Jeremy Turner loves trees, especially an old red pine that stands in the forest a few hundred yards from his house. There, each year, black bears stop to make their mark. They rub their shoulders against it. They scratch its bark with their long claws. 

On a recent spring morning and in the absence of bears, Mr. Turner demonstrates. He shimmies like an Ursus americanus rubbing its back against a tree while a handful of visitors look on in fascination.

“Walking with bears is what I like to do,” he tells them. “It’s kind of a sacred process.”

Mr. Turner may be part bear, but he is all forester. The old pine was one of the trees still standing after he cut others down to create a small opening in the forest.

The omission was not accidental. He and his wife, Laura French, are professional foresters. They live on 330 acres in the low mountains of southwestern New Hampshire, land that long ago was cleared for a hilltop farm, and then abandoned. In time, the forest reclaimed the land. 

Since they moved here 15 years ago, they have tried to harvest trees in a way that encourages the ecological diversity and complexity one might find in a much older forest. This includes not just trees but all forms of life, including plants and animals above the ground and below. 

“We’re trying to promote an enhanced level of diversity and complexity,” Mr. Turner says. “That’s going to create a healthier system. It’s also going to create a more dynamic system that can react to whatever is coming.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

“We’re trying to promote an enhanced level of diversity and complexity. That’s going to create a healthier system.”– Jeremy Turner (right), ecological forester in Unity, New Hampshire. He stands with his wife, Laura French, who is also a forester, at their 330-acre property, Stone Fence Farm.

This approach is part of a growing trend in American forestry. Like Mr. Turner and Ms. French, more and more landowners, foresters, and overseers of public lands are trying to manage forests with the aim of promoting the values of ecology, a branch of biology that’s the study of the vital connections among plants and animals in a given place, and not simply the economics of harvesting timber.

This new approach is rooted in efforts to reconcile what has long been seen as competing goals in American forestry: harvesting timber and protecting forests. Advocates recognize the need for wood products. But they say cutting trees down doesn’t have to diminish the forest. If done well, they say, it can make the forest better.

“Forestry for the last 100 years was based on the principle of sustained yield,” says Geoff Jones, a forester in Stoddard, New Hampshire, and former director of land management at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

“You don’t cut more than you grow in the year,” he says. “You’re not cutting your principle. It’s a good, valid concept, except it doesn’t take into consideration all the other things that take place in a forest that have to do with animals, birds, insects, mycorrhizae, fungi, biodiversity, all that stuff. 

“Ecological forestry looks at sustaining the ecological processes that sustain the yield of timber,” he continues. “It’s a subtle, but very significant, shift.”

Also known as “ecological silviculture,” these ideas also focus on helping forests recover from past abuse – which most forests in the United States have sustained, ecologists say. It also helps them adapt to what may be a bigger challenge: climate change.

Mr. Turner and Ms. French have practiced ecological forestry in different ways. They’ve cut some trees but left many others, including older trees that will live out their lives in the forest. They’ve left dead trees standing for the use of insects and birds, and allowed fallen limbs and trunks of trees to decay on the forest floor. They’ve created openings in their forest, trying to imitate natural disturbances that allow sun-loving trees and plants to grow and diversify the forest. They’ve left other areas undisturbed.

The couple have also cut species that are struggling because of global warming, such as spruces and sugar maples. They’ve spared “generalist” trees with the ability to adapt, like red oaks. They’ve planted acorns. Their goal, Mr. Turner says, “is to leave the forest better than we found it.”

And his clients? What do they think? “People are very much interested in this approach,” he says. “More so than ever.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

Alex Barrett, an ecological forester with the employee-owned company Long View Forest, counts rings on a recently cut tree trunk June 7, 2024, in Westminster, Vermont.

An old idea, newly embraced

Ecological forestry goes back to at least the 1980s, when Jerome Jackson, a prominent forest ecologist in Oregon, wrote an article in American Forests magazine calling for “a new forestry.” He described it as “a kinder and gentler forestry that better accommodates ecological values, while allowing for the extraction of commodities.” Mr. Jackson, who had grown up in a Washington mill town, says foresters should strive to “maintain the complex forest ecosystem, not just grow trees.”

Mr. Jackson was reacting to forestry practices after World War II, when the timber industry was cutting forests heavily to meet the demands of an expanding economy. He was also writing at a time of growing public concern about the environment, including about the endangered spotted owl. Conservation organizations like The Nature Conservancy were also growing in size and influence at the time. States were starting to adopt forestry rules.

Since then, the growing popularity of land trusts, timber certification programs, federal conservation grants, and carbon sequestration credits has offered new avenues for protecting and improving forests. 

Other trends are making it more difficult, however. In recent years the forest commodities industry has globalized and consolidated. As a result, industrial forestland in the U.S. – which is about 20% of the country’s forests – is now mostly owned by private investors, not by wood products companies. This has created greater economic pressure to maximize short-term shareholder profits.

“The investors I’ve talked to, they buy land knowing they’ll own it for five to eight years,” says Klaus Puettmann, a forest ecologist at Oregon State University. “You do things different if you think you’re going to own it five to eight years than if you’re going to own it 50 to 100 years.”

But ecological forestry has gained ground on public lands, including forests managed by federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management as well as state agencies like the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Small landowners, too, are embracing it. The U.S. has 800 million acres of forest, and about two-thirds of it is privately owned. Of this, more than half belongs to small landowners. Foresters say a new generation of these landowners cares less about income from forests and more about wildlife, recreation, and ecology.

Riley Robinson/Staff

A loader places recently harvested logs in the Long View Forest lumberyard June 7, 2024, in Westminster, Vermont.

