This book is not about pristine, undisturbed lands. If such a thing exists, there are so few left in the continental U.S. that are not already protected, that there is no point in writing yet another book about “preserving nature.” This book is about motivating people to profit from the study, restoration, and development of healthy, productive ecosystems on the other 95% of the land.I'm gonna make you guys read this one way or another. ;-)Snip...
The unrestricted logging of virgin redwood timber during the earlier part of this century engendered resistance by political and legal means. The redwood preservation movement was organized to protect many of these unique and archetypal resource lands. The intent was to preserve what little remained of the primeval forest. There have been many successes, for which we as a society owe much. Unfortunately, the practice of legal tactics toward a goal of preservation has distorted the aim and function of these organizations, much to the detriment of their purpose.
Preservation is a form of conservation that can be understood and supported by urban contributors. It is simple to implement by court order and enforce by administrative government. It is thus an expedient way to extend collective claims. It was out of that demonstrable effectiveness, that preservation organizations derived their public support.
By the late 20th Century, the amount of undisturbed and unprotected domestic land had dwindled to the point that these “protection corporations” faced survival concerns of their own. When a corporation depletes its raw material, it considers another source. They needed new objectives in order to justify the donations that supply a continuing cash flow.
The new products were obvious spinoffs of existing organizational capabilities; both designed to prevent harm:
1. “Protection” of other lands both further afield and already disturbed.
2. Sponsoring regulation of industry practice to minimize the harm done.
It was inevitable that these two constituencies would eventually collide, with the latter ceding to the former. In organizations operating under an ethic of preventing harm, it is much easier to assert that preservation prevents harm than to take the position that action is necessary. Over time, preservationists have won out and the regulatory product is now used to reduce the cost of acquisition for preservation purposes.
As preservationists extended “their” holdings, they ran out of primeval domestic habitat to protect. According to the Sierra Club, 96% of more than two million acres of ancient redwood forests are gone. They have been logged. The remaining amount, not already under legal protection, is so small that hyperventilated discussions of preserving ancient forests is in large part no longer applicable to the situation we have. That battle is largely over.
The preservationists had to find other lands to protect. While the prescription of “preservation” had some scientific efficacy in the case of ancient virgin redwood stands, that method does not apply to regions that have been logged.
Snip...
The sad fact is that much of the forest is in no condition to recover from catastrophic fire to anything resembling primeval structure. The fuel levels are too high, the size of area threatened by fire is too large, and the exotic species are too aggressive and well distributed. Massive, hot fires in Santa Cruz will have enormous secondary environmental consequences for native species. (See Endnotes under this section for listed abstracts on fire.)
The response of many environmental groups is to “leave it alone,” with the idea that nature will select the stronger trees, while the others will fail, fall, and build soils. Many erroneously believe that native plants are best adapted to this region. There are open suggestions that we have only to wait 200 to 500 years and that we should not judge a preservation policy until then. This presupposes that the forest will successfully compete with exotic species and that we could then reverse course should that theory prove incorrect.
Given the spread of exotic pests, their progress belies the preservationists’ “promised” outcome. It leads one to question the ability of preser-vationist groups to deliver upon their promises, once they have increased the acreage under their control by a factor of hundreds. If they extend such a policy and it proves to be in error, it is also cause for concern about the risks to ecosystem health or our ability to reverse course. This is to say nothing of the effects of conflagration or toxic weeds on animals or, for that matter, people.
Doesn’t this seem like an obvious scenario? Why is it that the activists and political appointees seem so unconcerned about fire risk and the resulting damage to watersheds? Is there something intrinsic to the management system that abets denial of such an inevitable result?