With a long speech and a flourish of his pen, Russian President Vladimir Putin abruptly transformed the months-long struggle over Ukraine from a simmering information war into one that is likely to turn kinetic in coming days.

What had been a threatening armed buildup along the border that aimed to compel the West to formally relinquish all plans to expand NATO to the east now looks set to turn into a concerted, if localized, military campaign. Its goal: destroy Ukraine’s three-decade-old independent statehood – at least within the borders it inherited from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

On the surface, little has actually changed.

After listing Russia’s perceived grievances going back almost a century, Mr. Putin extended Moscow’s formal recognition to the two breakaway Ukrainian statelets of Donetsk and Luhansk, formalizing the de facto autonomy and Russian military backing that has been a reality for the past eight years.

Moscow did the same thing to forestall Georgia’s westward drift after a brief 2008 war, by recognizing the independence of the two separatist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and making them military protectorates. (Russian analysts point out that NATO also did something similar, by granting still-disputed independence to Serbia’s former province of Kosovo following an 11-week war in 1999.)

But that is where similarities end. Russian mechanized troops are now deploying to Donetsk and Luhansk, where they will replace the local militias who have been facing off with Ukrainian forces since 2014. Ominously, the Kremlin has indicated that it accepts the two republics’ territorial claims over the entire Donbass, two-thirds of which is still held by Ukraine.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

According to Vladimir Evseev, a military expert with the Kremlin-funded Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Moscow, 150,000 Ukrainian troops – over half of Ukraine’s army – are presently concentrated in the Donbass. Russian and Ukrainian forces fought pitched battles on this terrain twice before, in 2014 and 2015, and another confrontation appears imminent.

“I think the kind of massive Russian invasion that the U.S. media has been predicting remains very unlikely,” says Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist and expert at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. “The course Putin has decided upon is much different – safer for Russia but leading to the gradual destabilization of Ukraine. There will be questions about the borders of the two republics, which may lead to sharp clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces as before. But it will be limited war.”

One immediate, and crucial, change is that the Minsk II agreement, a roadmap to peace in eastern Ukraine signed in 2015 by Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France, is now a dead letter. As recently as last weekend it seemed possible, amid a flurry of diplomacy by French and German leaders, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might be pressed to implement the accord, which would have led to the reintegration of Donetsk and Luhansk into a newly federalized Ukraine. That would have been angrily opposed by Ukrainian nationalists who saw Minsk II as a formula to prevent the nationalist project of integrating into the West at Russia’s expense.

Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters

People who were evacuated from separatist-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine walk to board a train before leaving the city of Taganrog, Russia, Feb. 22, 2022. A survey last weekend found that 78% of Russians support the government’s decision to take in refugees from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions who were fleeing alleged attacks by Ukrainian forces.

“Ukrainian nationalists may actually be happy to see that Minsk II can never be revived. Their opposition is the main reason Zelenskyy couldn’t implement it even if he wanted to,” says Dr. Ishchenko. “Zelenskyy is now in trouble, his popularity is plunging, and polls show that the majority of Ukrainians don’t see him as a suitable commander in chief. There is a real danger of nationalist violence as this crisis develops. That would be very good for Putin.”

“Quite dangerous when politicians turn into historians”

In a lengthy televised speech Monday evening, Mr. Putin went far beyond laying out a practical rationale for recognizing the rebel republics, and clearly called into question Ukraine’s sovereign existence.

Large swaths of Ukraine, including the Donbass, Crimea, and other areas in the country’s east, were part of Russia for 300 years, and were only incorporated into the Soviet republic of Ukraine by what Mr. Putin bitterly described as the “anti-Russian” policies of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. While it’s true that majorities in those regions are Russian-speaking and sympathy for the Donbass separatists is common, experts note that Mr. Putin is explicitly challenging the accepted global order, whose basic building block is the sovereign state and its territorial integrity.

“The way Putin sounded, it seems like the long-term goal is to get rid of Ukraine as a state,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a high-level think tank which often advises the Kremlin. “It can be quite dangerous when politicians turn into historians, and use that to justify concrete acts. Any narrative is a construct, and not a very good guide to policy.”

