For the past several years Photographer Greg Kahn has been drawn to an archive of climate and ecological history that most people walk past every day: tree rings. “What looks like simple concentric lines inside a trunk is actually a precise natural ledger, recording fire, drought, saltwater intrusion, insect outbreaks, and shifting climate conditions year by year. This discipline, dendrochronology, has become one of our most revealing tools for understanding how forests have changed over centuries and how they might respond to the accelerating pressures of climate change.”
This personal project has taken Greg all over the country, learning more with every experience. “In the central and southern Appalachians, tree cores and cross sections show that before the era of aggressive wildfire suppression, forests burned every few years, maintaining open conditions vital for biodiversity. Out West and in the Southwest, tree rings are teaching us about drought patterns that stretch back more than a millennium, helping land managers see how current drought and warming compare with natural variability.”
This evolving project has not only satiated Greg’s curiosity about the true value of tree rings ecologically, but has also left him humbled in his new found perspective that trees are themselves storytellers. “Their rings contain a nuanced record of ecological processes that can guide conservation and restoration. This deep past gives us context for the changes we’re living through now and for strategies that might help forests become more resilient in an increasingly unpredictable climate.”
See more from the project below. For more of Greg’s work, visit his Workbook portfolio.
