Tree Planting Takilma and Green Side Up, Inc., 2016

Robert Hirning’s photographic collection, narratives and textual histories tell the stories of Green Side Up, a reforestation cooperative formed out of Takilma, Oregon that was in operation from 1971-1982. Hirning was one of the original organizers and a long standing member of the Green Side Up Bid Committee that acted as a board of directors as well as finding and bidding on jobs. The collective was Takilma based but eventually worked on over 20 Ranger Districts and BLM Resource Areas in Northern California and Southern Oregon, from the Pacific Coast to the Great Basin. As the turbulent 1960s evolved into the 70s, thousands of idealistic young adults searched for a simpler, wholesome life. With a long history of big proportions and rugged individualism, Northern California, Oregon and Washington provided a Mecca for these back-to-the-land pioneers who settled in the forests and isolated valleys west of the Cascades. At precisely this same time, accelerated logging on public lands left millions of acres clear-cut down to bare soil and desperate for reforestation. From the Olympic Peninsula to Mendocino County “counter culture” communities formed reforestation cooperatives to participate in the contracts the BLM and Forest Service put out for bids. This movement developed in the absence of any grand plan or outside influence, and evolved only through the dedication of those who participated in it. There was work to be done and a young, underemployed work force was there to do it. Shaved mountains met the longhairs.