Mr. Lukyanov says that Western sanctions are unlikely to deter Russia, which has been preparing for this moment since the barrage of sanctions began when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

Any really tough sanctions, such as cutting Russia out of the global banking system or canceling the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, would have devastating effects on Russia but also deliver damaging blowback to the global economy, particularly for Europeans, who get 40% of their natural gas and 25% of their oil from Russia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Tuesday that certification of Nord Stream 2 would be suspended indefinitely, following Mr. Putin’s decision to recognize the rebel republics.

Denis Kaminev/AP

People from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions watch Russian President Vladimir Putin's address at their temporary place in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Feb. 21, 2022.

Diplomacy may not yet be finished. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is slated to meet U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Geneva on Thursday. That could offer a shred of hope.

“If things do not escalate further, it needn’t be the end of diplomacy,” says Mr. Lukyanov.

It may be too soon to gauge the Russian public’s response to the gathering war clouds. A survey done last weekend by the state-funded VTsIOM agency found that 78% of Russians supported the government’s decision to take in tens of thousands of refugees from Donetsk and Luhansk who were fleeing alleged attacks by Ukrainian forces. Just 13% opposed the plan.

“Average Russians think that Putin showed strength in this situation, due to the NATO factor and the fact that the people in those separatist regions are [seen as] Russians,” says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a leading Russian sociologist, whose husband is Ukrainian. “Putin’s speech was contradictory. But people do believe that NATO expansion is a problem. People aren’t really analyzing things clearly, or assessing the consequences that are bound to be coming.”

Ina Fassbender/Reuters

A group picture after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations and others at the Munich Security Conference, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from left) and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (third from right) in Munich, Feb. 19, 2022.

Before stepping into a tête-à-tête meeting in Munich Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian offered a statement that was striking for its brevity and word usage.

Noting his pleasure at meeting with “Tony” once again, France’s chief diplomat said, “We have a very strong relationship, which I could summarize in two words: trust and transparency.”

Trust? That is not the word Mr. Le Drian would have used just a few months ago to characterize Franco-American relations, which had plunged to new depths of distrust and suspicion over a surprise U.S. deal that had replaced a French contract to supply Australia with a fleet of nuclear submarines.

And it’s not just France. “Trust” would almost certainly not have been the first word from NATO and other European allies of the United States in the months after last summer’s hasty and botched U.S. pullout from Afghanistan. Like the French over the submarine deal, America’s NATO allies had felt blindsided and disregarded by the unilateral withdrawal.

Mr. Le Drian’s highlighting of trust underscored the success of a campaign President Joe Biden and his top national security aides have undertaken since last fall to reestablish trust with European allies.

The goal of the effort: make transatlantic unity a formidable diplomatic weapon for confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s menacing stance toward Ukraine and European security.

After what administration officials say has been dozens of face-to-face meetings, hundreds of phone calls, and secure video conferences sharing intelligence and other information with key leaders, Mr. Biden’s campaign appears to be paying off as Mr. Putin takes his first steps in what the Pentagon and military experts say could be a full invasion of Ukraine.

One concrete example: On Tuesday, Germany announced that in response to Mr. Putin’s recognition Monday of two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, it would halt all moves toward operation of the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline set to deliver natural gas from Russia to Western Europe.

Also, on Tuesday, the European Union announced it was setting in motion the steps for imposing stiff sanctions on Russia. President Biden followed suit in the afternoon at the White House, telling reporters gathered in the East Room of new sanctions targeting key Russian financial institutions and Russia’s ability to finance its debt in Western markets.

Attempt to sow divisions

After the Biden team’s very public adoption of the reassuring and inclusive mantra “nothing about Europe without Europe” – meaning the U.S. would not negotiate anything about Europe with Mr. Putin without European allies – observers on both sides of the Atlantic say transatlantic trust is not just on the mend, but growing stronger.

And that will be important, they add, in dealing with Mr. Putin from a position of strength rather than disunity and debilitating second-guessing.

“From the outset, Putin has approached this crisis by trying to split the United States from its European partners and to sow divisions among Europeans, the point being to divide and weaken the Western alliance by fundamentally undermining trust,” says Andrew Lohsen, a fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“But after the intense diplomacy we’ve seen from the Biden administration and the nonstop efforts to build a united front,” he adds, “I think it’s pretty clear that, at least so far, the Russian government’s efforts to create mistrust and fracture the alliance have not been successful.”

