To the editor:
Obviously, the recent issue on the cutting of trees on State Road 135 near the lookout is of great concern to the community.
Recently I have been reading “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist” by Patrick Moore. The chapters on his work to help balance the needs of the logging industry, the community, the environment, and government in British Columbia really struck home for me.
While I recommend reading the entire book, I think Brown County could benefit from understanding and applying (where practical) the ideas that Moore presents on forest management and sustainability in the chapter titled “Round Tables and Square Pegs.”
Some key points from this chapter include:
“Logging operations must be planned on the basis of watersheds. The clearing of excessive areas within a given watershed can lead to flooding, soil erosion, and damage to fish-bearing streams and rivers.
“Biological diversity in its totality must be protected by ensuring that representative areas of all successional stages, including old-growth or original forest, are present in each forest ecosystem.
“The forest industry’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and hence to the potential for climate change, should be minimized through energy efficiency, wildfire control, soil conservation, and rapid reforestation of harvested land.
“Government and industry must ensure there are up-to-date and accurate inventories of all forest resources on which to base forest management plans and to determine sustainable harvest levels.
“Where some form of clear-cutting is determined to be an appropriate harvesting practice, it must be done in a manner that satisfies all the other Principles of Sustainable Forestry. Other harvesting systems, such as selection and partial cutting, should be used where they are appropriate from a silvicultural perspective.
“Communities and individuals have a right to access information, to be involved in forest planning, and to monitor industrial performance. Local communities must be directly involved in decisions that affect their stability, employment, economic viability, and quality of life.”
I propose that the county government consider convening a cross-functional “roundtable” designed to advise the county on issues like this one. People gathered from the logging industry, environmental groups, government, experts on forestry, and concerned citizens could go a long way to help our community to create sustainable forests in our county that benefit the land, industry, tourists and consumers.
As an engineer and certified statistical problem solver, I have seen where gathering the opinions and consensus of a wide variety of concerns can be invaluable in decision making.
I agree that much of what Moore discusses in this chapter would not work for our small community, but I feel that this type of effort could ultimately help everyone.
Thank you,
John Borneman, Oak Ridge Road
Send letters to [email protected] by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks). Letters are the opinions of the writer. Letters must be signed by the author and include the writer’s town of residence and a contact number in case of questions.
Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section. Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point. Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of “fact.”
