Word: foresters
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...These forests are the last untouched remnants of the great woods that once blanketed enormous areas of North America. Only 15% of the country's old- growth forests are left, but some of their ancient trees have survived for 1,000 years. Millions of acres of these forests are protected from logging because they are inaccessible or set aside as national parks or wildlife areas. The issue is how to manage the rest. Even by the U.S. Forest Service's estimate, the current cutting rate of 170 acres a day could wipe out unprotected virgin woodlands within just...
...Forest Service defends the logging on the ground that the timber industry is vital to the Western economy. But conservationists counter that too much of the ancient forest is already gone and the destruction should stop. Thus the forests have become the hottest battleground in a broader war between the forces of economic development and the armies of conservation being waged from the wetlands of the East Coast to the oil-stained shores of Alaska's Prince William Sound...
...current plight of the old-growth forests had its origins in the late 1940s, when a postwar housing boom resulted in the voracious cutting of trees on private lands. The logging industry was forced to turn to public lands, including those with old-growth forests (prized because of the high quality and quantity of their timber). The National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have cooperated, selling rights to new tracts of forest every year. This policy, combined with modern logging machinery that makes cutting on mountain slopes easier, has put vast stands of old-growth trees...
...many Oregonians stand squarely in the conservation camp. Says George Atiyeh, a former logger who became an ardent environmentalist: "The forest is my church. No one has the right to defile it, anymore than I would have the right to desecrate anyone else's church. When you get down to the last of anything -- whales, trees, whatever it is -- then you don't have the right to exploit them anymore...
Some sort of compromise is inevitable. It would be unthinkable to shut down overnight the Northwest's logging industry. But as the area of old-growth forest land dwindles, it is increasingly indefensible to cut down trees that were centuries in the making. Tight limits on logging are necessary so that the Northwest will move faster to diversify its economy...