Michael Probst/AP

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Feb.19, 2022. In a side meeting, she sat down with Baltic leaders nervous about Russia’s military actions and assertions of a “sphere of influence” in the region.

Mr. Biden has kept up an intense schedule of bilateral and multilateral calls with European leaders, sharing a level of intelligence that presidents have not always been willing to divulge, officials say. On Friday, the president spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hours before a televised address in which he asserted that intelligence suggested Mr. Putin had already taken the decision to invade Ukraine.

Indeed President Macron has emerged both as Europe’s de facto leader in the Ukraine crisis and as perhaps Mr. Biden’s closest transatlantic ally.

“The coin of the realm”

Vice President Kamala Harris was also at the Munich Security Conference that Secretary Blinken attended. Among several side meetings, the vice president sat down with leaders of the Baltic States, who have been nervous about Russia’s proliferating military actions in the region and Mr. Putin’s assertions of a Russian “sphere of influence” over the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Trust may sound to some like a secondary factor in a confrontation pitting global powers against each other. But many seasoned diplomats say a sense of trust among allies will be essential in the weeks ahead – whether Mr. Putin launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, or ultimately stops at “defending” the two separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk while continuing Russia’s smothering pressure on an already reeling Ukraine.

One of America’s greatest diplomats, the late George Shultz, considered trust – whether among allies or adversaries – an indispensable feature of diplomacy and a critical element in avoiding war.

Without trust, the Cold War secretary of state believed, diplomatic relations would be unfruitful, doubts among allies would hinder forging a strong common front, and tension-reducing accord would remain hard to come by. (Mr. Shultz told this reporter in a 2020 interview that “Trust is the coin of the realm” of international relations.)

Maintaining trust among transatlantic partners has not always seemed a top priority of the Biden administration.

Europe’s faltering confidence in the U.S. tumbled to new lows under former President Donald Trump, who spoke disparagingly of Western allies – especially Western Europeans and Canada – and threatened to pull the U.S. out of an “obsolete” NATO.

But there was genuine surprise in European capitals last year when President Biden failed to quickly put transatlantic relations back on track.

In the eyes of many, the successive blows to mutual trust only confirmed the assessment offered by then German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2018 that “we [in Europe] are going to have to learn to make our own way” without a protective and doting Uncle Sam.

Challenges ahead

The Ukraine crisis and Mr. Putin’s targeting of Western unity appear to have reversed a deepening estrangement – a point Mr. Blinken seemed to relish in comments he made Friday alongside German Foreign Minister Annalena Boerbock.

“I think President Putin has been a little bit surprised at the solidarity Annalena talked about ... at the way that NATO has come together, the European Union has come together,” he said. “As long as we maintain that solidarity ... whichever path President Putin chooses, we will be ready to respond.”

Yves Herman/Reuters

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg holds a news conference following an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, in Brussels, Feb. 22, 2022.

Others caution that what looks like trust-based unity now could start to break up as the Ukraine conflict deepens and starts to affect European countries differently.

“The longer this goes on, the more difficult it’s going to be for everybody to remain on the same page,” says Mr. Lohsen, a former monitoring officer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Ukraine mission. “We’ll have to keep a close watch on the glimmers of mistrust that remain out there.”

Among the indicators he’ll be watching: How does Germany, which looked like the weak link in transatlantic unity early on, evolve as the conflict drags on? How does the U.S. address Ukraine demands for Western solidarity while keeping European allies united?

And how far will Mr. Macron take his suggestion he reportedly offered early in the crisis that a “Finlandization” of Ukraine – or what Mr. Lohsen calls “enforced neutrality” barring Ukraine from ever achieving NATO membership – might be the best way to avoid war in the heart of Europe?

Continued U.S. role

Some insist that, just as it was the U.S., as leader of the Western alliance, that had to act first and most strongly to reestablish transatlantic trust to confront Russia, it’s going to fall largely to the U.S. to keep the unity on track.

“It was organizing principles like democratic governance, solidarity, free trade, and free association of open economies that brought the United States and Europe together during the Cold War. And that can be the basis for putting [transatlantic] relations back on track and enabling Western powers to take on the rising rogue authoritarian powers in both Beijing and Moscow,” says Harry Kazianis, a specialist in foreign and defense policy at the Center for the National Interest in Washington.

