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The Illusion of "The Illusion of Preservation"
I've written a rant against a recent publication by the Harvard Forest.
Rather than post it here, and it's a long rant, and many may not like my attitude- I've got it up as a web page. If anyone has any comments about my rant, please post them here. The rant is at http://www.forestmeister.com/global-...Preservation.h tml ************ Joe Zorzin http://forestmeister.com Stop The Lies http://www.forestmeister.com/STOP_THE_LIES.html Mass. Assoc. of Consulting Foresters http://www.forestmeister.com/MACF.html |
#2
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The Illusion of "The Illusion of Preservation"
hey Joe,
Well, rant is certainly a good description of what I just read. I'm going to start with my own. g I must admit that it was hard to follow your argument throughout your writings; I think you were either misinterpreting or reading stuff into what you had clipped out of the article. I think you're just ****ed off because Mass. won't pass a law that says management plans should be drawn up by foresters. Anyways, here's my thoughts on what you put up on the page, though I must admit I haven't read the original article, but I've participated in this debate before. Your first beef was with the title: "The very first problem is the title of the publication, implying that preservationists are a major source of the problem of poor forest management and the resulting need for the state to import so much of its wood products." I don't think that that is what is being implied at all. My read on that title is this: One might believe that preservation is really taking place because someone has drawn a box around something on the map and nothing "industrial" (or restricted activities) is going on there... well, maybe that's not true. If the "industrialists" just move down the road (say perhaps to Canada g) then in the grand scheme of things, are we really coming ahead? I think that's pretty much all they are pursuing here. "They" said (note the use of the word IF) "... well intentioned environmental activism may generate unanticipated environmental degradation if it fails to recognize that natural resource preservation is but an Illusion --IF-- it only serves to shift the source of resources" It's like a not-in-my-backyard mentality. Joe says: "but the implication that a desire to preserve forest land leads to greater importing of wood resources is unwarranted. " Is it? We are talking about a finite resource here. What if all private land WAS managed to your standards, and an increase in productivity was realized, but society's demand was such that timber from public land was needed to meet this demand. What if we wanted to preserve public forests then? Where would the missing volume come from? This is why they are pushing the recycling, use-reduction, line. What good is a management/conservation ethic at the end of my hypothetical line, if there is no consumption ethic tied in with it? Do you believe that if forest productivity was increased per acre it would lead to a decrease in total acres treated? Or would use continue at the same rate, increasing the total gains realized? Joe said: "What ideology? That statement is absurd, and indicative of small mindedness so prevalent in forestry academia. There may be ideologues on the fringes of the enviro movement, but to talk about "mainstream environmentalist ideology" implies that most environmentalists are ideological and that their thinking isn't based on science but is mostly political and emotional." I wasn't sure that I agreed with your definition of "ideology", so I took the liberty of looking it up in a gasp book! g Ideology, amazingly, is defined as "the science of ideas; a system of ideas belonging a party, class, or culture". No need to exclude science from ideologies. My interpretation is that the authors simply believe that preservation represents one of these "fringes" or as I like to put it, one place on the spectrum. It's not a stretch to say that the level/intensity/severity/type of activity that an ecoforester would deem acceptable in the forest might be something the preservationist would not be comfortable with. I think that their statement just makes good sense: "Mainstream environmentalist ideology must embrace multiple uses of the forest including harvesting - and local citizens must consider the use of resources in their own backyard while maintaining a keen awareness of the global environment." Anyways, this is getting long winded, so I'll finish up quickly g. If you look at the wood exports from Canada over the years you'll find a huge spike right about the time that they "discovered" the owls and took "appropriate action" g. So while all is good now in owl town, the boreal forest is getting mowed down in Canada to make up for the loss...the owls you might say, have the illusion that the world is a better place. Hence the need for the consumption ethic... regardless of how well you manage private land. What if private land owners don't want to harvest anything? What if they are preservationists? That is certainly their choice. Then what do you get? No net gain, just more owls and less boreal forest. phewf What do you think Joe? Am I crazy? Or just a snot-nosed forestry student? g Scott p.s. - I'm with you about the cutting plans G We insert sarcasm here omnipotent foresters have to stick together. "Joe Zorzin" wrote in message ... I've written a rant against a recent publication by the Harvard Forest. Rather than post it here, and it's a long rant, and many may not like my attitude- I've got it up as a web page. If anyone has any comments about my rant, please post them here. The rant is at http://www.forestmeister.com/global-...Preservation.h tml |
