From the editor:

By LAURIE STUART
Posted 9/23/20

When my now 37-year-old son, Zac, was a baby, his word for water was “uwa.” His name for the Upper Delaware was “The Big Uwa.”

Interestingly, this young toddler understood …

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From the editor:

Posted

When my now 37-year-old son, Zac, was a baby, his word for water was “uwa.” His name for the Upper Delaware was “The Big Uwa.”

Interestingly, this young toddler understood that the Delaware River is, indeed, a big water.

What he didn’t know is that this big water is made up of a system of little waters, intimately connected to the water that we collected in the spring house and that ran into the faucet and into his sippy cup. He did not know that this big water was actually a network of water—of surface and underground waters—the full scope of which we are just beginning to know.

Indeed, the Upper Delaware is an important ecosystem that feeds and supports half the population of the Eastern seaboard. And not only does this water support human and economic development, it also supports trees, plants, fungus, ferns and the wildlife that is our natural capital that abound in these open waters, lands and forests.

It is a system of interconnection.

This edition of Upper Delaware, Remembering Our Roots, celebrates those connections. We start with the original people, the Lenape Nation, and their perspective today. It helps us to understand their influence and their role in the present. We explore how human invention, with an aqueduct and a sawmill, bridged the past to our modern lives. We reflect on our natural diversity through photography. We celebrate and share the autumn abundance of our landscape. And just as the past moves into the present that fuels the future, we look at some of the plant invasives among us. We do this to ensure that we are good stewards for future generations.

And through it all, we experience the simple poetry of our lives and all that connects us.

May these roots sustain us in the uncertain time ahead.

Many thanks to all who contributed to bring this magazine to fruition.

Laurie Stuart
Section editor

forests, Delaware, roots, Lenape, species

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