Dr. John Bassi is one of them. He’s the medical director at St. Paul’s School, a secondary boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. Some years ago he and his wife took over responsibility for a 478-acre forest their family has owned in the Mink Hills of central New Hampshire. 

One of the first things Dr. Bassi did was to ask Mr. Turner’s company, Meadowsend Consulting Co., for a management plan. What he got was more than a dry accounting of species within it and the potential commercial timber it might have.

“It was a love letter to the forest,” Dr. Bassi says.

He recalled this happily as he strode up a rough logging road, his shaggy golden retriever Luca trotting alongside. Limbs of maples and beeches and other trees stretched over his head. Stands of hemlocks and spruce stretched deep into the woods.

Three years earlier, loggers had come in and cut a “little bit of everything,” he says. It was enough “to meet expenses.” They also cut small openings, and Dr. Bassi paused at some of them to survey the new growth. “It’s really greening up,” he says of one. He stopped to admire a big beech the foresters had left standing.

“They left a lot of oaks and birches, too,” he says. “That’s more for deer to eat.” Dr. Bassi is a hunter, and he hopes the new management plan will increase the number of animals in his forest – not just deer but also turkeys and bears. But what he liked most was how it reflected both his love for the forest and his sense of responsibility for it.

“I always think I’m steward of the land for just a short period of time,” he says. “What I’m trying to do is maintain it for the next generations.”

Cutting trees with restraint and care

In practice, this means cutting trees with restraint and care. Still, ecology has never been absent from the concerns of U.S. foresters. But advocates of ecological forestry say it has usually taken second place to economics. Traditional forestry, they say, has prized simplicity and regularity over ecological complexity. 

Its model has been agriculture. The most obvious examples are the pine plantations of the South or the Douglas fir plantations of the Pacific Northwest. But the agricultural approach has also led to the overharvesting and simplifying of other forests, they say. Landowners look for “even-aged stands” – sections of valuable trees of the same size that are more efficient and more profitable to harvest.

Riley Robinson/Staff

Forester Alex Barrett discusses the role of ecological forestry in his management of a forest in Westminster, Vermont, June 7, 2024.

Ecological forestry, they say, takes the forest itself as the model. Not necessarily what it was or is now, but what it might be. In practice, this means protecting streams, promoting carbon sequestration, and encouraging the continuity of forest life. It means increasing diversity and complexity across the forest, including trees of different species and different ages. It means fighting invasive species. Increasingly, it means responding to climate change.

Advocates of ecological forestry are using many strategies to do this. One is to nurture a variety of tree species in a forest and not just those most valuable on the timber market. In a mixed hardwood forest in southern New England, this might mean sparing black cherries in a forest where maples abound. In the Pacific Northwest, it might mean letting hardwoods grow in a conifer forest. 

“I find myself advocating things almost heretical,” says Mr. Jackson, the Oregon ecologist who remains a leading figure in forestry today. “We need to incorporate hardwood trees in our forest of Douglas firs. They’re much more conservative of water than evergreen conifers.”

But two strategies stand out. One is to preserve “biological legacies,” such as standing dead trees. Foresters call them “snags,” and they serve as hosts to fungi, insects, birds, and other forest life. Biological legacies also include living trees that are left to grow to maturity and old age. Old trees add to the continuity and genetic diversity of forest life above ground and in the soil. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

An eastern newt, or red eft, scrambles through the forest understory.

The second strategy is to mimic natural disturbance. Nature is not always gentle. Far from it. Disturbance and disruption are as much part of forest life as the slow growth of an old pine. In the West and Southeast, disturbance often means fire. In the Northeast, it more often comes in the form of wind and ice storms. These disturbances increase biodiversity by allowing new, sun-loving herbs and shrubs and trees to grow up even in the middle of a dense forest. Indeed, an old forest is not one thing but a mosaic of old trees and young, deep woods and sunlit openings, the product of long steady growth but also moments of small-scale destruction.

To imitate these disturbances, foresters cut small openings in the forest, sometimes called “patch cuts.” Patch cuts are not clean or neat. They are left scattered with standing trees, living and dead. They are often filled with the leftover limbs of trees that have been harvested. They’re a mess.

“It’s as messy as we can make it,” says Alex Barrett, a Vermont forester standing in a timber-strewn patch cut not far from the Connecticut River. 

It was a jumble only an ecological forester could love, full of downed trees and branches but with plenty of trees left standing, both living and dead. Mr. Barrett’s company, Long View Forest, had removed two loads of logs, mostly pine. “This is very nontraditional forestry,” Mr. Barrett says. 

The patch cut was a small opening in a much larger forest of pines and hardwoods, including oaks and maples. Some of the trees left standing had been spray-painted with a big blue G. These trees had been “girdled” with a chain saw and left to die. Others had been spray-painted with a blue L – the mark to “leave it be.” 

Riley Robinson/Staff

A spider sits on a tree that’s been “girdled” by foresters, a technique that kills the tree but improves forest biodiversity.

One tree marked with an L is a big ash. Foresters usually cut ash trees because an invasive insect, the emerald ash borer, is killing most of them. Leaving one alive was a gesture of hope.

“Hopefully we’ll get a bunch of ash seedlings out here,” Mr. Barrett says. 

A lot was happening already. A tiny eastern wood pewee, a bird that flourishes in forest openings, flits between trees still standing in the patch cut. A broad-winged hawk swoops past. Below, the ground shimmers with the delicate green of new foliage. Mr. Barrett drops to his knees to take a closer look.

Most of the delicate plants were seedling trees just getting their start. “This is birch,” he says, fingering the leaves of one. “This is a red maple,” he says of another. “This is rubus – it’s a blackberry.” Birds would love the blackberries, he says. Finally he rises to his feet.