A “haphazard” U.S. foreign policy over the past decade that has swung between priorities and sown global confusion about America’s superpower status and commitment to its postwar values is at the root of mistrust of the U.S. in Europe, Mr. Kazianis says.

The deliberate campaign the Biden administration has undertaken to reassure allies and recommit to those principles will be a key element in creating an enduring alliance to confront the world’s rising authoritarians and illiberal tendencies, he says.

“Once we make it clear we’re not going to abandon Europe again once the Ukraine crisis is over, and that we’ve calibrated our pivot to Asia in a way that also keeps us committed to Europe, I think the reassurance that comes out of that can put an alliance based on those founding principles on track,” he says.

“The trust reestablished,” he adds, “I think our European partners with stick with us and follow.”

On a sloping patch of forest in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick, Mike Hickey is on the hunt for red oak. They’re not overly difficult to find on his 156-acre woodlot, even though it’s something of a scavenger hunt: The number of mature oak on this thickly wooded expanse can be counted on one hand. 

Mr. Hickey is dressed for the task with camouflage gloves and a maroon stocking hat. His Santa Claus beard tickles the top of his jacket, which is zipped all the way up against the cold. He walks down a road past a pile of logs cut from red spruce and other species, many of which were harvested from trees blown down during storms. He uses them to produce his own lumber.

Mr. Hickey scans the surroundings as he walks with the practiced eye of someone who knows both the delights and dangers of the woods. Once he surprised a black bear and her cubs in this area. Fortunately, the mother appeared more spooked than he was and scampered off into the woods.

Finally, he arrives at a slope where a slender tree is still hanging on to its auburn leaves despite the winter chill. “One of them is up there,” he says, pointing to a red oak. “One of my projects.”

Moira Donovan

Mike Hickey, who has been restoring his woodlot in Hampton, New Brunswick, for the past 10 years, knows the location of many of its mature trees by heart.

For the past 10 years, Mr. Hickey has been attempting to restore this woodlot – which has been in his wife’s family for a century – clearing space for long-lived native hardwoods like this oak tree. He’s done this by cutting away competitors, and planting other climate change-tolerant species such as white pine, to restore this land to the forest that would have existed prior to colonization.

In doing so, he’s part of a coalition of woodlot owners, Indigenous groups, and community organizations in the Canadian Maritimes that is attempting to protect a globally rare forest ecosystem from disappearing. 

It’s a long-term vision, to be sure. In his woodlot, for instance, Mr. Hickey estimates it will be decades before the younger red oaks he’s shepherding even begin reproducing, part of a centurieslong rehabilitation timeline that he’s hoping to cut down by a couple hundred years. But there’s urgency here, too. Spurred by concerns about the impact of climate change and a rising tide of discontent around forest practices in the region, an increasing number of organizations and individuals are enacting measures they hope will not only restore the ecosystem, but help build bridges between the communities who depend on it.

If successful, their arboreal resurrection initiative could spur similar grassroots movements across Canada, and in other nations, as the world confronts the twin threats of an increasingly mercurial climate and vanishing forestlands. 

“People are obviously this huge force of change on the planet now, but we can be regenerative and restorative, and there’s actually thousands of years of precedent for that before colonialism,” says Daimen Hardie, executive director of Community Forests International, a group working on the restoration of the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest. “We can get back to that, and we need to get back to that.”

Moira Donovan

“We think that the working relationship between people and forests is really special. There’s this big opportunity for a more citizen-based, citizen-led change in forestry.” – Daimen Hardie, executive director of Community Forests International

The Wabanaki-Acadian forest – conventionally known as the Acadian Forest, but which more people are calling by its original name, the Wabanaki – spreads across the easternmost edge of North America. It’s a place where the hardwood forests of the United States meet their boreal counterparts farther north. The result is a rare blend of hardwoods, such as red oak, sugar maple, and yellow birch, and coniferous species such as red spruce, white pine, and eastern hemlock – 32 varieties in all. It’s one of the most diverse temperate forests in the world.

“Any time in nature when you have two different ecosystems colliding, that overlap and that edge is particularly vibrant,” says Mr. Hardie. “So we get the full diversity of both of those forests combining in this mixed wood, and that mix doesn’t happen anywhere else on the planet.”

Unlike in Western or boreal forests, the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest’s composition makes it naturally resistant to destruction from forces such as wildfires. Some research estimates that the average size of disturbed areas is just a quarter of an acre. 

