A Better Model

by Pride S. Wright
From the Harbinger

CLEARCUTTING IS A controversial topic in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, and yet the controversy has done little to restrain the appetite for lumber and other wood products. At the end of the day, clearcutters can't profit from clearcutting without the cooperation of the buying public, and we are that buying public. There is little point in objecting to clearcutting if we don't spend equivalent energy to curb our consumption of wood products, support environmentally preferable alternatives when available, and insist upon buying lumber that is harvested in an environmentally sound manner.

Sierra Pacific Industries, the most notorious clearcutter of them all, claims it cannot be financially viable without the use of widespread industrial clearcutting. Does this argument hold water? And as a consequence, are the 1.5 million acres of SPI-owned timberland and the dozens of impacted rural Northern California communities living in their midst doomed to suffer the far reaching consequences of clearcutting: the destruction of fragile ecosystems, the degradation of watersheds, threats to wildlife and habitat, and the undermining of local economies? Or is it possible there's a better model, one that allows for both profitable logging and ecosystem integrity?

To read the entire article go to:
http://www.brushwoodinstitute.com/chronicle/collinspine.htm.