“The more you stay here, the more you find,” he says. “Now that it’s wide open, it’s going to be a party.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Barrett visited another forest where a co-worker was marking trees for timber cutting. There would be no patch cut here. As in most forests, they would be cutting trees selectively, one here and there. The question was, Which ones?

As they made their way through the forest, pushing through ferns and underbrush, Mr. Brennan continued to mark various trees, reaching high to spray a long blue line across the trunk. Sometimes he paused to contemplate what should be done to them. He sprayed a forked red maple with old wounds, but left a bigger maple untouched.

“If you value purely economics, that tree gets cut,” Mr. Barrett says. They also left a tall, old white pine that soared above the forest canopy. Its presence suggested that an earlier forester had been thinking ahead, too. “This is a legacy tree that 40 years ago they didn’t cut,” Mr. Barrett says. “They were thinking of seed, thinking of the future.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

Forest technician Kyle Brennan uses blue paint to mark a tree for harvest in Grafton, Vermont.

“Let nature do its thing”

Interest in a “kinder and gentler” forestry is not limited to the U.S. Europe has a long history of efforts to find alternatives to clear-cutting and plantations. One that’s become popular in recent decades is close-to-nature forestry. This approach has aims that are ecological, but it’s more restrained than American-style ecological forestry. Instead of disturbance, it emphasizes continuous forest cover. Trees are cut sparingly, sometime just one per acre. Natural processes are valued above all. There’s no planting of trees, no using herbicides to kill invasive plants, no patch cuts.

James Gresh is a forester from Canton, Ohio, who practices close-to-nature forestry in the U.S. “Our objective is to move toward an old-growth structure,” he says. 

That means helping forests through what Mr. Gresh calls the “biodiversity trough” of middle age, the long swath of time over which a young, vigorous forest, full of different plants and trees, becomes an old forest with its complex interplay of life and death. “We kind of let nature do its thing,” he says.

Any ecology-based forestry must face the challenge of improving forests that have been radically altered. They may have been diminished by heavy cutting or cleared for farming or turned into plantations. But a bigger challenge may lie in the future: How can foresters help forests adapt to changes in the global climate?

Researchers are trying to address this challenge. In forests across the U.S. and in Canada, they are experimenting with different strategies to help forests adapt to changes already underway. 

In New Hampshire, Anthony D’Amato, an ecologist at the University of Vermont, is working with other researchers in the Second College Grant, a tract of 27,000 acres of forest owned by Dartmouth College. The college has harvested timber from it for more than two centuries.

Their experiments vary in intensity and scale. In some places, the forest has simply been thinned to let in more light. This encourages different tree species. In other places, small gaps were opened up, some as small as a tenth of an acre. In still others, large gaps were created. These were planted with a scattering of young trees that researchers hoped might fare better in a warming climate.

It’s a strategy known as assisted migration. The idea is that the climate is warming faster than forests can adapt to by themselves. They need help. 

Last year, a group of foresters from New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest came to the Second College Grant to see the experiments. Dr. D’Amato led them through the forest, showing them the thinning, the patch cuts, and the young trees that had been planted a few years before, each bearing a length of bright ribbon. He showed them a fallen, rotting log that was being studied for its moisture and fungal growth.

Riley Robinson/Staff

“The key to all of this is humility. We don’t know all the answers. We’re often proven wrong. But the magnitude of what we’re seeing [with climate change] is a call to action.”– Anthony D’Amato, ecologist and director of the forestry program at the University of Vermont

In all, researchers had planted nearly 5,000 trees, but only half are still alive. They include trees that grow in northern New England, but are uncommon in the Second College Grant. These included red oaks, black cherries, hemlocks, and bigtooth aspens. 

Others are species that normally grow farther south. These included bitternut hickories and American chestnuts. All had been planted to increase tree diversity and improve the odds that at least some would thrive in the new conditions.

This experiment in assisted migration intrigued the foresters especially. They wanted to know more. But Dr. D’Amato, who had co-authored a well-known textbook on ecological forestry, urged caution. He told them that helping forests respond to climate change was more complicated than just introducing trees from farther south. 

“It’s really a small part of what we’re doing with adaptation,” he says. The aim was diversity of all sorts. Researchers had already learned that assisted migration was trickier than planting new trees. Spells of warmer weather in late winter, a phenomenon not unexpected with climate change, had been followed by hard frosts. The cold had killed some of the trees from the south. 

“The key to all of this is humility,” Dr. D’Amato tells the foresters. “We don’t know all the answers. We’re often proven wrong. But the magnitude of what we’re seeing is a call to action.”

For the birds, blueberries, and bears

Each spring for the past three years, Mr. Turner and Ms. French, the forestry couple, have hosted nature lovers at their home for a morning of bird-watching, tree gazing, and forestry chatting. It’s a chance to show off their forest and the life it holds. To them and others, a variety of birds signals a deeper richness of forest life.

This past spring, the day started early. Cars began pulling up around 5 a.m. Those who had camped overnight crawled out of their tents. It had rained the night before, and many were dressed in rain pants and knee-high rubber boots. Mr. Turner had been up since 4:30 a.m. “Our species count is pretty high here, so I’m pretty excited to see what we find,” he told a group of about 35 guests. 

The couple bought the land in 2009. They called it Stone Fence Farm after the stone walls that ran through the woods, a reminder of the previous tenants and their sheep. They built a pole barn, a house, a shed, and a sugarhouse for making maple syrup. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

Peggy and Mike Stowe, from Essex, Vermont, look for birds at Stone Fence Farm in Unity, New Hampshire, June 8, 2024.

