Your Role and Mine

                                                Your and My Roles 

                                                          In Our

                                                  (Forests’) Future

A lot about the future of America’s forests will be determined by political stuff, by economic and financial dictations and by things natural science research learns.   But there are at least four things we common people can do and, if enough of us do them, they will be more important than what the politicians, the economists and scientists do.  

Those four things are:

• Plant a tree wherever you can. — It’ll make you feel big.

• Put up a solar panel to produce some of your electricity. — It’ll make you feel “green.”

• Eat more vegies and less meat and use vegetables that are grown as close to home as possible. — It’ll make you feel healthy.

• Take children to the woods, even if it’s just Peter Pan Park, USA; talk to them about respect for nature and show them natural beauty. — People will think you’re smart.

We can’t all do all of these, but everyone can do one or two and it will make a difference, a good one.

Concerning the children, poet Mary Oliver says it well, “Teach the children.  We don’t matter so much, but the children do.  Show them daisies and the pale hepatica.  Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen.  The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers.  And the frisky ones — inkberry, lambs-quarters, blueberries.  And the aromatic ones — rosemary, oregano.  Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school.  Give them the fields and woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit.  Stand them in the green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent beautiful blossoms.”  (Mary Oliver, Blue Iris, page 55)

William Wordsworth, “What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how.”      

It’s time.

This is the end of my blog, thanks for paying attention.      Jerry

A survivor on Pole Mountain

"Go Sit Under A Tree And Listen And Think." Walt Whitman

                                             A Talk With The Woods

                                                  Jerry Covault

                                          Thinking, 1960 to 2016

“And never for each other shall we feel

As we may feel, till we have sympathy

With nature in her forms inanimate,

With objects such as have no power to hold

Articulate language.  In all forms of things

There is a mind”

William Wordsworth,  Fragments: Yet once again,  from the Alfoxden Notebook (I).

The forests’ brilliant colors, spring wildflowers of many kind, is how urgency looks.   There’s growing to do!  And only a short time to do it.  Every plant, from the tallest tree to the smallest forb has to gather “food” and energy to itself and convert that into leaves, stem, roots and flowers.   Each  flower competes with every other flower in the neighborhood to attract a bee, a wasp, or other bug or breeze to do the pollination so a seed can grow.   The motivation for all this activity is nothing less than the life for the individual and perpetuation of the species.  That is purposeful action. 

But, I’m here in the fall, the season of intensity is over for what we people call “this year”.  The growing during the intense season is done, the flowers have done their job, or not.   The grass has turned brown, the leaves of the mountain maple and the nine-bark are red, the pine needles are getting a deeper green and the larch needles are beginning to turn yellow, soon they will fall away.  On this day the woods are very quiet, here-and-there is the skeleton of a gentian, spring beauty, balsamroot, or any other plant that was green a few weeks earlier.   The seeds they produced are tucked into the small spaces between fallen pine needles, grass stems, shallow roots and bodies of insects that made their living eating such stuff.   It’s a quiet time.  And the woods will tell you that, -- if you listen.

“Listen”?  “Listen to what”?   “Trees and forbs can’t talk”.    

True.   But, there is tremendous pleasure in listening, feeling, seeking what the poets know about nature.   For millennia those special people have talked about a “consciousness” that exists throughout nature. 

“Consciousness”?  “What’s that about”?

Start with us,  we are conscious beings, that is, we are aware of ourselves and what’s going on around us, and, we have a subconscious somewhere deep within us.   If we listen, that subconscious can guide us, more or less, to our own good.  It lets us know what we should do and it may provide premonitions.  Also, we people have a big, powerful, “what’s happen’en and what to do now” brain that can, and often does, override our subconscious mind.   All this is pretty much common sense that is now being backed up by the scientists studying the human brain, mind and behavior.  

Let’s take that “consciousness” thing into the forest.  Every individual there performs certain actions at certain times to perpetuate its individual life and its species.  That would seem to qualify as a consciousness, even if there is no big powerful brain to override it (as far as we know).  The poets feel that consciousness in nature, and so do a lot of non-poets.  American Indian stories are about people being “plugged into the natural world” and so are the stories  of other cultures.