But calamities have come for this forest, nonetheless. Less than 1% remains of the pre-settlement ecosystem that once covered much of the three Maritime Provinces, as well as the easternmost edge of Quebec and part of Maine. 

When European settlers arrived in eastern North America, they found a forest that had evolved since the retreat of the glaciers, 12,000 years ago, and had been stewarded by Indigenous people for thousands of years. Colonists displaced Indigenous people and quickly denuded much of the land. For a time, most of the pine used by the British Navy came from New Brunswick, and North America’s first sawmill was built in Nova Scotia. In the 20th century, the trend accelerated, and since the 1980s, 40% of the remaining mature forest in the Maritimes has been lost. 

But just as the Wabanaki-Acadian’s unique composition historically made it resistant to disturbance, some hope that another unique feature of this landscape can be harnessed to help pull it back from the brink. Unlike forests in the rest of Canada, which are largely on government or Indigenous lands, nearly half of the forested acreage in the Maritimes is owned by small woodlot holders, of which there are approximately 80,000 in the region. 

“We think that the working relationship between people and forests is really special,” says Mr. Hardie. “There’s this big opportunity for a more citizen-based, citizen-led change in forestry.”

Courtesy of Community Forests International

A stump stands on a clear-cut piece of land in the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest in eastern Canada. Experts say that less than 1% remains of the pre-settlement forest that once covered Canada’s Maritime Provinces, as well as the eastern edge of Quebec and part of Maine.

In Jim and Margaret Drescher’s woodlot in southwest Nova Scotia, stands of eastern hemlock – one of the longest-living species of the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest – spread for acres, painting a deep green canvas even in late December. Stopping on the path between two of these towering hemlocks, Mr. Drescher takes a breath.

“I almost always stop here and say, ‘Where have I been? Where am I going?’” he says of his therapeutic surroundings.

The landscape here is both unusual and typical of the region. It is a rare example of old-growth forest in an area where less than 1% of the trees fall into that category, but has also passed through private hands in a way that mirrors other woodlots. 

Before the Dreschers bought this property, it was owned by a family who’d carefully tended it for generations. But by the 1990s, the owners, who had no children, were aging, and the timber brokers were circling. 

At the time, the Dreschers were living in Halifax, the provincial capital about an hour north, and in the throes of personal bankruptcy. But when the couple – who were always searching for interesting parcels of wooded land, in part because of Mr. Drescher’s forestry background – heard about the impending sale of the property, the decision was obvious. 

“We walked into that forest. There was such an incredible feeling of wealth and peace and abundance,” says Ms. Drescher. “And we walked out of it, and just kind of went, ‘How can this happen? How can this be clear-cut?’”

The Dreschers called a friend who lived in the area to tell them about the sale; two weeks later, the acquaintance offered to loan them the down payment. The Dreschers packed up their lives in the city and have been practicing ecological forestry on the land, which they call Windhorse Farm, ever since. 

That commitment to protecting the forest is not unique to the Dreschers, and research on woodlot owners in the Maritimes shows that most appreciate their forests for more than the timber they generate, says Andy Kekacs, executive director of the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association and spokesperson for the Family Forest Network. People value their land for the biodiversity it hosts, the intergenerational responsibility it represents, and the recreation or solitude it provides – values that run counter to turning a quick profit from clear-cutting.

Courtesy of Community Forests International

Unlike in the rest of Canada, nearly half of the forested land in Canada’s eastern Maritime Provinces is owned by small woodlot holders – some 80,000 in all. Advocates say this represents a unique opportunity to harness the power of individual citizens to change forest management practices.

But despite these virtues, clear-cutting continues even on private land. Advocates attribute that to several factors. Over generations, forest practices have created a landscape composed of smaller and less valuable trees, driving down the price of timber and encouraging aggressive harvesting. Family woodlot owners are forced to clear their land to make any money at all – or at least they often feel they have to.

This is why, in 2021, the Family Forest Network launched a five-year pilot project of 200 ecological harvests across Nova Scotia. It aims to show woodlot owners and forest contractors that restoring the ecosystem and mimicking the disturbance pattern of the pre-settlement forest – while supporting economic activity – are possible. 

“We want to say that, ‘for those of you who think that the only way you can profitably manage a forest is by clear-cutting, there are other things that you can consider and you can feel good about,’” says Mr. Kekacs.

