9/20/2020 Tree planting is a rite of passage for young Canadians

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/tree-planting-rite-of-passage-young-canadians.html

© 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, © 2015- 2020 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

C U LT U R E PROOF

Tree planting is a rite of passage for young Canadians

“It’s an experience that is hard to put in words.” A photographer reflects on how the excruciating work prepared her
for a career covering conflict.
B Y L AU R E N C E B U T E T- RO C H E
P H OTO G R A P H S BY R I TA L E I ST N E R

PUBLISHED APRIL 22, 2019

Imagine waking up at sunrise in a camp a couple hundred of miles away from the nearest small town. Trek even further into the
wilderness until you reach a man-made clearing. Throw on gear that weighs roughly 50 pounds. Make your way through a steep and
treacherous terrain, bending down ever so often to tuck a spruce or fir seedling steadily into the ground. Continue until sundown.
Repeat the next day. And the next. And the next. For an entire summer, while insects feast on your exposed flesh. Such is the reality
of tree planting, a job that employs thousands of young Canadians every year.

“Everyday, you fluctuate between wanting to leave, and never wanting to leave,” says Rita Leistner, quoting Meghan Bissett a tree
planter. Leistner estimates she planted more than five hundred thousand trees during her twenties, between 1983 and 1994. “It’s a
combination of high intensity sport and skilled industrial labor. And, aside from the physical toll it takes—everyone is in pain—it’s
emotionally taxing. Isolation is a big challenge. Being alone with your thoughts all day can be dangerous. It can break you, but it can
also be transformative.”

Leistner has been among the thousands of young people who have spent the summer planting new trees in Canada, about a half
billion each year, more than half in British Columbia and Alberta. Lumber companies in Canada harvest large tracks of forest for
wood pulp and construction material. Nearly 90 percent of Canada’s forest are public owned and the law requires replanting because
of concerns that aggressive harvesting is not sustainable. So each year, thousands of young people spread out across Canada for the
summer restore trees and minimize the pace of deforestation. Critics question the impact of tree planting on the environment and
debate the effectiveness of restoration efforts.

For Leistner, tree planting was a pathway into photojournalism. She has spent the past two decades covering conflicts across the
world, with a focus on the Middle East. “When people ask me what helped prepare me for that dangerous profession, I always tell
them ‘tree planting’. It inevitably surprises them, since few know what the work actually involves.” (Read why illegal logging is more
violent than ever.)

This disconnect, a feeling of personal indebtedness and the desire to touch on the tensions at play in the logging industry prompted
her to return to one of her first employers, Coast Range Contracting in 2015, but this time as a photographer. Using a medium format
leaf shutter camera and a high speed flash carried by an assistant, she set out to make live-action portraits of the new generation of
tree planters that would elevate them to the realm of heroes.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/tree-planting-rite-of-passage-young-canadians/?cmpid=org%3Dngp::mc%3Dreferral::src%3Dflipboard::cmp%3… 1/3
9/20/2020 Tree planting is a rite of passage for young Canadians

The heavily-lit and extremely sharp images call to mind the dioramas often found in natural history museums, thus highlighting the
role these laborers play in the forest ecosystem. Subcontracted by the logging companies responsible for the devastation of the land
or by provincial or federal governments whose policies determine the scale of the extraction, tree-planters are inextricably tied to the
industry their back-breaking work is trying to mitigate. Though they work at a pace that seems incommensurate to the speed at which
trees are being felled. To freeze them mid-movement, as Leistner does, reinforces the impression that these “warriors of the land,
gods and goddesses of dirt”, as she calls them because of their impressive stamina and the environmental value of their toil, are
fighting against time.

Though technology might help speed up the restoration process, the tree-planter turned photographer wonders about the
implications of an automated process. On the one hand, it might just hasten the speed at which new forests are ready to be cut,
fueling an ever-growing consumption. And on the other, it further detaches the public from the realities of the logging industry.
(Watch how tree plantations are restoring Uganda's decimated forests.)

“Nobody spends more time in cutblocks than the tree-planters, not even the loggers who are just in and out in their machines. They
are witnesses to the destruction and know exactly what effort it takes to attempt to reverse it,” she says. That awareness, Leistner
believes, shapes their stance towards environmental policies. She points out that one of the representatives for Vancouver in the
Canadian parliament, Joyce Murray, as well as the Canadian ambassador to Columbia, a country facing heavy deforestation, were
tree-planters. Both are advocating for changes in forest management.

“It’s an experience that is hard to put in words. It’s deeply meditative, and an opportunity to commune with yourself and nature as
well as build deep bonds with other members of your crew through hardship,” describes Leistner. “But it’s also overwhelming. You
cry a lot. Still, at the end of the day, you can see that you’ve done something tangible. And so you return the next year, determined to
plant even more trees.”

      

THE BEST OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Sign up for more inspiring photos, stories, and special offers from National
Geographic.

Enter your email

By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to receive news, offers, and information from National
Geographic Partners, LLC and our partners. Click here to visit our Privacy Policy. Easy unsubscribe links
are provided in every email.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/tree-planting-rite-of-passage-young-canadians/?cmpid=org%3Dngp::mc%3Dreferral::src%3Dflipboard::cmp%3… 2/3
9/20/2020 Tree planting is a rite of passage for young Canadians

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/tree-planting-rite-of-passage-young-canadians/?cmpid=org%3Dngp::mc%3Dreferral::src%3Dflipboard::cmp%3… 3/3