With the fall of a waring and cruel Assyrian king, the prophet Isaiah wrote (700 BCE)  about the earth’s reaction saying,  (Isaiah 14: 7 and 8)   

“The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.  Yea the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us”.

War takes a huge toll on forests, Isaiah is making it clear that forests have a consciousness and awareness of abuse. 

Try this.  Go to a natural place, leave your troubles, leave economics (not the national debt stuff, the “I want --” stuff - whether it’s catching a fish today, or getting rich), leave science, leave political stuff, leave religion in the rig.  Get out and walk on the land -- mountain, plain, forest, grassland, wherever, with your mind like a clean erased blackboard.  Be in the now.  Really see beauty and feel what there is to feel, let nature write on your blackboard.  Sense what’s going on in this place, how it’s doing.  What is right and good for this place will start to seep into your mind. You’re becoming aware of the consciousness of that place.  The  sense of urgency in spring, the sense of quietness in fall, a sense of deep concern when there are threats (fire, disease, human impact), or, if the ecosystem is ill. This is the place’s consciousness. 

OK, that sounds like knowing the science of nature, and it is, but science is about collecting and analyzing data to draw conclusions.  This is different, if you walk quietly and let awareness rather than facts seep in, that awareness is about the place’s consciousness, that place’s capabilities, purpose, health and susceptibility.  

So what?  Will all that make anyone any money?  Will it help write a paper that will be accepted in a peer reviewed scientific journal?

Probably not.  But, it’s a tool that we have never tried to used.  We  make decisions concerning using natural resources based on economics, laws (influenced by economics), political power (influenced by economics), and (hopefully) science.  By now we should be figuring out that there is another player in this equation, NATURE.  We need to be consulting nature.  What we’ve been doing is like the health insurance company and the doctor deciding to operate without ever consulting the patient.  Seeking nature’s consciousness is outside science, outside economics, outside politics, outside man-made laws, and we don’t know how to determine what it is or how to take it seriously in our decision making.  We need to learn.   We’re facing some big questions that could use some insight - and input - from Nature. 

Should we genetically alter animals to grow more food?  Have we done right by genetically altering plants to produce more insecticides within their bodies, or resist certain herbicides?   Should we be deep drilling for oil in the oceans?  Are we right to bring back wolves? If so, where?   What do the elk think about that (what’s their consciousness)?   What do the aspen forests think about wolves?   How many people can our Earth support?  At what life style?  Global Warming - human caused or not - is telling us something.  How can we listen beyond science and economics?  How can we use what we and nature “feel” in decision making?   How can we use what the poets have been telling us?  You can fill in other big questions, and small ones.

Understanding Nature’s consciousness can be the next big tool to help people live better with one another and with our home, Earth.  That kind of knowing is beyond science and it is not the pure faith that religion requires.  It is an area of knowledge we haven’t developed the tools to investigate, we need to get to work on it, because this Earth is talking to us.

-----------------------------

“The Tables Turned”  -  A Wordsworth poem

---

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your Teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth, 

Our minds ands hearts to bless -- 

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good, 

Than all the sages can.

---

------------------------

There is a real good chance all this will illicit the response, “This is just nuts.”  “This would cost us money.”    OK, -- Assume that NATURE has no consciousness, no purpose, and we will just forget the whole thing and keep doing things the way we’ve always done them.  But, WHOA, do we really think that’s working all that well?  Will the way we’re doing things sustain the Earth and us people for the next 400 generations, 10,000 years, and help us to live in harmony with each other and nature?  Our present performance isn’t that reassuring.

It’s clear, if we will listen, Nature is not without its own purpose - not without “being” (as in “to have or to be”) - and, she has a lot to say.

We can benefit by learning how to listen.

  

------------------------

One must talk about everything according to its nature,

how it comes to be and how it grows.

Men have talked about the world without paying attention

to the world or to their own minds,

as if they were asleep or absent-minded.

   From a poem, “The Logos is eternal”   by Herakleitos (5th century B.C.)

————————————-

“Go sit under a tree and listen and think.