Mr. Turner pointed out some of it. Near the house, where the best soil lay, they had opened a large area for a garden, a grove of fruit trees, and a meadow. They had left what he called a “soft edge” at the periphery, a broad strip of young trees and scrubby vegetation between the meadow and the forest where they were letting anything grow that could. Leading his guests into the forest, he called attention to splotches of light illuminating the underbrush. 

“The canopy is open,” he says. “Isn’t that cool?” The light would allow new species to grow up. He admired thickets of balsam fir and the pale green sprigs of new growth at the tips of their branches. “They’re yummy to chew on, very high in vitamin C!” he exclaims, popping a branch tip into his mouth.

They heard and saw birds of all sorts, including swallows wheeling over the open meadow and bluebirds sitting on fence posts. They listened to red-eyed vireos sing from deep woods, and the calls of a furtive hermit thrush. They watched a black-throated blue warbler shoot through the underbrush, springing up to pluck a tiny green worm off a branch. 

Matt Tarr, the state wildlife specialist for the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, has been a regular guide at these events. He lamented the long decline of birds in American forests, but he was impressed with the variety of birds he saw at Stone Fence Farm. He says it reflected the care with which Mr. Turner and Ms. French had managed the forest.

“It’s a fantastic model for how private landowners and communities can manage a forest in a way that allows them to grow timber sustainably while also promoting a diversity of high-quality habitat for a variety of wildlife species,” Mr. Tarr says. “Anybody can go in and cut trees down.”

For his part, Mr. Turner seemed to delight in anything that grew or moved. He spotted deep prints in the mud. “Fresh moose tracks!” he hollered. He glimpsed a yellow butterfly flutter overhead. “Swallowtail!” he called out. He stopped to watch a tiny amphibian, glowing phosphorescent orange, scamper across the track. “Newt crossing!” he shouted.

Near the old red pine, he explained that they had cut trees to make an opening, and then arranged for a small controlled burn. 

“We were trying to get some herbs and blueberries back,” he says. And the blueberries? “I let the bears pick them.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a misclassification. Newts are amphibians.

Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Supporters of presidential candidate Kamala Harris react as she holds a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Aug. 6, 2024. She embraced a theme of joy that resonated with many in the crowd.

College students Andrew Muth and Aaliyah Dittman drove six hours across Pennsylvania to attend a Kamala Harris rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “We had to,” says Ms. Dittman, shrugging and smiling. The next morning, they left at the crack of dawn to make it back to their summer jobs by 11 a.m. 

The two students are board members of Pennsylvania College Democrats, and they’re gearing up for an intense fall. They and fellow volunteers were resolved to do their best to reelect President Joe Biden, but when he stepped aside and endorsed Vice President Harris to be the Democratic nominee, they say their jobs became instantly easier.

“It was hard to get college voters excited about Joe Biden, the person,” says Mr. Muth. “It was easier to make college voters scared of Donald Trump.” Now, with Ms. Harris leading the ticket, volunteers like Mr. Muth and Ms. Dittman say they can lean on positives about the vice president to engage young adults in the election while still pointing to Mr. Trump as a threat to their priorities. “We’re fired up; we’re knocking on doors.” 

Democrats are encouraged by the sudden groundswell of enthusiasm from Generation Z and millennial voters. Supportive posts are flooding social media, campaign volunteers have skyrocketed, and polls indicate rising support in that bloc. The nonpartisan Vote.org reports that in the first 48 hours after Mr. Biden’s withdrawal, daily voter registrations increased sevenfold, nearly all of them by people under age 35. It’s a development that, in a tight race, could tip the election in the Democrats’ favor. But as always, the question is whether these indications will translate into votes.

Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor

Aaliyah Dittman (right) and Andrew Muth, board members of Pennsylvania College Democrats, drove six hours to attend the Harris rally in Philadelphia, Aug. 6, 2024.

“Enthusiasm at this stage is an important first step. But there are many steps that need to be taken to get young adults to the ballot box on election day,” says Elizabeth Matto, acting director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University. 

Youth vote “pivotal” in swing states

It’s still too early to know how young voters will affect the election, she says, but “especially in swing states, every vote is going to count and the youth vote will be really pivotal.” 

Pennsylvania, where Ms. Harris closed Mr. Biden’s gap with Mr. Trump to tie the state according to the Republican candidate’s own pollster, is ranked fourth in one estimate of states where young voters are the most likely to shape 2024 election results. Ahead of the Keystone State are swing states Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.

While young voters are not a monolith, they tend to lean more left than right. In the 2020 election, 61% of young voters opted for Mr. Biden and 37% for Mr. Trump. In recent years, however, young men have shifted right. This spring, Mr. Biden’s lead over Mr. Trump was just 6 points among young men; in 2020, he was up by 26 points with that group. Until late July, young adult support for the Democratic ticket, at the time led by Mr. Biden, was waning. 

But that was before Ms. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, rose to top the Democratic ticket. 

At their rally Tuesday at Temple University, she described herself and Governor Walz as “two middle-class kids” who made it to the heights of U.S. politics. The capacity crowd waved glowing bracelets and danced to Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and ABBA. While Mr. Biden’s campaign emphasized the importance of beating Mr. Trump and defending democracy, the Harris campaign has pivoted to a more future-focused message. Distinctly, she’s embraced a theme of joy – something her running mate joined in when he called the vice president a “joyous leader.”

Devon Spiva, a law student at the rally, says he’s headed out to canvass for the Harris-Walz ticket this weekend. There’s a “world of difference” when it comes to interest in the election now compared with a month ago, says Mr. Spiva. Friends who weren’t going to vote now plan to, he says. 

Some young Pennsylvanians would have voted for Mr. Biden but didn’t want to volunteer for him. Maya, a rising college senior, fits that bill. Excited by the momentum behind Ms. Harris and her approach to policy, Maya, who wanted to use only her first name, now plans to volunteer for Ms. Harris. So do some of her friends, she says.

