Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] "Forest" vs timber/lumber

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] "Forest" vs timber/lumber
  • Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 09:16:55 -0700


- - - 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.






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page