Walt Whitman,   Earth My Likeness,    “The Lesson of a Tree”   (page 67)

Threats to Forests - Politics (capital "P")

Politics

(Capital “P”)

In the past, congress has passed some far-sighted, far-reaching, science based laws to guide the protection and use of our natural resources:  The Organic Act of 1897; The Multiple Use, Sustained Yield Act; The Wilderness Act; National Environmental Policy Act; Resources Planning Act; Clean Air, Clean Water Acts; Threatened and Endangered Species Act; National Forest Management Act and there are others all with lofty goals and forward looking direction. 

However, the good laws are less than half the story.  Congress people are continually sponsoring and passing short sighted forest-affecting laws to benefit some special interest group with no consideration, or understanding, of long-term effects, or the history of the situation.  Too many laws are no more than a response to gain a few political points and dollars for the next campaign.  Many of these laws contradict laws already in effect.  Yet, the natural resource agencies responsible for managing the resources are responsible for following all the laws, even the foolish and corrupting ones.  Congress has created such a tangled web of contradictions and minutia details, many contrary to good science and common sense, there is no way for agencies to avoid lawsuits against almost any action they may take.  The dollar costs and negative effects of irresponsible lawmaking are enormous.

Senators and Representatives could pay attention to what sciences say about the long-term needs of our natural resources, they could be more concerned about the quality-of-life for future generations of people and forests, but short-term money gains and political advantage, all to often, drive poor legislation.  One of the worst examples of this is the foolish and destructive effort, from time to time, to transfer some or all of our national public lands to state or local governments, who will not be able to afford the expenses and ultimately sell the land to the private ownership for quick profits embedded in the water rights or some other resource the land holds.  This tired old tactic would be horribly destructive to the American people and the American land.  That kind of short-sightedness needs to change, our elected representatives need to practice - no, perfect (the verb, bring to perfection) - statesmanship.  We voters need to elect representatives that are worthy of America.  

As Wallace Stegner wrote, “then it (America) has a a chance to create a society to match its scenery.” (Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water, pge 38)

Threats to Forests - politics (small "p")

politics  

small “p”

Getting to Compromise

about Forests

Thoughtful logging, careful grazing, rehabilitating damaged soils and streams, recreation infrastructure, prescribed fire, thinning dense stands of small trees, intelligent actions against forest fire and insect and disease attacks are examples of good and important work that make our forests more healthy, but it takes good science, public agreement, committed effort and money to do these things.  It takes compromise between those who believe the best we can do for forests is, “NOTHING because everything we’ve done in the forests has been a disaster,” those who just want to take the economic value from the forests and those who see scientific management as the way to healthy forests.  

Logging and roads are essential to many forest management activities and they are two key issues where disagreement is intense.  There are groups who want logging and roads and those who sincerely DO NOT want logging and roads in the forest.  Both say they want what is best for forests, but they can’t agree on what “best“ is, or how to get to “best.”  

Logging is not a threat to a healthy forest, on the contrary, it is a useful tool to develop healthy forests, that is, if it is done according to good silvicultural practices and thoughtful management.  When good silviculture is ignored, logging is often bad for the trees, the soil, the watershed, the aesthetics, the wildlife and all the other forest residents.  There are two main reason GOOD silvicultural practices may not be followed,  (1) the only objective is for short-term profits, (2) stupidity.  We know how to do good silviculture, good logging, good forest management, we just need to do it - every time, every where it is done.

Roads are a big issue in the “what’s best” debate.   Roads are a big impact on a forest, even when done well, they are also necessary for every thing we do in the forest, except Wilderness.  Roads need to be well planned to access the forest efficiently and effectively.  Roads need to be carefully surveyed and engineered to minimize impacts on soils, streams and watersheds and they need to be constructed according to an engineered plan.  Finally, and very important, roads need to be maintained to prevent erosion and stream sedimentation by rain storms and melting snow.  These are the reasons good forest roads are expensive.  Unfortunately, roads can be built cheap just by sending machinery to make a way through the forest that a machine can use.  Roads that are unplanned and not engineered usually cause serious erosion and stream pollution and miles of unnecessary impact because the objectives of the road system were not well thought-out.  When a forest road is established, whether it is a good one or a poor one, the question becomes, should the road be left open for public use or should the road be closed and used only for forest management purposes.  Either answer is wrong by a large percent of the forest-using public.  What’s a manager to do?  Agonize over every question, then make a decision, that’s what.