Joe Lamberti/AP

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, speak at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.

Issues also matter

Maya likes Mr. Biden’s domestic policy, which Ms. Harris mirrors, but not his foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. She’s optimistic about Ms. Harris’ stance so far, but is watching to see how it develops. 

Young people are more motivated by the issues that matter to them than they are loyal to a particular party, says Ruby Belle Booth, a researcher on the youth vote at Tufts University. Their priorities don’t differ much from those of the Democratic electorate as a whole. For both groups, the economy is still a top issue, followed by gun violence, reproductive rights, and climate change.

“This campaign, our campaign, is not just a fight against Donald Trump,” Ms. Harris told the crowd. Instead, she continued, “we fight for a future with affordable housing, affordable health care, affordable child care, paid leave.” And it’s a future, she said, with freedom from gun violence and government interference in a woman’s decision about what to do with her body. 

Youth organizations are mobilizing 

Over the past several weeks, organizations focusing on outreach and activation of younger voters have seen a combination of interest from first-time volunteers and renewed energy from current volunteers.

Students have been reaching out to Pennsylvania College Democrats, asking how to start local chapters, and friends are excited, looking for opportunities to get involved.

Mr. Biden has a long list of progressive achievements, but he “had trouble communicating them,” says Mr. Muth, the group’s communications director. “Harris can take credit and communicate them effectively.”

As he and Ms. Dittman, both from towns in rural Pennsylvania, juggle summer jobs and the start of the fall semester, they’re also launching a training program for volunteers that will include a focus on rural outreach. “Gen Z was on the sidelines in 2016, for the most part,” says Mr. Muth, who wasn’t of voting age then. He doesn’t see that this year, though.

Translating enthusiasm into action is where campaigns, college campuses, and organizers come in, all playing vital roles to help young adults navigate hurdles unique to them. Some may be first-time voters, unaware of things like early registration deadlines. Others may live in rural areas, far from polling places or outreach organizations. Many move frequently and may not know they need to update their registration.

Voting patterns in 2020 may have been the exception that proves the rule. The year saw historic young voter turnout, aided by pandemic efforts to make voting easily accessible, especially by mail, says Dr. Matto.

“No candidate, no campaign, no organization that cares about politics should take the youth vote for granted,” she says. “Young adults still need the support, the mobilization to get them to the ballot box.”

Fernando Green sits on a pile of plywood in a new barn on a humid Mississippi Delta afternoon. The barn will be a center for students like his daughter to get a feel for local jobs in agriculture. There’s school swag for the incoming middle schoolers. A petting zoo with a baby alligator is off in one corner while boys throw a pigskin around in the back.

A Mississippi Delta native, Mr. Green hardly breaks a sweat in the nearly 100-degree Fahrenheit heat. “You get used to it,” he says with a friendly chuckle. He looks out with a glint in his eyes on the grounds of a middle school that used to house his revered high school: East Side. That took getting used to too, he admits.

But a recent effort by a parent group looking to heal divides and counteract disinvestment has locals like Mr. Green excited to be back at their alma mater. Using donated lumber and dollars, the parents are fighting not only for their children’s future but for their town’s as well. And, they say, they are showing that progress is possible, even in a place where tourists come to see the past captured in amber. 

“When you’re backed into the corner, sometimes you’ve got to fight,” says Todd Davis, a professor at the town’s own Delta State University in an interview with The Monitor. “I’m not fighting for some grand mission … I just want my kids to go to a nice school. ... Every kid should have that option … And if no one else is going to do something, then I will.” 

Leonardo Bevilacqua/The Christian Science Monitor

Fernando Green and his wife, Tonya Green, with Wolfpack gear, are ready for the upcoming school year and their daughter’s entrance into the middle school, in Cleveland, Mississippi, May 17, 2024. Mr. Green is an alum of East Side High School, which is where Cleveland Central Middle is now located.

Dr. Davis joined with Kierre Rimmer, a Cleveland native and coordinator at the Family Treatment court, to fight disinvestment in Cleveland public schools. The duo, along with community partners, LaKenya Evans, Clare Adams Moore, and Rori Eddie Herbison, helped found the group, Friends of Cleveland School District (FOCSD).

In a 2016 high-profile court-ordered integration, Cleveland School District’s two middle schools and high schools were ordered to merge. Some 63 years after Brown v. the Board of Education, Cleveland became the last district in the United States to desegregate in 2017. The historically white high school became the consolidated high school, and the historically Black high school became the site of the consolidated middle school. The district’s football team was rechristened the Wolves in purple and white. 

The following autumn, over 100 white parents pulled their children out of public school – as locals of all races had predicted.

That, locals interviewed say, is why residents both Black and white sought to block integration, to the consternation of mainstream media outlets and policy watchdogs. Many in town feared that court-ordered desegregation would inspire a massive white flight in the last town in the Delta to have a sizable white population still enrolled in the public schools.

And, those interviewed say, the reality on the ground was different than in the headlines. By the time of consolidation in 2017, enrollment at Cleveland High and Margaret Green Junior High, the historically white schools, were roughly 50-50 when it came to race. In 2013, parents were granted the freedom to choose which high school to send their children to.

With students arriving for their first day Aug. 5, administrators are still waiting on a final head count for the 2024-2025 academic year. Last year, 243 more students joined Cleveland public schools, the first time the district wasn’t losing students since consolidation.

Resegregation in public schools has surged not just in Mississippi, coinciding with the popularity of charter schools and voucher programs. The number of schools categorized as intensely segregated – with over 90% nonwhite student bodies – nearly tripled from 1998 to 2021, leading to poor funding and teacher shortages.

