"Many people distrust thinning, fearing a return to the days when too much harvesting was occurring in national forests, but I don't see how it could happen. Far greater risks lie in accepting the idea that the best way to protect national forests is to set them aside in no-harvest reserves. I'm a wilderness fan, and would favor adding appropriate lands to the Wilderness system, but major portions of the national forest system are not suitable for Wilderness designation and ought to be managed for multiple benefits, including commercial timber production. Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, retired Chief, U.S. Forest Service, now teaching at the University of Montana School of Forestry, Evergreen, Winter 2000

"I can't speak for the government's scientists. I have a library card" Dr. Bob Zyback, President, Northwest Maps Company, Corvallis, Oregon, in answer to an "Evergreen" question about why the Clinton Administration's Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team so completely botched its description of pre-settlement forests in the Pacific Northwest, Evergreen, March-April 1994

"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

Bill Hagenstein

"The public's attention has been so riveted on the spotted owl, old growth forests and other preservation-related issues that it no longer ses, much less understands, that the real question has nothing to do with owls or jobs. The real question is how will the nation's forest reserves be allocated. If the public decied it wanted to preserve all of its timberlands and never harvest again it could do that, but it ought to understand the social, economic and environmenal costs associated with such a decision." The late Dr. James Bethel, Dean Emeritus, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Evergreen, Evergreen, Summer, 1990

"National forests are unhealthy because they have the wrong kind of trees and too many of them. The cause is a combination of past timber harvesting practices and fire suppression. The cure involves removal of some of the trees to alleviate stress by reducing competition for limited moisture and nutrients - and the implementation of management practices favoring tree species best suited to individual sites. Public policy and public trust are two closely elated barrieers standing in the way of an effective cure." Dr. Jay O'Laughlin, Director, Public Policy Analysis Group, University of Idaho College of Foretry, Evergreen, March-April 1996

"It takes 10 times as much energy to manufacture steel as it does to make an equivalent amount of wood. The smelting process relies heavily on fossil fuels, especially coal that releases carbon dioxide and other gasses into the atmosphere. By contrast, the only energy required to make wood is the free, non-polluting energy of the sun. Once th solar-powered wood formation process is completed, only a small amount of additional energy is needed to convert the wood of a tree into finished lumber, which stores carbon, just as trees do." Dr. W.R.J. "Wink" Sutton, botanist, chemist and forest economist, Evergreen, Fall 2001

"It is time for science to produce some defensible, reproducible experiments. It is imperative that we verify or otherwise correct land policy decisions made on the basis of theories. The consequences of error - social, economic and environmental - are simply too great to rest on conjecture. From these experiments, I believe we will find forests are far more resilient than has been assumed. We will also learn that species adapt more readily to hanging habitat conditions than has been theorized. There is abundant evidence of these facts in the Northeast and Great Lakes States, where harvesting began long before it did here in the Pacific Northwest." Dr. Robert Buckman, Professor Emeritus, Oregon State University College of Forestry, former Director of Research, U.S. Forest Service and past president, International Union of Forest Research Organizations, Evergreen, June, 1995

"The claim that using wood somehow leads to forest loss is backwards and silly. Every time we use wood - every time we buy a two-by-four at a lumber yard or a ream of paper at an office supply store - we are in fact ordering up new trees for planting in forests." Dr. Patrick Moore, forest ecologist, Greenpeace co-founder, lecturer and author of two books, "Pacific Spirit," and "Green Spirit: Trees are the Answer," Evergreen," Spring, 2003

"The lesson in 'Playing God" is that there is no such thing as leaving nature alone. People are part of creation. We do not have the option of choosing not to be stewards of the land. We must master the art and science of good stewardship. Environmentalists do not understand that the only way to preserve nature is to manage nature." Dr. Alston Chase, Professor Emeritus, Macalester College and holder of degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Princeton universities, former syndicated columnist and author of "Playing God in Yellowstone," "In a Dark Wood," and "Harvard and the Unibomber" Evergreen, September 1990