Yip, roads are a big problem for everyone; for those who want the forest left alone to take care of itself; for those who don’t want to spend a pile of money on an expense like forest roads and for forest scientists who see expensive roads and management activities as necessary, especially for fire management, prevention and suppression.

Ecosystems  -  Values  -  Science

  

The arguments between preservation and commercial use have been waged in the political arena, in the judicial system and in the press, each side trying to get leverage and win battles - political and legal. 

The sad thing is, this fight between commercial use and preservation is not helping decide how we should use the forests.  The real question is, “What are the things we value about a forests?”  “Preserve everything” is not a value.  “Make the most money possible and return the least possible” is not a value.  Natural beauty is a value, clean streams is a value, healthy wildlife habitat is a value, recreation opportunity is a value, a source of wood is a value.  Values vary with the kinds of forest and wild critters that are there.  How a forest is managed has to follow: (1) the ecosystem’s possibilities, (2) the values people have for the place and, (3) the scientifically based options for sustaining the forest and the values people place within it.  Values can be protected or enhanced or preserved by scientific management plans and the money to carry them out.  It takes detailed planning, but it can be done, with compromise, cooperation and commitment and we will have healthier forests to show for the efforts.

The big loser in this decades-long conflict has largely been the forest sciences.  Science has not guided the discussion, instead, science has been used as a club, by either side, when it serves a particular purpose.  The mega fires, insect epidemics, and unhealthy forest structures, are shouting for the need to get our forests healthy.   We can do that, we will have to compromise and cooperate on values, apply good science and put out the money to do the work, but it is possible to do.

Doing nothing different will NOT result in healthy forests.  Lawsuits between ideologies don’t benefit the forests, they absorb energy, time, money and thought just to win, or lose, a narrow battle.  Good science has been a loser because science, when it is considered at all, is used to support some narrow position on one side or another of a legal argument rather than a comprehensive way to guide policy and management.  Shame on us!   This ideological fighting is allowing trust and funding for responsible forest management to collapse as we burn energy, time, money and thought on legal processes that have little to do with real forests - the real world.  It’s ok to feel strongly about an issues, but cooperation, compromise, honesty, a sense of fair play and a genuine caring about our forests and this earth are essentials when considering issues.  Honest caring has been lacking at every level of the political and legal discussion, it’s all about both sides wanting to win and the forests are losing.

Earth deserves better from people, if we don’t do better, she will go on without us, or at least a lot fewer of us. 

Threats to Forests - Science AND Economics

Natural Scientists Need to Understand Economics,

Economists Need to Understand the Natural Sciences

Those who commit their education and careers to understanding and thoughtful management of the natural environment have not given enough consideration to how to pay for sustaining the trees, soil, water, wildlife, shrubs, grass and forbs in healthy functioning communities.  They have studied the natural sciences: botany, zoology, plant physiology, wildlife biology, fish biology, forestry, hydrology, soil science, weather and on and on.  These people are science oriented, committed to studying why, what and how natural systems work together.  Most of them don’t have time to be deeply interested in economics, finance, business, or political science, yet these are vitally important to how the natural world gets managed by people.

Those who commit their education and careers to economics, finance, business or politics don’t spend much of their professional time thinking about the workings of forests and what it takes to produce the 10,000 + board feet of wood necessary to build a house.  Yet, business and financial careerists want to fly-fish a mountain stream, visit Parks, forests and lakes and have their spirits renewed.  In their calculations they want assurances that wood, food, scenery are stable and a sufficient supply will always be there. 

It’s pretty clear, the natural scientists must find ways within the economic system to pay the costs.  Those in finance and business need to acknowledge it takes reinvestment to sustain natural resources and have a continuous flow of, food, wood, water, beautiful scenery, wildlife, recreation and more into the economy.  Business people, finance people and economists must find ways to pay for sustaining natural resources or that flow of things we need from the earth (like clean water) will continue diminishing while human population and demand increases.  Not a pretty thing to think about. 