#3
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The Illusion of "The Illusion of Preservation"
POSTED IN alt.forestry
"Scott Murphy" wrote in message om... hey Joe, Well, rant is certainly a good description of what I just read. I'm going to start with my own. g I must admit that it was hard to follow your argument throughout your writings; I think you were either misinterpreting or reading stuff into what you had clipped out of the article. I think you're just ****ed off because Mass. won't pass a law that says management plans should be drawn up by foresters. Anyways, here's my thoughts on what you put up on the page, though I must admit I haven't read the original article, but I've participated in this debate before. Your first beef was with the title: "The very first problem is the title of the publication, implying that preservationists are a major source of the problem of poor forest management and the resulting need for the state to import so much of its wood products." I don't think that that is what is being implied at all. My read on that title is this: One might believe that preservation is really taking place because someone has drawn a box around something on the map and nothing "industrial" (or restricted activities) is going on there... well, maybe that's not true. If the "industrialists" just move down the road (say perhaps to Canada g) then in the grand scheme of things, are we really coming ahead? I think that's pretty much all they are pursuing here. "They" said (note the use of the word IF) "... well intentioned environmental activism may generate unanticipated environmental degradation if it fails to recognize that natural resource preservation is but an Illusion --IF-- it only serves to shift the source of resources" But, preserving scattered parcels DOESN'T serve to shift the source of resources, and certainly wouldn't if rapacious logging was no longer allowed. As a civilization, we do need to PRESERVE SOME LAND. The only question is how much and where, and what kind of land. Some think we already have enough preserved and some think we need more. It's an unanswered question. Nobody knows for sure. It's like a not-in-my-backyard mentality. Joe says: "but the implication that a desire to preserve forest land leads to greater importing of wood resources is unwarranted. " Is it? We are talking about a finite resource here. What if all private land WAS managed to your standards, and an increase in productivity was realized, but society's demand was such that timber from public land was needed to meet this demand. What if we wanted to preserve public forests then? Where would the missing volume come from? Personally, I don't believe that most public forests should be "preserved" and neither do 95% of environmentalists. Most believe that most public forest should be very nicely managed. The small number of folks who think that MOST public and much private forest should be unmanaged- well, why worry about such small numbers, while the authors of that paper hardly mention the fact that so much logging is of poor quality? I just came from a foresters' event, where a consultant, a member of the Forest Steward's Guild, from Vermont told the story that- 8,000 acres of land he once managed, all within 10 acres of his home, to very high silvicultural standards, later got sold to owners who got shafted by loggers- who raped and pillaged that 8,000 acres. Such destruction will do more to move forestry elsewhere, than the fact that a few acres more gets locked up by the Audubon Society. This is why they are pushing the recycling, use-reduction, line. What good is a management/conservation ethic at the end of my hypothetical line, if there is no consumption ethic tied in with it? A consumption ethic is fine, but keep in mind, most Americans aren't overconsuming- the overconsumption occurs mostly by America's upper class who build multiple oversized houses, drive oversized cars, travel the world in big jets, work in big city buildings which waste energy and who buy oversized fancy furniture. Whenever the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we can be assured of increasing waste of resources- so the real argument must become a fundamental political argument about the distribution of wealth, a topic that the classicly right wing forestry world does not understand and will never contribute to. Do you believe that if forest productivity was increased per acre it would lead to a decrease in total acres treated? Or would use continue at