Clear Cutting

Open fields are great for farming. And for wild animals to roam around in. But when I see bulldozers and logging trucks cutting down forests I have to wonder…

Sure, they could be making new farmland. I’ve seen that done. Maybe they are harvesting the crop of trees for lumber or pulp. They may just be clearing the land in preparation for building something. Great. A gas station. Or a strip mall. Certainly worth sacrificing a forest of life giving trees for that!

Or maybe it’s for some kind of housing. New apartment complex. Subdivision perhaps. Usually when the developers cut down a lot of big trees they are required to replace them with something to be considered green space. Some seedlings or maybe something as big as ten feet.

Trees don’t all grow fast so it may take twenty or thirty years or longer for those little sticks to get as big as the ones they replaced. In the meantime, homeowners and apartment dwellers get to have these sticks in their yard providing beauty on a small scale. And limited shade, and oxygen purification.

Makes me sad. Where I live now is surrounded by a forest. Big trees. Old trees. With new seedlings and smaller trees growing up among them. A beautiful oasis. Especially with the lake out in the back.

When I built my last house nearly twenty five years ago the builder cut down the trees that were inside what would be the footprint of the house, but left all the rest. It might be easier to just cut them all down, but he did it the right way. The whole neighborhood was like that and although mine was one of the first houses built there, the setting looked very established and elegant. And of course I quickly got to work planting some more trees. After nineteen years the trees I had planted were grand indeed. And then I moved. Deeper into the woods.

Cutting and even burning can be used as a means of forest management. But I’ve never seen anyone out sweeping the forest floor. And on a recent trip I saw a plot of land that had been stripped of its hardwoods. After the pine saplings had been burned off. Wow. Whoever owns this was really going after the trees I thought.

Then I saw a sign… This land was part of a national forest! The big brown wooden sign stood there surrounded by charred remains and hacked off stumps. I thought it so ironic that the forest service would do this to their trees, but I guess they know what they are doing. I’d rather see them do the clear cutting for forest preservation than to know that someone else had done it to make a buck.

I love trees. That’s part of my story. What’s yours?