We’re all in this together and we need to be pulling together.  That word “together” has to include both people and nature.  The old idea of each person doing what is best for him or her at the moment and this will get us all more things may work for a while, but it is terminal in the long-run.  

So far, the only way we have to limit the degradation of natural resources and provide security for people is by Government action:  creating National Parks and National Forests, regulation of financial activities, food inspections, work place safety, laws setting goals for clean air and clean water - you can name several more.  We are seeing that government’s actions to provide long-term security for citizens goes far beyond having a strong military and Homeland Security, it has to include a sustainable economy from sustainable natural resources. This means limiting the damage the capitalistic economic system can do to people and the environment.  The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of 1972 have done a lot to clean our waters and air by limiting the waste and pollution individuals and industries can dump on the public domain (our air and waters).  As important as National Parks, National Forests, wildlife refuges and regulatory laws are, they are defensive actions.   A strategic offense is needed to counter capitalism’s strategy of “short-term profits and pay no attention to sustainability.”   We don’t have much of an offense at this time.   We sure need one.

On capitalism’s plus side, besides getting more “things,” there is money to be made by thinking of new things and better ways to do things.  This system creates a population of people that is innovative, adaptable and can change quickly.  Each person is motivated to better their own situation, this seems good.  After 240 years, Capitalism has influenced every nook-and-cranny of our society, our culture and our daily life.  It is the blueprint we have used to build the standard of living we enjoy, but it’s time to recognize that while Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations book may have been ok in 1776, things have evolved and so must the foundations of economics and finance.  It’s that basic, and it needs to be done, now, and a lot of people know it, we all need to admit it.  We need to demand our politicians and experts put money into maintaining natural resources and tell the public why maintenance is necessary.  

For us common people it likely will mean we have to pay more for all those “things,” and that’s a big deal.  It may take each of us redefining what the good life is and, maybe, call-out greed for what it is, SICK-AND-WRONG.  I hope we’re willing to do it for the sake of the generations ahead.

Threats to Forests - Limits

Limits 

Some limits had to  be established on what capitalism could do to the land, the waters, the air, the earth.  One of the first acts was, the Government created Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park.  That was 1872.  It was done because the land was simply too beautiful, too special to allow the economic system to despoil the forest, the soil, the streams and rivers, the natural beauty by turning the trees into railroad ties, sheds, barns and houses.  

Yellowstone National Park was the first step in an awakening.  Slowly some people began to realize that soil, clean water, habitat for wild animals and maybe even the natural beauty of the forest have value.   Even though the value of wildlife habitat, soil, air and other resources couldn’t  be measured in dollars, there were getting to be examples of the costs of lost productivity from eroded soil, polluted water, destroyed plants and animals.  When there was no more virgin prairie to be plowed for new corn, and wheat fields, when there were no more virgin forests to cut big trees from, some people could see there was a dollar cost to not sustaining the productivity of the continent’s natural resources.  However, that was, and still is, a big picture and big pictures are tough to take in and internalize their meaning.  All too often, nothing changes.  It comes down to the question, “If the health and productivity of the mountains, valleys and plains is damaged, how can gleaming cities thrive?”  The answer, “They can’t.”

Water in the West is an example worth considering.  West of the 100th Meridian, running north and south through mid-Nebraska and mid-Texas, the annual rainfall is less than 20 inches per year.  That is significant because 20 inches is not enough moisture to grow crops without irrigation and not enough to supply the water cities need.  The high mountains are the valleys savior because those peaks accumulate a lot of snow, much more than the valleys where the cities and farms are.  The great cities of the West exist because they have extensive systems of reservoirs to store water from melting mountain snow and canals that transport reservoir water to cities and field crops. Here’s the kicker, in the American west all the places that are suitable for large water reservoirs are now occupied with large water reservoirs.  There are no other places to build big reservoirs for existing or future cities.  We may get by with that, IF the forests and grasslands upstream from the reservoirs are kept healthy.  Here’s why.  When forests and grasslands are over-cut, over-grazed, and/or severely burned, the soils are exposed to erosion.  Rushing water carries the eroded soil particles down stream to rivers and eventually into the still water of some city’s reservoir where the soil particles settle out and become the muddy bottom.  The mud builds up, there is less and less room for water.  Dredging is horrendously expensive.  Water shortage!!  Water would be rationed in cities.  Golf courses and car washes would be the first to close, it would get worse from there on.  

This is only one example why shinning cities cannot be sustained if the forests, grasslands, croplands, soils, clean water, wild animals and natural beauty are ignored, or worse, intentionally abused for dollar profits.   The cost of mistreating the land will be paid, sometime, probably installment by installment, until, gradually, we’ve lost much of what makes our life enjoyable and even possible.   That has happened many times, many places in the past, it is just this time, there are no new places to go.

On the plus side, we know how to take care of watersheds to protect soil and water quality and quantity, it is a matter of awareness and commitment to good management based on good science and taking the long view and paying for all the costs as we go.  For example, we know there is such a thing as “natural water storage” that can increase the amount of water stored for cities and crop land without building more dams.  Natural water storage is simply the water that fills in between mineral particles and decaying organic matter that make up healthy soils.  There is a lot of spaces between the solids that can fill with water form melting snow and rains during wet seasons and provide significant amounts of water storage for cities and irrigating crops.   It involves converting small grassland valleys above reservoirs back to valleys of willows and beaver dams as they were before settlement, farming and ranching.  These wetland systems stored tremendous amounts of water in the soil and thousands of beaver dams releasing the water slowly throughout the summer.  Wetland ecosystems could be recreated, but the water users would have to buy the privately owned ranches and change the livestock from cows to beavers and the vegetation from grass to willows.  It could be done, the science is there, and it would probably be a relatively cheap way to get more water, and it would be clean water.  We could do that.  It would take commitment, money, cooperation and long-range planning.

Threats to Forests - Capitalism, Continued

As American settlement, under the motivation of capitalism, marched across the continent every natural resource was impacted, forests cut, prairies plowed, soils eroded, rivers and streams silted and polluted, minerals dug and their poisons exposed, wildlife shot and their habitat destroyed, wetlands drained, areas of ocean waters became dead zones, a small continent of plastic garbage floats in the Pacific, our air is a dump for poisons and hydrocarbons, the natural beauty that early travelers extolled has been replaced with common utilitarian structures and the atmosphere is being warmed.  On the ugly side, that’s pretty much what Capitalism has done in just 240 years, ten generations.  When you think about it, the incentives of capitalism ride rough shod over all the beautiful things this earth has prepared.  We restructured  the natural resources into the people-built environment, architecture, farms, roads, utility corridors, towns, and cities - some beautiful, some good, some,  not-so-much.   Whether good or bad, or in between, the economic system has produced “things,” things that contribute to our security, health, comfort and entertainment.  We, as consumers of all these “things” are always looking for the lowest price - that’s important.

In the forest, wood was the primary product that could be converted to money quickly, that is, wood that was already stored as big trees.  The more wood in a tree the more dollars the tree was worth.  Responding to that, we developed techniques to measure a forest in terms of board feet per acre, board feet easily converts to dollars.  So we had a way of measuring forest’s value in dollars.  Or, so we thought, as it turns out, it’s a deception - value and dollars don’t equate when talking forests.

When the trees are cut, then what?  Some people did think of planting trees to replace those that were cut, but that calculation runs smack-dab into interest rates real fast.  “If I plant trees here to replace the ones I cut it will cost $50,000 and I can harvest the wood from these baby trees in about 100 years.”  A HUNDRED YEARS !!  “I’m not going to get much good out of that!”   Even if I do sink $50,000 in planting eight inch tall trees now, who’s to say what the wood will be worth in a hundred years, will my investment make 4%, 10%, 0 %, or worse?”  “I think I’ll take that $50,000 and buy a new pickup and just sell the logged-over land, or let it go “back-for-taxes.”  This kind of perfectly logical thinking kept pushing westward entering uncut forests along the way.  The problem is, that kind of short-term thinking doesn’t lead to a good future, but, “We can’t spend time worrying about a hundred years from now, just keep getting boards to the market.”  Capitalism is excellent at that.  It takes government intervention to look a hundred years ahead, that’s what our public lands are for.  Logged areas on public lands are replanted, the forest is regenerated, it is required by laws.

