Clear cutting

by Kris
(Clodine, TX, USA)

Clear-cutting - short-term profit for a very few, long-term detriment for the majority.

I witnessed large areas of clear-cut forest during the time (1997-2001) I lived in Vancouver, BC, and took a drive up to Whistler. Although they tried to keep some trees along the roads to "prettify" the drive for tourists, even a short stop in most places revealed huge gashes on the mountains that were devoid of anything green.

This astounded and disgusted me, because I'd thought it was common knowledge that this is directly contributing to the huge declines in the salmon fisheries. It's clearly a case of sheer greed and people "cutting off their nose to spite their face", because the very short-term profits (to a VERY few people) don't offset the long-term detriments, not only the environmental disruption but also the economic disruption.

While everyone has to earn a living, it's at-best ignorant, and at worst willfully stupid, to allow a tiny number of people to obtain short-term profit at the very long-term expense of huge numbers of people. Clearly, the laws need to be brought up-to-date so that sustainable forestry practices will be rewarded, and stupidly-destructive practices punished.

Barry's Response - Somehow those involved obtained the rights to do so. I don't know how, but those practices are likely to change as time evolves.



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