the same rate, increasing the total gains realized? If productivity increased, based on great silviculture, the acres being managed won't have to decrease because increasing population and continued paving over of land will mean that the demand will continue to increase- and yes, I'm all for slowing down our "civilization's" expansion over the landscape. Joe said: "What ideology? That statement is absurd, and indicative of small mindedness so prevalent in forestry academia. There may be ideologues on the fringes of the enviro movement, but to talk about "mainstream environmentalist ideology" implies that most environmentalists are ideological and that their thinking isn't based on science but is mostly political and emotional." I wasn't sure that I agreed with your definition of "ideology", so I took the liberty of looking it up in a gasp book! g Ideology, amazingly, is defined as "the science of ideas; a system of ideas belonging a party, class, or culture". No need to exclude science from ideologies. The usual use of the term implies something less than science as in "communist ideology claimed it could build a perfect world". The use of the word is pejorative, as those "science of ideas" are usually within the realm of "social sciences" which as we all know are barely sciences at all. Nobody speaks of "the ideology of quantum mechanics", or "the ideology of mathematics". To say that those with a "preservation ethic" use an ideology implies that their thinking is less than science. You need to read between the lines. My interpretation is that the authors simply believe that preservation represents one of these "fringes" or as I like to put it, one place on the spectrum. That's their right to believe what they want, but their paper is a "scientific paper" produced by The Harvard Forest, for its own political purposes. And, yes, there are some at the fringes of the preservation movement who'd like to lock up every acre on the planet, but they're in the small minority. Audubon and Nature Conservancy lock up land, the National Park Service locks up land- they can be seen as part of the preservation movement as they want to preserve some land. Yes, anyone who wants to lock up all the public land and some private land are indeed on the fringes, yet they are a small number, and they are not in any way a threat to the multi- billion dollar logging industry and the forestry profession- there are many, much bigger issues which hold back great forestry being practiced everywhere. It's not a stretch to say that the level/intensity/severity/type of activity that an ecoforester would deem acceptable in the forest might be something the preservationist would not be comfortable with. I think that their statement just makes good sense: "Mainstream environmentalist ideology must embrace multiple uses of the forest including harvesting - and local citizens must consider the use of resources in their own backyard while maintaining a keen awareness of the global environment." Again, that use of "ideology" with "mainstream" is a bad choice of words- the mainstream environmentalists are very intelligent folks who have a very high education in solid science, whose ideas are very solid indeed, and to use "ideology" implies that those folks are basing their thinking on something less than science, on aesthetics, emotions and other fuzzy ways of thinking. It's a put down. Anyways, this is getting long winded, so I'll finish up quickly g. If you look at the wood exports from Canada over the years you'll find a huge spike right about the time that they "discovered" the owls and took "appropriate action" g. So while all is good now in owl town, the boreal forest is getting mowed down in Canada to make up for the loss. It wouldn't get mowed down if they actually practiced great forestry up there. So, the authors of this paper should have pointed out that the Canadians aren't practicing great forestry, rather than blame forestry's woes on the handfull of people who think all public land ought to be locked up. ..the owls you might say, have the illusion that the world is a better place. Hence the need for the consumption ethic... Are you going to cut back? Who is going to cut back? This needs to be answered. It's the rich who need to cut back. I don't know anyone who consumes too much. Whenever anyone says there needs to be a cutback of consumption, they need to say who is going to have to cut back. The rich of course think that everyone else needs to cut back, not themselves. regardless of how well you manage private land. What if private land owners don't want to harvest anything? What if they are preservationists? That is certainly their choice. Then what do you get? No net gain, just more owls and less boreal forest. phewf What do you think Joe? Am I crazy? Or just a snot-nosed forestry student? g The latter, currently being brainwashed by the "party line". G Scott p.s. - I'm with you about the cutting plans G We insert sarcasm here omnipotent foresters have to stick together. |
#4
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The Illusion of "The Illusion of Preservation"
"Joe Zorzin" wrote in message ...
