PBS高端访谈:自然主义者带我们走进自然（在线收听）

JUDY WOODRUFF: And now tonight's Brief But Spectacular explores old growth trees and the natural history of Wisconsin's Northwoods. Author and naturalist John Bates takes us there. He's worked in the area for more than 30 years helping people understand the diversity and the beauty of nature and our place within it. Bates' most recent book is titled Our Living Ancestors.

JOHN BATES, Author, Our Living Ancestors: My interest in old growth took off in, oh, about 2003. I'd been walking in older forests, and found that they were quite rare and wondered why. Why did we cut so many down? They're a filter for air. They're a storage of carbon. They provide shade to our streams. I felt humility walking into these sites in a place where trees are 400 or 500 years old. I found myself feeling a deep gratitude that these trees were resilient enough to still be here. My job, as a naturalist, is to help people gain environmental literacy, so that they have a deeper understanding of place based on this enriched understanding of where they are. If you're standing under an old white pine here in Wisconsin that's 400 or 500 years old, you are standing underneath a tree that Native Americans had stood under. The trees are living tissue. They're not hardened amber. They're not footprints. They're not stories people have told with all the biases that we have as human beings. They're travelers through time. And standing next to them, you can get this feeling of time having taken place. And you can't find that in any other setting literally in the world. When you think about the history of Wisconsin, in 1830, we had our first census. There were 3,000 people. We became a state in 1848. And by 1870, there were one million people here. Every one of those people needed wood. And so we ended up cutting and then burning all of Northern Wisconsin. So, 99.8 percent has been cut. Rare to find a big white pine like this. This is a crown jewel of the Northwoods. Most of this land was sold on the dream of land that couldn't support farms. We have very poor soils, compared to Southern Wisconsin.

We also have this thing called winter, which lasts for five months. And we had almost no market. So, even if you could miraculously grow something, who were you going to sell it to? And so farmers went belly up. The land became tax-delinquent. And in the early '20s, 1930s, six million acres of Northern Wisconsin was made into public land, because we couldn't figure out what else to do with it. In my old age now, my job, as I understand it now, is to help people fall more deeply in love with the world. I can't think what else I'm here for. My name is John Bates, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on connecting time through old growth forests.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And that was beautiful. And you can find all of our Brief But Spectacular segments online at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：今晚《简短而精彩》的主题是老树和威斯康星州诺斯伍德的自然历史。作家兼自然主义者约翰·贝茨将带我们了解这里。他在该地区已经工作30多年了，他帮助人们了解自然的多样性和美丽，以及人类在自然中扮演的角色。贝茨最近的一本书叫《我们活着的祖先》。

约翰·贝茨，《我们活着的祖先》作者：我对年老生长的兴趣起源于2003年。我曾在古老的森林里穿梭，发现它们很罕见，于是我好奇其中的原因。我们为何要砍掉这么多的树呢？树木是空气的过滤器，储存着许多碳，为溪流提供荫蔽。我感觉到人类走进了这些地方，而这些地方的树大概有四五百年的历史了。我深深地感恩这些树木如此顽强，能一直坚持着。我作为自然主义者的职责就是帮助人们更了解环境，这样大家就能在充分地了解自己所在的环境之后就能更深切地了解一个地方。如果此时的你站在威斯康星州一棵有着四五百年的老五针松树下，那么这棵树可能也曾为许多本土美洲人提供过荫蔽。树木就是还活着的组织。树木不是变硬的琥珀，不是脚印，不是人们基于自己作为人类的偏见而讲述出来的故事。树木是时空旅客。站在树木旁边的时候，你可以感受到时间的变迁。这种感受是你在任何一个地方都无法感受的。回溯威斯康星州的历史，1830年，这里进行了第一次人口普查，那时候有3000人。1848年成立了威斯康星州。1870年的时候，这里有100万人。每个人都需要木材。最终，我们砍掉了树木，烧毁了整个威斯康星州。导致99.8%的树木被砍伐。那时候，很难见到这样一颗高大的五棵松树。这是诺斯伍德最珍贵的东西。这片土地的大多部分都卖了出去，但这里无法支持农场的运营。与威斯康星州南部相比，这里的土质很差。

这里也有冬天，冬天可持续数月。我们几乎没有任何市场。所以，即便你能奇迹般地种植什么东西，要卖给谁呢？所以农夫们都破产了，还欠了很多税。20世纪二三十年代时，威斯康星州北部600万公顷的土地都变成了共用土地，因为我们不知道这里还能做什么。现在我已年老，我现在对自然主义者的理解是：帮助人们更加热爱这个世界。我想不出我在这里的其他原因。我是约翰·贝茨，这是我本期带来的与通过古老森林来连接时间的《简短而精彩》。

朱迪·伍德拉夫：您的分享很精彩。其他期节目，可戳官网PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief。