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.