To the Editor:

I would like to thank Planning Director Kravitz for joining us at the Canyon 1 and Canyon 2 Old Growth Forests in Warwick last week. Arborist Matt Largess was there as well and was providing information on the forest and the different tree species that inhabited it.

Around us were large red and white oaks. In Canyon 2, the oaks grew up to 12 feet in circumference!

The dominant understory trees were American Hophornbeam and witch hazel. One of the most amazing things about this forest was the lack of invasive trees and plants, a sign that most of the forest has been undisturbed for a very long time. The native tree diversity also makes this forest unique.

Impressive, too, was how hardy these trees were, growing out of the rocks. One tree grew from a previous tree that fell down, and the new tree grew from the downed log of that fallen tree. There was hardly any underbrush, so the forest was easy to walk through. It is rare to find a wild forest in Rhode Island with lack of invasives and no underbrush due to the practice of cutting for forest management which causes invasives and underbrush to grow. Only by leaving the forest alone can the forest become old growth and develop old growth characteristics such as balding bark and lack of underbrush and invasives.

While walking through the forest, Matt spotted a creature he believed to be a bobcat. We also found some scat that we believe was left by a black bear. We knew then we were truly in the wilderness. Unfortunately, when we came across a tree Matt and I found earlier in the year that we called the Hobbit oak due to its gnarly appearance and which was probably 300-400 years old, we found it cut down. The giant stump that we measured to be 14 feet in circumference was all that was left of this ancient tree that could have been the oldest oak tree in Rhode Island.

It’s a sign we need to save these rare old growth forests because they could be gone tomorrow if we do not make efforts to protect them.

Nathan Cornell
Warwick Land Trust