POSTED IN alt.forestry "Scott Murphy" wrote in message om... "They" said (note the use of the word IF) "... well intentioned environmental activism may generate unanticipated environmental degradation if it fails to recognize that natural resource preservation is but an Illusion --IF-- it only serves to shift the source of resources" But, preserving scattered parcels DOESN'T serve to shift the source of resources, and certainly wouldn't if rapacious logging was no longer allowed. As a civilization, we do need to PRESERVE SOME LAND. The only question is how much and where, and what kind of land. Some think we already have enough preserved and some think we need more. It's an unanswered question. Nobody knows for sure. I don't know if I would call a 70% decrease in the timber harvest on National Forest lands, a 40% drop in oil and gas leasing, and a 10% decrease in livestock grazing, scattered. This is over the last decade. A 70% decrease in the harvest, while consumption levels stay approximately the same, obviously shifts the burden elsewhere. That you can even argue against this is startling. Does it need to be this way? No. Is it? Yes. We can leave motive out of it for now. Just recognize that this is a potential problem. It's like a not-in-my-backyard mentality. Joe says: "but the implication that a desire to preserve forest land leads to greater importing of wood resources is unwarranted. " Is it? We are talking about a finite resource here. What if all private land WAS managed to your standards, and an increase in productivity was realized, but society's demand was such that timber from public land was needed to meet this demand. What if we wanted to preserve public forests then? Where would the missing volume come from? Personally, I don't believe that most public forests should be "preserved" and neither do 95% of environmentalists. Most believe that most public forest should be very nicely managed. The small number of folks who think that MOST public and much private forest should be unmanaged- well, why worry about such small numbers, while the authors of that paper hardly mention the fact that so much logging is of poor quality? Agreed, but what about the question I just asked you? How can you expect this finite resource to keep up with our demand. What if demand equalled supply and THEN we decided we need to preserve some land because some species of newt is going the way of the dodo. Maybe we should look at reducing demand instead of increasing/maintaining the supply. Would good management on private land have made up for the lost harvest because of the spotted owl and the restrictions it brought? I think that you're telling me it would, but correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I just came from a foresters' event, where a consultant, a member of the Forest Steward's Guild, from Vermont told the story that- 8,000 acres of land he once managed, all within 10 acres of his home, to very high silvicultural standards, later got sold to owners who got shafted by loggers- who raped and pillaged that 8,000 acres. Such destruction will do more to move forestry elsewhere, than the fact that a few acres more gets locked up by the Audubon Society. It will move forestry elsewhere only because the trees are all gone. As long as we have private property rights, this will continue. You can't educate everyone about the joys of forestry. G This is why they are pushing the recycling, use-reduction, line. What good is a management/conservation ethic at the end of my hypothetical line, if there is no consumption ethic tied in with it? A consumption ethic is fine, but keep in mind, most Americans aren't overconsuming- the overconsumption occurs mostly by America's upper class who build multiple oversized houses, drive oversized cars, travel the world in big jets, work in big city buildings which waste energy and who buy oversized fancy furniture. Whenever the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we can be assured of increasing waste of resources- so the real argument must become a fundamental political argument about the distribution of wealth, a topic that the classicly right wing forestry world does not understand and will never contribute to. I find it hard to believe that most Americans/Canadians/humans couldn't get by on less. Extremely hard to believe. Are some classes more guilty than others? Probably, but to say that middle-class North Americans aren't overconsuming is preposterous. How did you twist this into a socio-economic issue anyway? Talk about agendas! What is yours? G Do you believe that if forest productivity was increased per acre it would lead to a decrease in total acres treated? Or would use continue at the same rate, increasing the total gains realized? If productivity increased, based on great silviculture, the acres being managed won't have to decrease because increasing population and continued paving over of land will mean that the demand will continue to increase- and yes, I'm all for slowing down our "civilization's" expansion over the landscape. I think you just agreed with me. G Joe said: "What ideology? That statement is absurd, and