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.
Re: [Homestead] Homebuilders nightmare, Big Timber dream - Not
, (continued)