Figuring out a different economic model is important in a region where a considerable proportion of the population is rural, and where forestry makes up a significant part of the economy. But part of this shift also entails encouraging people who are connected to the forest to unite with each other. This is why organizations like Community Forests International, based in Sackville, New Brunswick, are focused on storytelling. Part of CFI’s work is technical, working with woodlot owners and in the organization’s own forests to store carbon, but much of its emphasis is on changing the narrative around forestry.

“I think one of the biggest elements, that’s often underestimated, is just helping people realize those values that they have are shared by a lot more people than they might realize,” says Mr. Hardie of Community Forests International.

Part of this new story is addressing the injustices that have brought the forests to such a degraded point.

In the late morning twilight of Windhorse’s hemlock forest, the Dreschers make another stop on their hike, this one beside a mossy mound, looking over a brook that hurries past under a thin coating of ice. It’s Ms. Drescher’s favorite sitting spot, a place where early on in their ownership of the forest she looked out and said to her husband, “This isn’t ours.”  

Moira Donovan

“The history of the place, having 500-, 600-year-old forests that existed potentially prior to colonization, is its own classroom.” – Chris Googoo, executive director of Ulnooweg, a Mi’kmaq economic development and education organization

The Wabanaki-Acadian Forest is the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq, Peskotomuhkati, and Wolastoqey nations. And at Windhorse, Ms. Drescher says, they’d always seen themselves as temporary stewards of the land, with an aspiration of returning the forest to the people from whom it had been taken. But for decades, it wasn’t clear how that could happen, until they started working with Ulnooweg, a Mi’kmaq education and economic development organization. In December, the Dreschers closed a deal to transfer stewardship of Windhorse, near the town of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, to the group – a move they hope will set an example for other woodlot owners in the province. 

Ulnooweg, which was founded to foster self-determination in the face of the lasting impacts of colonization and forced assimilation policies, is planning to use the site as a healing and cultural gathering space, as well as a place to bring elders and youth together to learn about forest ecology and sustainable techniques. “The history of the place, having 500-, 600-year-old forests that existed potentially prior to colonization, is its own classroom,” says Chris Googoo, Ulnooweg’s executive director.

Mr. Googoo is also hoping that Windhorse will serve as a tool of reconciliation, bringing non-Indigenous communities into the forest to learn about the land and Mi’kmaq governance practices. “We want to share that, and hopefully create those relationships that go back to the original intent of the treaties, hundreds of years ago,” he says.

Elsewhere in the region, stewardship practices that have developed over thousands of years are spurring a new way forward in forestry as well. In a stand of trees in central Nova Scotia, Sherilyn Young lays a mittened hand on the flaky bark of a red pine, one of the native trees of the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest, which was nearly wiped off the landscape by European harvesting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

“This tree is 35, 40 years old, tops,” she says. “It’s going to take hundreds of years to be able to bring this [forest] back to the way it was.”

As part of her efforts on the Mi’kmaq Forestry Initiative (MFI), Ms. Young is working to increase the diversity of the forests on the group’s 75,000 acres of land. She plants a range of native species that have declined, while nurturing older trees that still exist here. 

Moira Donovan

“If we choose to manage our forest only for industrial purposes, we’re going to lose our forest – we won’t have a forest for our children, for our grandchildren.” – Sherilyn Young of the Mi’kmaq Forestry Initiative, a project that encourages sustainable forestry practices

“If we choose to manage our forest only for industrial purposes, we’re going to lose our forest – we won’t have a forest for our children, for our grandchildren,” she says.

In MFI lots, Ms. Young says, she can feel the living connections of roots in the soil, and the air is rich with the calls of songbirds and the sound of other wildlife. She and others manage the forests for their biodiversity and cultural significance, as well as for producing timber. Special attention is given to species such as endangered black ash, for instance, which is used in basketmaking. 

Management of the lands is guided by the Mi’kmaq principle of Netukulimk, or only taking what one needs. The initiative also operates on a seven-generation approach, stewarding the land in ways that will be sustainable for the next 140 years. All this is providing lessons for settler communities. In recent years, Ms. Young has been approached by private woodlot owners looking for guidance. 

“That is an eye opener, to see that Nova Scotians are really willing to learn; they’re really accepting of this approach,” she says. “And they just want to know how they can do it on their lands, how they can respect their land a little bit more.”

