For those of us in the Valley, Arizona’s high-country forests hold favorite camping, hunting and fishing spots, shady places to escape the heat, and, for some, family history or even cabins. Sadly, they’re also the site of blazing wildfires we sometimes see all over the news in the summertime.
The Nature Conservancy’s newly opened “Restoring Arizona’s Forests” Gallery is home to a new exhibit meant to give us desert dwellers a look at the dire shape of those woods and the ways the worldwide conservation organization is working to restore them.
The gallery includes dividing walls made from oriented strand board, which uses small-diameter trees like those being thinned as part of The Nature Conservancy’s model for Arizona forest restoration and management. It also strives to get across the importance of the forests to the Phoenix watershed. A new oil painting by Ed Mell, the artist whose rendering of Sedona’s Cathedral Rock you may recognize from the Arizona Centennial postage stamp issued last year, is also part of the show.
The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through May 15 at 7056 E. Main St., Suite 2, Scottsdale. Admission is free. For information, visit Nature.org/Arizona.