indicative of small mindedness so prevalent in forestry academia. There may be ideologues on the fringes of the enviro movement, but to talk about "mainstream environmentalist ideology" implies that most environmentalists are ideological and that their thinking isn't based on science but is mostly political and emotional." I wasn't sure that I agreed with your definition of "ideology", so I took the liberty of looking it up in a gasp book! g Ideology, amazingly, is defined as "the science of ideas; a system of ideas belonging a party, class, or culture". No need to exclude science from ideologies. The usual use of the term implies something less than science as in "communist ideology claimed it could build a perfect world". The use of the word is pejorative, as those "science of ideas" are usually within the realm of "social sciences" which as we all know are barely sciences at all. Nobody speaks of "the ideology of quantum mechanics", or "the ideology of mathematics". To say that those with a "preservation ethic" use an ideology implies that their thinking is less than science. You need to read between the lines. Your usual use of the term perhaps. Maybe you've just spent too much time reading between the lines, I don't know. g Besides, when did science become the end all be all. I'm a whiz with my stats; I can make them say anything I want. You poor omnipotent scientist you. G snip It's not a stretch to say that the level/intensity/severity/type of activity that an ecoforester would deem acceptable in the forest might be something the preservationist would not be comfortable with. I think that their statement just makes good sense: "Mainstream environmentalist ideology must embrace multiple uses of the forest including harvesting - and local citizens must consider the use of resources in their own backyard while maintaining a keen awareness of the global environment." Again, that use of "ideology" with "mainstream" is a bad choice of words- the mainstream environmentalists are very intelligent folks who have a very high education in solid science, whose ideas are very solid indeed, and to use "ideology" implies that those folks are basing their thinking on something less than science, on aesthetics, emotions and other fuzzy ways of thinking. It's a put down. I think your disregard for aesthetics, emotions, or other fuzzys, in the decision making process, separates your generation of foresters from mine. It's sort of like that "new" math thing. G I agree, though, environmentalists are an intelligent bunch.. I guess I just think you read to far between the lines to get at the ideology bit. I don't think the authors were slagging the enviros, they're just hoping for more middle ground and compromise. Loggers can't expect no enviromentalism, enviromentalists can't expect no logging. That's all. Anyways, this is getting long winded, so I'll finish up quickly g. If you look at the wood exports from Canada over the years you'll find a huge spike right about the time that they "discovered" the owls and took "appropriate action" g. So while all is good now in owl town, the boreal forest is getting mowed down in Canada to make up for the loss. It wouldn't get mowed down if they actually practiced great forestry up there. So, the authors of this paper should have pointed out that the Canadians aren't practicing great forestry, rather than blame forestry's woes on the handfull of people who think all public land ought to be locked up. I won't even touch that one, that's just a cheap shot G ..the owls you might say, have the illusion that the world is a better place. Hence the need for the consumption ethic... Are you going to cut back? Who is going to cut back? This needs to be answered. It's the rich who need to cut back. I don't know anyone who consumes too much. Whenever anyone says there needs to be a cutback of consumption, they need to say who is going to have to cut back. The rich of course think that everyone else needs to cut back, not themselves. Everybody needs to cut back. Period. It blows my mind that you can believe that you don't know anyone that consumes too much. I don't know if it's a case of holier than thou or what, but that just seems like an unreasonable statement. "The rich of course think that everyone else needs to cut back, not themselves." And then you tell us that you don't know anyone who needs to cut back; careful with the finger pointing G What do you think Joe? Am I crazy? Or just a snot-nosed forestry student? g The latter, currently being brainwashed by the "party line". G The "party line", yeesh ... some people should just never have taken that Intro. to Political Science 101 course. Everything's a bloody conspiracy! This arguement is just an over-dressed, robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of thing. Who really cares whether Peter and Paul are democrats or republicans... and get rid of that two party system while you're at it! G It's the very few who come up with something truly original, all you can do is take it all in and decide for yourself what is "right". Hardly, brainwashing G Scott |
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