Fundraising for public schools 

Friends of Cleveland School District has secured $30,000 worth of paint, timber, and appliances from the likes of Fleming Lumber Company and other regional and local businesses. They’ve raised roughly $250,000 for the school from grants and fundraising efforts.

Courtesy of Todd Davis/File

Kierre Rimmer (left), Rori Eddie Herbison, LaKenya Evans, Todd Davis, and Claire Adams Moore stand in the burgeoning garden of Cleveland Central Middle School, in Cleveland, Mississippi, Dec. 13, 2023. They form the executive board of Friends of Cleveland School District, a nonprofit composed of local parents and community members looking to save the town’s school district.

This is a little less than the roughly $300,000 that leaves the district each year with the 300 or so students that depart for private school or other towns, after the neighborhood-zoned and magnet elementary schools cut off at sixth grade.

It helps that Cleveland has a middle class. Quality Steel, Baxter Healthcare, a luxury hotel, a local university, and a downtown with boutiques and coffee shops offer families comforts unknown in the rest of the Delta. 

“The narrative is that the kids are good on it, but the adults are still figuring things out, finding a common definition of equality and fairness,” remarks Mr. Rimmer from his home in the heart of Cleveland. “It’s nice to have traditions, but we need to think outside the box, not to focus on personal beliefs or politics and just do what’s best for our kids.”

Dr. Davis is building planters for a school garden on a warm April afternoon, putting the raised funds to use. Students will get a chance to grow okra, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes – a reflection of the local agricultural economy.

“It’s still the big industry in this area,” remarks Dr. Davis, who at roughly 6 foot, 5 inches tall looms over the burgeoning garden in cargo shorts and a Coast Guard tee.

He leans his shovel against the barn and wipes a glob of sweat off his brow. He lends his green thumb during breaks in between teaching classes at the local university.

Students have joined the garden club by the dozen, learning the power of civic mindedness with hands deep in world famous Delta dirt. The garden “allowed us to make new friends that we otherwise probably would not have made,” says seventh grader Michael Vardaman. With a newfound appreciation for community projects, he looks forward to more afternoons in the outdoor classroom.

“I can take what I learned and use it in my life. Showing the community what I’ve learned is very rewarding work … and [so is] doing something nice for our school,” says Katuri Jackson, a classmate of Michael’s.

“The school is the only thing we all share as a town”

Parent volunteer Stephen Chudy is tall and burly with a firm handshake and a warm smile beaming beneath a trucker hat. He’s here for one reason.

“I gave my daughter the choice, here or the independent school. She chose here. Fine by me. She’ll get to be around all different kinds of kids like there is out there in the world. It’s realistic,” says Mr. Chudy, who is digging an irrigation path with ditches for the school’s many green stretches on a molasses thick morning. 

“There’s an understanding that the school is the only thing we all share as a town,” he adds. “It’s a small place. We all go to the same McDonald’s and Walmart too … but those are massive corporations.” 

Other parents, like Leroy Cotton, a longtime administrator in the district, feels that Cleveland has long been an exception to the Delta. It is known for camaraderie across racial lines unseen in his native Tallahatchie County, he says, where white neighbors put up fences. 

Still, he doesn’t understand why so many of his neighbors choose Bayou Academy, a local independent school, for their kids. That school was founded as a segregation academy in 1964, he says, and has a less than stellar reputation academically. He wonders why people opt for it over the public school. 

Some white parents cite the move because of less opportunities for their kids to play football, and dysfunction that is inevitable to a structural change this large.

“If we build this, they’ll come”

Cathy Sparks, the middle school’s new principal, walks toward the track and bleachers. The district’s annual Special Olympics is underway with athletes competing from the eight schools. It was an action packed day for the intrepid school leader. This was another milestone reached.

Courtesy of Todd Davis

Students pet alligators at the Friends of Cleveland School District open house for incoming middle schoolers at Cleveland Central Middle School, May 17, 2024, in Cleveland, Mississippi.

Ms. Sparks was a long time teacher at the district’s magnet school. She initially wasn’t sure she’d be up for the challenge of principal. Now, though, she’s determined.

“If we build this, they’ll come,” she says. “That’s always been my approach. I’m of strong stock. It’s just in me. I won’t be defeated.” 

Other teachers steer young boys and girls in wheelchairs toward the red starting line or to the concession stand, where the town’s Junior Auxiliary is passing out cola, chips, and chicken. An off-duty police officer works the grill. Here is a community school in action.

“I was retired. And they called me back,” says Lisa Bramuchi, Cleveland School District’s new superintendent, standing near the stands where she banters with students. “I’m already seeing some progress. Some parents who left are coming back. They see how nice we’re making it. ... And I’m not saying it’s because of me, but I’m saying all the things that they see us doing in the community.”

She had just announced a $4 million dollar lighting upgrade as well as a new A/C system for the school via Facebook, a boon for community organizing. Retirement will have to wait.

Progress is possible in a place two hours from the closest airport, residents of Cleveland say. And they are determined to be loud about it. 

“To change this ... you have to be loud and brash about every accomplishment,” says Dr. Davis. “Why should I be ashamed or embarrassed for being loud and brash? ... By God, we all live here. This is one community. It’s all we’ve got. We can make it nice or rot.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify the name of the mascot. It is the Wolves. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under growing pressure to create jobs, particularly for India’s educated youth.

After months of rising unemployment and higher-education scandals, some young Indians say they’re losing faith in getting ahead through merit. And some opposition leaders say India could be heading in the same direction as Bangladesh. 

