the dharma blog

when the forest service announced a new management plan for the superior national forest, i figured it would ultimately increase the amount of logging and road-building. this is the year 2004. george w. bush sits in the white house. national forests are anything but safe.

nonetheless, as i’ve been reading various reports, i’ve heard the logging companies complaining that the new plan is too restrictive and i’ve heard conservation groups saying it’s too liberal. naively, i figured that meant that more or less, the plan was probably a decent compromise. if both sides are upset, it means the proposal fell somewhere in the middle.

emphasis on “naively.”

i don’t know why i’m so dumb sometimes. of course the logging companies are going to complain. they’ll whine and bitch from here to kingdom come that they aren’t allowed to destroy our forests enough, so long as there’s a tree left on this earth.

doug anderson — chairman of the friends of the bwca, a group i have mixed feelings toward — helps those of us who have lodged our heads several inches under the sand see exactly what those who are a bit more atuned to the controversy (i.e., the sierra club) are upset about:

The Superior National Forest’s new management plan has set noble goals — to increase the number of old-growth trees, to protect wildlife roaming the land, and to restore the forest to its presettlement appearance.Unfortunately, the new management plan proposes logging and road-building activity that is incongruent with these goals.

Despite the plan’s pledge to increase the number of conifers in the Superior National Forest, it targets them for logging. Despite purporting to protect wildlife like the Canada lynx and songbirds, the plan allows more road-building in the heart of these animals’ feeding and breeding grounds.

Along with these inconsistencies, the management plan failed to consider the addition of 90,000 acres of wild forest land for wilderness protection. The U.S. Forest Service dismissed these lands as unworthy of wilderness designation, and instead has tagged them as opportunities for logging and road-building.

These special places in the Superior National Forest include roadless areas near Seven Beaver Lake and Hog Lake. Seven Beaver is the headwaters for the St. Louis River, a source of drinking water for Duluth, and the area near Hog Lake comprises 200 acres of cathedral white and red pine that are more than 100 years old.

i mean hell, even in kerouac’s day he could see that the forest service is no more than a front for the timber industry. his job as a fire lookout on desolation peak was to watch for any forest fires that might threaten a future “crop” of trees. there’s a reason the forest service is overseen by the department of agriculture.

i don’t know why i thought the forest service would actually try to build any sort of consensus. they have ears only for those who would profit by destroying that which god has created. damn them. damn them all.