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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> - - - but I don't see what mashing the
> topsoil/tree food six ways from Sunday
> has to do with "sustainable". . . . Nope. Not my definition of forestry.

We all have our own definitions of everything. I am curious how your 
definition of forestry precludes human entrance. Forests without humans is 
not forestry, it is untouched land that is of no use. Using forests for 
ambulatory activities creates minimal damage to the ecological systems. For 
those who cannot walk, driving on established forest roads hurts nothing. I 
favor human activities in forests. Such activity increases admiration and 
sensitivity based on first-hand knowledge. These are qualities that I have 
found many urban check-book environmentalists to lack.

It is regrettable that you chose to pick out something about which you 
could disagree, rather than comment on the vast amount of positive material 
presented.

Ironically, Leo Drey, who owns Pioneer Forest, was the primary architect of 
the Natural Streams Act in Missouri some years ago. It was a very bad idea. 
If passed, it would have precluded using private land close to streams for 
any human purpose. It would have created a force of stream police who would 
have patrolled streams and stream boundaries not only on public land but 
also on private land, which is where the majority of Missouri's streams 
flow. Those of us who own land across which natural streams flow tend to 
care much more about them than those who only romanticize them. Shameful 
irony: Mr. Drey's streams were exempted from the Act. I remember the day I 
was about to send a check to the Sierra Club and the next prior piece of 
mail I read was about the Natural Streams Act and how it was supported by 
the Sierra Club. As I read the provisions of the proposed Act, the Club 
lost me on that day. It showed me how ignorant and single-minded they are, 
how they are primarily a find-raising elitist organization, primarily 
populated by urbanites who are ignorant of rural landowner conditions. The 
majority of Missouri voters are in the St. Louis and Kansas City MSAs. To 
the credit of Missouri voters, especially urban Missouri voters who read 
and thought carefully about what we rural writers wrote, the Natural 
Streams Act was soundly defeated.

I greatly admire what Mr. Drey is doing with his Pioneer Forest. But he was 
dead wrong on what he tried to do to the owners of Missouri land bordering 
Missouri's streams. And in throwing its full ideological support to him, 
the Sierra Club showed its true face.

I no longer wish to be called an environmentalist. I do not want to be 
associated with those who act as if they are ignorant of the meaning of 
sustainability. Man is a key player in ecological conditions. All is 
interrelated.