Neighboring Bangladesh has been wracked by weeks of violent protests, led by students frustrated by limited job prospects. Both India and Bangladesh face persistent unemployment and inequality despite overall economic growth, and until this week, both were run by long-ruling prime ministers who’ve been accused of authoritarian practices in recent years.

“What happened in Bangladesh … has given a message to people in power,” said Uddhav Thackeray, former chief minister of Maharashtra, after Bangladesh’s prime minister fled the country. “Don’t test the patience of people.”

Mr. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has described such comments as incendiary and even anarchist, and political analysts note there are important differences between India and Bangladesh, including the former’s size and sprawl. Nevertheless, jobs are a major part of Mr. Modi’s platform; his government’s recently proposed budget includes $24 billion for job creation over the next five years.

“The situation [in Bangladesh] does put pressure on the government to address the employment issue more carefully, which they have not been doing effectively,” says economist Arun Kumar, who calls the budget announcement “more of a show.”

But for him, watching both countries grapple with similar issues highlights the relative strengths of India’s democracy. Compared with Bangladesh, where the opposition boycotted the most recent elections citing political suppression, India has a robust opposition and more freedom for dissent.

Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto/Reuters

Students from Aliah University hold up posters as part of a demonstration in Kolkata, India, July 22, 2024, demanding an end to government crackdowns against protesters in neighboring Bangladesh.

“In Bangladesh, a combination of factors created an explosive situation, something that has not yet occurred in India,” says the retired Jawaharlal Nehru University professor. “While unemployment in India is acute and the youth are frustrated, there are still avenues for expression.”

Employment crisis on the brink?

Unemployment has exceeded 5% every month this year, reaching an eight-month high of 9.2% in June before dipping to 7.9% in July, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. This was a key issue for voters during India’s recent general election; a prepoll survey by the Delhi-based Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies found that 62% of respondents believed finding a job had become harder compared with five years ago.

It’s a burden young people feel acutely. The India Employment Report 2024, released by the International Labour Organization and the Institute for Human Development in March, found that India’s youth comprise nearly 83% of the unemployed workforce. The proportion of unemployed youth with secondary or higher education nearly doubled, from 35.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022.

Mr. Modi’s supporters have dismissed this data as misleading. BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam said at a recent press conference that India is a leader in job creation, citing the latest Reserve Bank of India report, which states that 50 million jobs were created in 2023-24 alone.

International Monetary Fund Executive Director Krishnamurthy Subramanian has also pushed back on the idea that young people are unhappy with India’s job market. “There is no doubt that we need to create more jobs, that is because we are a young population,” the former chief economic adviser told The Quint this week. “But just because there is an emphasis on employment and job creation does not mean in a binary manner that jobs are not being created. … That’s important to keep in mind.”

Indian economist Jayati Ghosh accuses the Modi government of manipulating data to meet political objectives. She describes the unemployment crisis in India as “waiting to explode,” citing a jobless growth economy where the gross domestic product increases but the employment rate does not. 

She says students sell family assets and take loans to obtain degrees and diplomas, “only to find that there are no jobs available for the 10 [million] to 15 million graduates” entering the workforce each year. And this year, that desperation was exacerbated by cheating scandals that disrupted India’s extremely competitive undergraduate and postgraduate entrance exams. 

Sahiba Chawdhary/Reuters

Advertising boards display institutes offering training to help young Indians secure desirable government jobs in Prayagraj, India.

Trust wanes in exam system

Arpna Mishra is preparing to take one of the biggest exams of her life – again. 

In late June, Dr. Mishra made the hours-long bus ride to Chandigarh, India, where she was scheduled to take the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for postgraduate medicine. But when results from the undergraduate version of the NEET showed an unusually high number of perfect scores and other signs of exam tampering, the National Testing Agency was forced to cancel her test the night before, derailing the plans of more than 228,000 candidates. 

“When corruption or controversies like this occur, it puts our degrees at risk,” says Dr. Mishra, who currently works in a government hospital but hopes to secure a better job by specializing in her field. “No doctor wants their qualifications questioned. … It’s disheartening.”

The scandal and subsequent investigations resulted in over a dozen arrests across states, the removal of the testing agency chief, and weeks of uncertainty for more than 2.5 million test-takers.

This isn’t the first time government-run exams have been caught in cheating scandals, and though Dr. Mishra’s exam was eventually rescheduled to Aug. 11, the incident has further eroded trust in India’s higher education system. 

Students’ “distrust is fueled by experiences where they’ve seen examinations being manipulated and rigged,” says Professor Apoorvanand Jha, an Indian political academic and author. Still, many see the NEET as their only chance to succeed – an environment that, in turn, encourages cheating. 

“There is so much unemployment that students even bribe officials to clear such tests,” says Vishal Kumar, who is jobless after finishing his bachelor’s degree in commerce and marched with other students last month demanding the resignation of India’s education minister. “The government needs to control it by strengthening the laws.”

Covering the 2024 Paris Olympics has been the best assignment of my career. I haven’t run one race, dribbled a single ball, shot an arrow, or soared over any hurdles like the thousands of athletes who competed here in Paris. But like them, I stayed in the moment and tried to grab slices of the world they created through competition at venues throughout this beautiful city.

Athletes train for years to get here. They maintain strict diets, keep odd hours, spend countless amounts of money training, and as we have seen in these games, sometimes endure painful injuries to perform for the world. They know nothing is guaranteed. I tried to bring the same energy and dedication as the Monitor’s correspondent.

I crisscrossed the Seine River by train and foot every day, taking notes as fast as I could about the atmosphere in the Bercy Arena as Team USA women’s gymnastics recaptured gold in the team all-around competition. And like audience members, I marveled in surprise when the men’s team broke a 16-year drought and won bronze.

