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Letters to the Editor:
You, too, can stop the nightmare
A bi-partisan bill was introduced last week in Congress by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore) and Ron Paul (R-TX) to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution passed by Congress in October. Similar legislation was put forward a couple of weeks ago by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). Neither of these bills has received any attention from the corporate media, which seems to be interested only in fanning the war flames. If you, too, are longing to wake up from this nightmare, and if you, too, want to stop our country from committing horrendous war crimes, one thing you can do is dial up the Congressional toll-free switchboard at 1-800-839-5276 and support DeFazio and Paul's bill, H.J. Res 20. You can also send e-mails to the French, Russian and Chinese delegations at the UN Security Council, urging them to veto a resolution to attack Iraq. Let them know you are U.S. citizens opposed to unwarranted aggression. The addresses are:
One more horror: In case you haven't yet heard, Patriot Act 2 is waiting in the wings, to be stealthily passed while the bombs are falling, and it's far more repressive than the first one. Urge our Congressmen to say NO, before it's too late. If we don't speak out, who will?
Dot Fisher-Smith, Ashland
Missed headline opportunity
I didn't appreciate your headline of Friday, February 7: "Terror Threat Rises." You bought right into it. You could have used accuracy and sold as many copies: "Constitution Going Under."
Neti Rest, Ashland
We're just a bunch of nobodies
Leah Ireland stated in a recent letter to the editor that, "almost everyone in Ashland is smoking or has smoked pot." Really? I guess that makes me, my grown and teenage children, their circle of friends, and my extended circle of friends almost nobody. Ms. Ireland's premise is hyperbolic. The rest of her argument, that "we don't seem to be generating enough real crime" and so our police are left to harass the poor pot-smoking youth of our town, is equally exaggerated. The nobodies in this community are, I suspect, not represented in her magnanimous suggestion that we all, in spite of our differences, find peace with our police. We, the nobodies, find peace with our police by staying within the law.
Mary Anne Cropper, Ashland
Guest forum:
The illusion of natural resource preservation
By John Gerritsma A recent report by Harvard University substantiates what many of us in natural resource management have been feeling for years. We are exporting environmental problems to less affluent countries. While we are "freeing" our lands from the production of timber, beef, minerals and other raw materials with increasing vigor, we have degraded the environment, globally. As the report states: "Although citizens of affluent countries may imagine that preservation policies are conserving resources and protecting nature, heavy consumption rates necessitate resource extraction elsewhere, and oftentimes under weak environmental oversight. A major consequence of this 'illusion of natural resource preservation' is greater global environmental degradation than would arise if consumption were reduced and a larger portion of production was shared by affluent countries." This phenomenon is well illustrated by our attitude in providing for America's consumption of wood. America is producing not even half the wood products it consumes each year. Yet, we continually back away from fulfilling that need with poorly acknowledged consequences. In the Pacific Northwest, nearly 80 percent of public lands have been set aside from active timber production. Despite the federal agencies' withdrawal from clearcutting, the current emphasis on small diameter trees, and an overall reduction in logging activity, there are more administrative and legal challenges to timber harvest than ever before, not only in the Northwest, but nationwide. There is ample recognition that forest growth is and has been rapidly exceeding the volume of trees logged, yet the call for the end of timber harvesting on public lands has never been louder. The net results are forests growing so dense that wildfire, insects and disease will be the factors that shape their futures. Arizona's Coconino National Forest is an example. Forest growth in that forest is such that a five-fold increase in commercial thinning for the next 30 years will result in a forest that is denser in 2033 than today. However, that statistic may be purely a paper exercise, for unprecedented insect outbreaks and wildfire have and are devastating that region today. In Arizona, these wildfires will reach far into the future. Those pine forests burned by stand replacement wildfire as much as 50 years ago are merely grasslands today. Fire salvage proposals are continually challenged in the courts. For every 20 acres of land saved from timber harvest in America, a pristine acre of land must be harvested elsewhere in the world. It is recognized that not every acre can be salvaged without significant environmental impacts. Yet, if only half of the burned timber in the West's four largest 2002 wildfires were to be salvaged, we would save 65,000 acres of pristine forests beyond our borders - old growth laden, unroaded, and ecologically valuable foreign forests. If logging activities are causing such detrimental environmental impacts at home, are these impacts any less in a foreign land? Americans have lost the connection between vast consumption of natural resources, and subsequent environmental effects, simply because the greatest effects are now beyond America's borders. Siberian permafrost for-ests, British Columbian temperate rain forests, and tropical hardwood forests are being impacted, the recipients of our environmental "exports." We must achieve a balance between the needs of the land and the needs of the people. As we are now becoming aware, the consequences of imbalance are devastating on a global scale, and are frankly, socially irresponsible. We must recognize that not only must our consumptive tendencies change, but they must also be reflected in the use and production of our own natural resources. Think global; act local. The global environment depends on it.
John Gerritsrna has been a forester for 25 years. He is currently employed by the BLM and the US Forest Service in Southwest Oregon.
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