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If These Trees Could Talk: How Trees Can Help Unlock Secrets of the Past
May 28 @ 5:15 pm - 7:00 pm
Trees have been around for close to 400 million years, which dwarfs our appearance at 300,000 years ago. This means that trees have seen way more than we have as a species; ranging from dinosaurs, ice ages, mass extinctions, drought, flooding, fire, and much more. When it comes to topics such as land use change and property research, trees show us multiple viewpoints of history.
This presentation will focus on the different ways a property was used and who may have visited over the years. I will demonstrate ways to identify and properly measure trees, calculate an estimated age, their different uses, and other indicators of local environmental changes.
The knowledge and research of this topic stems from a professional career as a land manager specializing in invasive species control and native species restoration in the hope to return various habitats back to how they naturally should be. During this work, finding out how the land was used in the past has been paramount to reversing the current state of local habitats. The more research that I do into an area, the better picture it paints of what the land looked like and it is this technique that I want to share in order to help others with their own research.