Over the past few years, plastic ribbons have proliferated on tree branches in the PNW.
Orange, pink, blue – they’re fluttering in the wind and I’m curious about your views.
Maybe you use them, remove them, ignore them – or a combination?
Drive down any FS road in the N. Cascade or Olympic forests, you can’t miss them. There they are, adorning roadside trees. Often, they tell someone (or told someone long ago): “Turn here, down this spur road!” Many times, the tree doesn’t wear just one ribbon, but several – it's garlanded in a rainbow of colors, decorated by many people over time, burdened by plastic never removed.
More annoying, of course, are ribbons deep in the forest, next to hiking trails, serving a similar purpose.
And not just next to the trail, but off trail too – even in designated wilderness areas – presumably tied to a branch by someone who wants to return the same way, marking a path in a pathless wood, like Hansel’s bread crumbs. But unlike crumbs, plastic ribbons have a special talent for hanging on branches or scattering across forest floors for years, decades, longer. A perennial eyesore. An ecological menace.
Last autumn I came upon a group of USFS workers removing their own ribbons. Earlier in the season, they tied them to trees as a forest management tool. The ribbons had served their purpose. The workers were now collecting them “to be used again,” they said. Bravo, I thought, with a healthy dose skepticism.
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Please share your attitude about this ever-growing forest blemish. Have you seen more and more ribbons in your region too? Do you use them for LF work? If you see a ribbon, do you think “trash” and remove it? How do you determine if they should remain in place?
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