I drank untreated river water. I drank a lot of it. I filled a water bottle for later. I knew it wouldn’t make me sick.

I could drink from the river because I was on the edge of an intact Argentinean forest. Whether by accident of neglect, harshness of climate, or beneficence of landowners, the forest was large enough, and natural enough, to clean the water falling on it and flowing through it to the quality of fine drinking water.

At home in the southeastern U.S. we have a very few patches of old growth forest. Many other forests were downed all at once years ago–where now trees born together in a few short years grow shoulder to shoulder. There are also monotonous rows of single species industrial tree farms. All of these woods are crisscrossed by roads. Only a small percentage of our woods are real, natural forests–places where trees germinate, grow, die, and rot on no particular human-imposed schedule in an area sufficient to withstand human impact and the random blows of nature. Our forests were and could be so much more. They could make drinkable water.

Real, intact forests clean water and air, provide with ease for the complex needs of wildlife, lift the spirit, and keep people healthy. They are not exclusive of people. Sheep and cattle roam, beer is brewed, firewood is gathered, furniture is made, and hikers wander in the Argentinean forest where I took my drink. But, real, intact forests aren’t excessively messed with—they don’t look “managed.”

In the early 1900s, protecting drinking water motivated creation of the National Forests of the Eastern United States on lands so burned and cut over that many pictures show not a single tree standing. Today real, intact forests are emerging on some of these same lands.

In 1972 the Clean Water Act passed as Congress envisioned an end to water pollution and restoration and maintenance of “the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters,” partially in response to the Cuyahoga River catching on fire. Today the Cuyahoga is designated a National Heritage River and supports dozens of species of fish where it supported none before.

Today’s challenge, taken up by Dogwood Alliance and others, is to build sustainable and responsible use of our forests so that they may reach their full potential. In twenty years, using virgin materials to wrap a sandwich, wipe up a spill, or scribble a note may seem as crazy as a National Forest without trees or a river burning in the
middle of a major city.

I’ll probably never drink directly from an Eastern U.S. river without worry, but maybe two generations down will, if we do right by our forests today.

Rachel Doughty

Ed. Note: Rachel is a member of the Dogwood Alliance program committee and an environmental attorney. She is currenltly on sabbatical traveling and working on a farm in South America.