Editor:
I am writing to publicly chastise the Journal for its news article headlined Forest industry key to healthy forests. Remember that your job as a media outlet is to mediate opinion, not pass it along as news. An article with this headline belongs on the opinion page. To fix this article, you might have titled it Management seen as key to healthy forests, which would imply that it is reporting on a group of people who have shown a consensus.
Unfortunately, this callous title is only a symptom of our media culture, which is content to extend its proscribed 8th-grade level style to its dedication to research. Where are the alternative viewpoints? Has science itself become one? We hear a lot about how politicians and their industry backers would manage our forests, especially in drought years.
The forestry issue is complex and it is irresponsible to say that industry is the only or best solution. We can all agree that many of our forests are overloaded with fuel, and that thinning is preferable to total combustion. But we shouldnt let the needs of the urban-wild interface dictate forest policy where fuel loads arent threatening or where logging itself has caused the problem. A blanket approach will be hurtful if it ignores the degradation caused by clear-cutting, road building, soil compaction and erosion, and nutrient loss.
The forests were doing great for thousands of years, and its only now that we manage them that we scramble for new ways to manage our management. Lets remember that nature is the best forester, and just like on our farms, the closer we can mimic its processes the better off we will be.
Ole Bye
Mancos
Via email
