Editor's Column
Posted: 2011-05-26

We have been deluged by responses to Barry Wynsma's thoughtful essay on Forest Service leadership - or the lack thereof. Provided here is some feedback on the essay.

Posted: 2011-05-17

W.V. "Mac" McConnell writes from Florida. He is a U.S. Forest Service retiree whose Power Point presentations have appeared on our website many times. His latest efforts are nearby: an updated version of his earlier "Timber Resource Management" Power Point and a fascinating photograph, "One Landscape: Four Views," that shows what is happening on adjacent public and private forests at Deep Creek, near Townsend, Montana.

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People -
"The proposed ban on harvesting in national forests, however well intended, chases an unachievable ideal. It says that if we leave forests alone the result will be a more natural landscape. But reality presents a much different picture. Our forests are byproducts of 12,000 years of dominance by Native Americans, mainly through their use of fire. Removing human influences, by imposing a ban on harvesting, would have horrendous impacts on native forests and species. Many early and mid-succession plant and animal communities would be lost, creating very unnatural landscapes, a significant decline in biological diversity and a significant increase in the size wildfires, resulting in further losses of native forests." Dr. Tom Bonnicksen, Professor Emeritus, Texas A&M University and noted author, Evergreen, Winter 2000
"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."
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