It takes a lot of money to make logging equipment, build forest roads and sawmills.  Capitalism makes that money available through investors, thousands of investors, doing what they believe is best for themselves because their investment will grow.  It will grow because the company will use all that money to make the best product it can at the cheapest cost it can and we all get more “things” - right now.  

That thinking made sense when the natural resources (forests) seemed limitless (but, of course, they never really were).  The country needed more wood, no problem, after we’d logged the eastern states we logged the forests of the Lake States until they were gone too.  Only the biggest and best logs went to the sawmills, the smaller logs were left to rot and become fuel for wildfires because, “there’s not enough money in small logs to haul them out of the woods.”  We’ve already calculated that planting trees in the cutover areas wouldn’t pay-off in a lifetime, so, capitalism demanded that we just move on to new forests that were “God given” (after we’d cleared out the First People who had managed the forests).  After all, the forests of the American West hadn’t been touched. 

In most American forest the drive for the cheapest possible boards does not leave behind a way to sustain the nation’s need for wood, and the trees are only a part of a forest community.  Wild animals, the water and soil suffer and that suffering is eventually passed on to people.  Soil and water are basic elements to all of life.  Whether we are prosperous or destitute, have gleaming cities or live in wandering clans is dependent on productive soil and clean water.  

In all too many cases it works like this, in the wake of destructive logging and/or grazing, raw soil is exposed to impact of falling rain, greater accumulation of snow and direct summer sun that can heat soil to over 100 degrees.  These situations erode top soil at an alarming rate.   Streams that had flowed clear became muddy from carrying a load of soil and that erosion multiplies as the water flows downstream.   Clean water’s action on stream banks and bottom is like rubbing a piece of wood with a white sheet of typing paper.  Nothing much happens.  If you add sand to that sheet of paper, sandpaper, you can sand away the wood.  When water is carrying silt it wears away the stream banks like it is sandpaper, adding more silt to the stream.  Fish and bugs that need clean water die in muddy water, there isn’t enough oxygen.  Somewhere downstream, where the valley flattens and the speed of the water slows, the heavy silt settles out and becomes a mud flat.  Soil that once supported a forest is now somewhere else and infertile subsoil and rock are left where the trees once were.  Only weeds and brush will grow there long before trees return naturally.  

It is not just bad forestry practices that altered the land’s foundations, agriculture has done the same.  Early American farmers wore out the productive soils in New England and the tobacco crop lands of the Atlantic states.  So, they picked-up and moved to the mid-west  where they could produce bushels of food cheaper than by taking care of the land they were leaving.  As farming moved west, native prairie grasses were plowed under so corn and wheat could be planted.  Farming practices that produced the least-cost food exposed thousands of acres of bare soil to sun, wind and rain.  Dry years came, the wind blew, the wind blew Kansas and Oklahoma soil to the Atlantic Ocean.  In wet years, thunderstorms sent thousands of acre-feet of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Nebraska top soil down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico creating a dead zone far out into the Gulf where no fish could live, and still don’t.  Along with the soil, it’s the eroded pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that are killing the waters of the Gulf.  That’s pretty darn significant, especially if you fished those waters for your living. 

American industries acting as individuals doing what made sense to produce products at the lowest cost dumped their waste into the public domain, our lakes, rivers and air.   Lake Erie caught on fire, the James River became so polluted people knew they shouldn’t TOUCH the water, the air extending around many American cities became so polluted it was unhealthy to breath.  Yet, every polluting action made sense to the individual doing it because it provided the product at the cheapest cost.  It makes sense from the individual’s point of view and it produces “things” we can afford.  But, considering sustaining our civilization and way-of-life for the long-term, it doesn’t make much sense. This sounds a lot like what Babylon went through in ancient times, when it was one of the most beautiful cities and greatest centers of civilization on earth.  The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were there, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  Those folks didn’t take care of their forests, their cropland, their soils, their waters and today, what was one of the wonders of the world, is a desert.  There is a lesson there.

Each individual doing what made sense to them to make products at the cheapest price has resulted in horrendous damage to the resources we all ultimately depend upon.

Forest Service's Clearwater Guard Station,
burned in a forest fire last weekend.
I rode out of here many times, - good memories.