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Ecological Work is Also Social Work

Conservation movements such as the Matsutake Crusaders represent a collaboration between humans and nonhumans that rebuilds ecological and social relationships. By contributing to these acts of environmental conservation, the volunteers rediscover community, self-purpose, tradition, and hope.

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Rebuilding Communities and Connections

The collaborative work required to restore forests can help rebuild human communities and relationships that were once broken by modernization and alienation. Through shared hands-on work, participants can rediscover human connections and relationships with the forest, creating a latent commons. The Matsutake Crusaders, comprising of elders, young people, and children, are brought together during their time spent volunteering and at lunchtime gatherings. This forest work became a way to reverse alienation and mend people's relationships, not only with one another, but also with nature.

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Self-Identity

Individuals participating in forest work redefine themselves and their relationship to nature and their community, undergoing a mutualistic transformation. This collaborative work gives them a feeling of worth and makes them feel like they belong. Labor put into ecological conservation reshapes volunteers' sense of self-identity and their understanding of meaning.

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Tradition and Culture

By combining traditional farming practices with modern environmental work, volunteers keep their culture alive while fixing modern problems. Rather than rejecting tradition, volunteers value the ancestral knowledge, combining it with scientific methods to demonstrate a more-than-human collaboration. The Crusaders' work is not only about restoring the environment, but also restoring tradition.

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Collective Hope

By working together towards a common goal, the Matsutake Crusaders create a sense of hope where each person's participation encourages others. The uncertainty of whether the matsutake mushrooms will ever grow becomes a way to teach participants the value of collaboration and hard work over immediate success, embodying a sense of co-species being. Even with the possibility of never seeing the results, it doesn't stop people from participating, and it creates a deeper passion for this project.

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The matsutake mushrooms were once abundant in Japan's satoyama forests. These forests were tended to by farmers, which created the ideal environment for these mushrooms to grow. Rapid modernization and urbanization caused these satoyama to become abandoned, and the traditional forest practices were no longer common. By the 1970s, the Matsutake had become very scarce and extremely valuable. The Matsutake Crusaders are a volunteer group located in Japan dedicated to reviving the satoyama forests to hopefully bring the matsutake mushrooms back.

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Nature Should Be Left Alone

The idea that for nature to be healthy, it must be left alone and undisturbed is seen as a Western belief. They believe the best way to heal ecosystems is to remove human activity entirely. In New England, the lack of human disturbance allowed forests to flourish.

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Tsing utilizes "disturbance" as a positive, collaborative means of renewal for the environment. The participants controlled disturbances restore the forest and invite other biodiversity to return. In contrast, Western ideology sees disturbances as purely destructive and interfering with all biodiversity.

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"At lunchtime, the volunteers gathered for introductions, jokes, and a celebratory meal...Everyone was having fun and learning as they saved the forest." (Tsing 259).

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Alienation refers to the sense of social disconnection and purposelessness with the evolution of modernization, industrial labor, and the loss of community connections. Through shared labor in the community, participants replace isolation with a shared purpose and a sense of belonging, rebuilding their community through ecological work.

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"Satoyama work, volunteers explain, remakes the human spirit." (Tsing 262).

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"To rebuild themselves, citizens’ groups mix science and peasant knowledge. Scientists often take leadership roles in satoyama revitalization. But they aim to incorporate vernacular knowledge; here, urban professionals and scientists consult elderly farmers for their advice." (Tsing 263).

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"Yet, as one Crusader admitted to me, matsutake might not appear in his lifetime. The best he can do is disturb the forest—and hope that matsutake come." (Tsing 258).

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"...in American sensibilities, an 'abandoned forest' is already an oxymoron. Forests flourish without human interference. The greening of New England after its farmers moved West is a point of regional pride." (Tsing 259).

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Latent commons refers to the cooperation among humans and other species in disturbed environments. The Matsutake Crusader's community teamwork represents a latent commons as a social and ecological network is forged through care, labor, and collaboration.

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Mutualistic transformation refers to the change between humans and non-humans, where both are rebuilt through shared ecological disturbance. As the Matsutake Crusaders care for the satoyama, the forest begins to revive, while simultaneously. Participants discover a spiritual renewal and a sense of belonging.

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More-than-human collaboration refers to the recognition that humans are a part of a multispecies world, where other species, such as plants and animals, co-create environments alongside us. The satoyama restoration involves human efforts, but also depends on the cooperation of other biodiversity, such as soil, pines, and matsutake mushrooms.

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Co-species being refers to the shared existence between humans and non-humans, recognizing the mutual entanglement of species. The Matsutake Crusaders cannot make the mushrooms appear; they only grow under the right conditions. This demonstrates co-species being as each species depends on another to thrive.