest Act in 1805, from roughly 2% to 15% over the past two centuries. Many landowners — like the ones we visited — have an incentive to convert agricultural lands into forests for harvesting timber, often growing North American conifer species that are in global demand.
I didn’t fully grasp it at the time, but having this historical, social, and economic insight would have been extremely valuable.
As we gathered amongst the uniform rows of declining, exotic trees, our professor stood beside the two landowners, an elderly father and son. He then addressed our small but eager group of graduate students and asked us a question, which in hindsight was far more consequential than intended: “Can you explain why their forest is not thriving?”
Our classes had armed us with silvicultural theory and ecological knowledge, so it felt obvious that the forest — recently established on former agricultural land using nonnative species — had become heavily infested with Heterobasidion root rot that would render the site severely compromised for at least this first generation of trees. Unbeknownst to the father and son, their forest had become unhealthy and would not be profitable within their lifetimes.
The science was very clear to us students. However, it was unclear how we were supposed to convey and contextualize this while standing across from the people who were suffering the inevitable consequences.
Within minutes the atmosphere shifted. What was meant to be an engaging and cooperative experience across landowners and scholars quickly became tense and uncomfortable as some of us quietly blamed the owners for making management choices that were irreparably harmful, not just for themselves but for the environment as a whole.
Other students sympathized with the owners, who had simply acted in accordance with generous subsidies provided by their government. As the tone of the conversation devolved further, I felt painfully conflicted and equally understanding of the two opposing sides. Still, no one asked the most important question: What did the landowners need from us?
I had hoped that a later discussion, or even a formal lecture, would follow this excursion, so that we could be equipped for similar situations in the future. My peers and I were left with many questions about what could be learned from that day, and how we might act in the future to support both forests and forest owners. Unfortunately, this dialogue never took place.
A Rift Between Science and Society
This story is not unique to one educational excursion. Across the globe, scientists must explain complex environmental realities to the people whose livelihoods, identities, cultures, and futures are tied to forests. Climate change, invasive species, and land exploitation all coincide with management approaches that have deeply social, political, and economic implications.
Despite our collective need to address each of these problems and their drivers, institutions frequently fail at translating decades of research into meaningful action. We have seemingly neglected a crucial step of the scientific method: dissemination and implementation.
At its core, this is a communication breakdown, and as a result public opinion suffers from distrust and misinformation.
Arguably, scientists and academics bear the immense responsibility of situating their knowledge within societal contexts and applications — especially in the forestry sector, where our actions (or inactions) today will materialize centuries into the future.
This rift reflects a deeper systemic issue in the natural and “hard” sciences. While it is apparent that environmental experts must approach today’s wicked problems through interdisciplinary thinking, universities lag behind these circumstances. Social sciences in particular are often treated as peripheral, rather than complementary, to empirical science.
As an advocate and student of science, I ask: Where policy is created and decision-making occurs, for either the betterment or destruction of the planet, is it in our best interest as a scientific community to avoid the human dimensions of our work?
Lessons Learned
After the field excursion, I began writing my thesis on bridging the youth-nature divide through forest education. Through my research, I came to understand how environmental progress requires us to connect scientific information with societal needs and values.
Much of this work can be advanced in universities, and even primary education, by equipping upcoming generations with both technical and soft skills for problem-solving. Practice in navigating conflict, training in creative thinking, and a learned appreciation for diverse knowledge systems must be mandatory learning outcomes for any student. As one person I interviewed articulated: “It’s about making the students empowered and resilient.”
From this perspective, my fellow forestry students would have benefitted from an educational approach that included social, political, and historical awareness alongside ecological knowledge.
To move beyond this knowledge-action gap, scientists must recognize integrated and iterative communication as essential to the research process. In practice, this means engaging nonscientists and adapting research outputs and public education in response to their feedback. For practitioners and citizens who care about our forests and a sustainable future, demanding accessible and sustained communication across sectors provides a promising pathway forward.
In hindsight, I wish I had invited the forest owners to share their personal goals, understanding, and challenges to provide a relational context for my technical diagnosis. I wish I’d had the foundation in social sciences that I do now. Maybe that more holistic toolkit would have allowed for a constructive dialogue centered around solutions.