It got so hot at Eiffel Tower Stadium while journalists jotted down notes and took pictures from the press box as Team USA’s beach volleyball team beat France in straight sets that a stadium volunteer sprayed us down with water. That experience, I wasn’t fond of. After the women won, I stayed to watch a men’s game between Chile and the Netherlands, when the sky opened up and sent me running toward the press center to type up my notes.

Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Simone Biles of United States in action on the balance beam during the Women's All-Around Final at Bercy Arena in Paris, Aug. 1, 2024.

Just like the weather, my experience in Paris has been unpredictable. There were ridiculously loud arenas, like La Defense, where swimmers literally soaked in the chants of their countrymen to win gold, silver, and bronze. I looked on with great empathy as unsuccessful athletes cried after falling short of their goals. The opening ceremony was a soaker, but worth more than three hours in the rain to watch brilliant French performers and athletes on ships sail by, waving hands and flags at onlookers.

I saw indelible moments get sketched into history books at Stade de France, as only racing feet can do, while the world gaped in awe at the speed of contests decided in seconds. Witnessing these feats filled my imagination with themes for stories to write. Perseverance, resilience, and bravery are just some of the words that come to mind. Or trendsetter, like Simone Biles. The best gymnast in the world couldn’t complete a majority of events in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, partly because of mental health issues, which she has spoken openly about both before and at these games. Even here, she shied away from the village where athletes are housed, because the pressure gave her anxiety. By putting herself first, returning to her sport, and dominating, she set the new standard that all athletes can follow.

Thursday night, I watched one of the best games that I have ever witnessed in person as Team USA men’s basketball survived a scare from Serbia. The U.S. trailed all game by as much as 17 points. With less than 5 minutes left, they stormed back, intensified their defense, and fed the cheering crowd, who in return propelled them to victory. Team USA will next face France in the finals. This win is the embodiment of what the Olympics are. One shot to prove yourself and leave it all on the court. I bet the more than 16,000 fans in the Bercy Arena will remember this forever. I will.

I can’t play sports as well as any of the 10,500 athletes who competed in Paris over these two weeks. But I sought to bring a similar rigor and commitment to long hours when presenting this experience to Monitor readers. When readers look back at the first post-pandemic Olympics, I hope they notice the variety that we thought about in our presentation. I hope they can see the trends that we picked up on, like this being the first Olympics where there was gender parity, with about equal numbers of men and women athletes and equal medals up for grabs.

Natacha Pisarenko/AP

The Eiffel Tower is lit in the rain in Paris during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 26, 2024.

My one wish is that I could have covered more. I wish I could have somehow visited all 35 venues where Olympic competitions were held – with backpack, water bottle, computer, digital recorder, and notebook in tow – and meticulously played back for readers every drop of sweat, fist pump, or cheer.

This was my first visit to Paris, but you better believe I’ll be back. My wife, son, and daughter came with me, so we got a chance to create some family moments with the scenic Parisian landmarks as our background. It was the perfect blend of building a life and a career for me, and hopefully teaching my children to allow their lives to expand by having courage and taking chances. This was the first trip out of the country for my children, who anxiously wondered what tasty food would be served on our flight. In Paris, I have smiled at them trying desperately to grasp at the language and greet strangers on the subway, at restaurants, and in playgrounds.

I walked all over this city, until my feet hurt. I tried to absorb as much as I could, from gazing at the fading salmon-colored sun I could see in the Arc de Triomphe to dancing outside Paris City Hall. I absolutely ate excellent crepes and baguettes, but also delicious doro wot from an Ethiopian place in my neighborhood, a great Vietnamese bahn mi, and incredible Lebanese food. The R&B group The Whispers released a song in 1972 that sums up how I feel about the City of Light. It goes: “I said I only meant just to wet my feet / But you pulled me in where all the waters of love run deep.”

I love you, Paris. I only meant to come here, work, and put my stamp on these games – to take the job that was entrusted to me seriously. But I fell hard for you. Merci!

Reuters

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who was recommended by Bangladeshi student leaders as the head of the interim government.

In just four days, two groups in Bangladesh – student protesters and the army – have pulled off something remarkable in the South Asian nation. They forced a longtime autocrat to flee and ushered in a broadly accepted transitional government. What happens now depends in part on a man chosen to restore democracy: Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

He got off to a good start by pleading for an end to all violence and putting together a diverse interim Cabinet. If he can provide a quick path to credible elections, he will have laid the groundwork for an inclusive, secular rule in a region lacking models of healthy democracy.

An innovator in antipoverty approaches, Dr. Yunus argued that a stable democracy depends on creating grassroots entrepreneurs. Fifty years ago, as a young professor of economics, Dr. Yunus launched a bank to lift people out of deep poverty through small loans given on patient terms. Since 1974, the Grameen (meaning “Village”) Bank project has disbursed close to $40 billion in loans, often as small as $100, to nearly 11 million borrowers. The bank operates in almost every village of Bangladesh. Borrowers become co-owners of the bank. Nearly all are women. Their default rate is negligible.

In his Nobel acceptance speech in 2006, Dr. Yunus said societies should be structured to “make room for the blossoming” of the “limitless ... qualities and capabilities” inherent in each individual.

“A human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also to contribute to enlarging the well-being of the world as a whole,” he said. Too many antipoverty programs “[underestimate] human capacity,” he said. They fail “at the conceptual level, rather than any lack of capability on the part of people.”

Little wonder he was the consensus choice as interim leader. Politics, he said, must now stop being backward-looking and score-settling. It must rely on a new generation focused on the future. 

After 15 years of corrupt and autocratic rule, Bangladeshis are ready to take a cue from someone who knows how to build the kind of trust predicated on the inherent dignity and capacity of each individual.