One question often raised is how this approach can be profitable. Part of the answer, Ms. Young says, is in appreciating the holistic value of healthy ecosystems. But it’s also in harnessing the land for such things as carbon storage initiatives.

In December, the Medway Community Forest Cooperative in Nova Scotia launched a land trust to allow families to practice ecological forestry in perpetuity, through the sale of carbon offsets. The idea had come from owners who were concerned with how they’d protect their legacies once they were gone, says executive director Mary Jane Rodger. Community easements held by the organization could provide that protection, but covering the costs of monitoring and managing the land long term was another matter. That led the MCFC to adopt the idea of selling credits for the carbon stored in the forest – credits that are designed to include sustainable harvesting.

The key is aggregated pools, Ms. Rodger says. They have only recently become available in Canada and address the challenges small property owners face when trying to access carbon markets. By joining together with other woodlot owners, families can sell credits at a level that covers endowment costs and gives them a payout. 

Courtesy of Community Forests International

A painted trillium grows in the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest of eastern Canada. Indigenous communities and other proponents of sustainable harvesting say foresters should consider the cultural, ecological, and climate-mitigating functions of woodlands, rather than focusing on their ability to produce timber.

It’s a collective effort that builds on other work going on in the region. Community Forests International, for instance, started the first forest carbon project in eastern Canada. Mr. Hardie says its approach is to harness the forest as a tool for mitigating climate change, by storing carbon on land that might otherwise be cleared, and maintain a diversity of species in forests as the world shifts around them.

“We know that forests are key to keeping the climate secure – we can’t do without them,” says Mr. Hardie. “We know that people connected to forest are the first and best line of defense, and historically, it’s Indigenous and other collective communities that know how to do that.” 

Back on his woodlot, Mr. Hickey is trying to adapt to that future, by picking up on the lessons of the people who have stewarded this forest before him. He’s planting hardwoods and other climate-resilient species, protecting berry and seed-producing trees, and diversifying stands that might be impacted by invasive insects.

He jokes that in a hundred years, he’ll be able to sit back and see how things are progressing, but already, he’s been heartened by signs of the forest regenerating on its own: After several years, the red oak he liberated has started producing the next generation, and a new crop of seedlings has popped up on a sunny patch of forest floor. 

Ultimately, he hopes that he’ll be able to put some measure of protection in place on this property, to keep it regenerating over the eons. For now, like the thousands of woodlot owners and communities in the region, he’s happy to be a small part of a forest whose story is still being written.

“You take responsibility, you do the best that you can, and you hope that it will make a difference.”

AP

Protesters hold posters in front of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 22.

On Feb. 22, the day after Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine, the news in that country was not only about this latest border violation by Moscow. People in the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere were also following a free and vigorous debate in parliament over legalization of civilian firearms. They read of a mass resignation of judges over a corruption probe. Particularly intriguing was a scandal over who would represent Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest.

In other words, eight years after the Maidan revolution launched Ukraine toward membership in the European Union, its people are actively embracing a collective identity shaped by EU-style civil values, such as free speech, rule of law, and self-governance. One key indicator: In January, as Russia’s threats escalated, public support to join the EU reached 68% in nonoccupied Ukraine.

Not only do Ukrainians reject the invasion; they reject an idea put forth by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the two countries are “one people” with “very powerful genetic code” that unites them in a type of ethnic patriotism, or blood-and-soil unity.

The invasion was in fact a moment of liberation for Ukraine. “This is a historic day of our freedom, the day when Russia officially admitted that Ukraine and Ukrainians are no longer its ‘brotherly nation,’” wrote Ukrainian military journalist Yuriy Butusov.

For the EU, too, Russia’s aggression reaffirms why the bloc was created after the ethnicity-driven wars of the 20th century. “What is important is that Western countries had been able to agree on what they were confronting,” said Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor.

Ethno-nationalism still drives many of the world’s conflicts, from Ethiopia to Myanmar. In Ukraine, that battle may have turned a tide this week. Even among the country’s minority Russian speakers, most favor EU membership and its practice of universal values, according to polls. Many Russian speakers even enjoy the visa-free regime granted by the EU that allows Ukrainians to work in member states. That’s a powerful countermessage to the notion of ancestral bloodlines as the destiny of nation-states.