Ancient Opal-Creek tree
Everyone loves good news.
President Obama has given a real gift to the planet and all its glorious biological diversity, including humankind. Hopes are that he has set a precedent for caring for our planet and, by extension, the future of humans.
To all who read about WOPR, the logging deal that threatened Oregon’s remaining, vital old-growth forests, and took action, thank you!
Thank you as well to Secretary Salazar for making the right call on this.
These precious realms were about to be opened to unquenchable logging interests, which would have sawed down trees hundreds of years old and killed or displaced millions of vulnerable creatures, for a few feet of board wood or paper pulp that probably would have ended up in a landfill in just a few months anyway.
Old forests are about more than just trees. The soil structure, the microbes in the loam and the fungus, lichens, plants and all creatures, are unique in an ancient forest. Once cleared, the new ‘woods’ that eventually grow back are not a replacement. The soil will not recover for hundreds of years, if at all. The complex ancient ecosystem does not regenerate with the advent of farmed trees. This article from Canada explains just how unique and irreplaceable these truly ancient forest systems are, and why.
Preserving vast intact ancient forests is about even more than the irreplaceable species of plants and animals, or even the intrinsic value of breath-taking beauty. It’s also about the health of this fragile, spinning globe as it struggles to support humans and all the damage we do, from habitat destruction to toxic industry waste. They offer clear streams and healthy fisheries and reduce carbon emissions.
These ancient forests may be the key to slowing climate change.
With all the discouraging news we see every day, and as hopeless at it sometimes seems to be able to balance the insatiable 'needs' of humans against the sustainability of a truly healthy Earth, this is an important victory for all.
Get out there and celebrate.
See? Together we CAN make a difference!
I urge readers to visit The Wilderness Society and Oregon Heritage Forests to learn more and stay abreast of other breaking news issues.
Many thanks to Andrea Imler of The Wilderness Society for sharing this breaking news with me.
You might also find of interest:
Stop mountain-top removal coal mining
Loss of mangrove forests equals extinction for wildlife
Comments
Obama is the SAVIOR of the planet. He is God like. All Hail Obama, the second coming.
Way to go, you nazi ecoterrorist freaks, you have just advanced your evil agenda of putting even more Americans out of work, with help from your Führer. I hope someone cuts down these trees, turns them sideways, and shoves them up your ass.
Why do some detractors complain that 'environmentalists' wish to hurt the economy & don't care about humans, just trees & animals? Nothing is less true.
You & I and all the people reading this are human, & millions prefer to live in a world where nature is allowed to flourish. Our need for nature to exist untarnished is just as real as someone else's 'need' to exploit it.
So whose 'need' is more important? The exploiters 'need' to profit from/destroy what actually belongs to us all? To steal from us forever, to make a few dollars that will be gone in a week anyway? Who decided this?
I think the argument of the 'log and drill' set is not based on caring about humans. It's based on fear (not enough to go around)& selfishness ('I have to get mine before it's gone').
Yes, once it's gone, it really is gone. The jobs, the little bit of profit, the resource. Then we’ve still lost the ancient forest, wildlife, clear streams filled w/salmon, our heritage. Then will you be happier?
Obama gives hope on a better world and shows not beeing a marionet of profit for small group, but act as a responsible father for higher interest. thank you !
"Our need for nature to exist untarnished..."
What eloquent idiocy.
If that goal is ever reached we will all be gone. Nature will kill us all one way or another. Disease, famine, drought. All of these "natural" things are killers. Man is and has been obligated to control nature since they took to two legs. FOR THEIR OWN SURVIVAL.
Never forget ALL the ways we change nature for the betterment of the species.
BECAUSE we have controlled nature is why we are where we are today.
dirk says: "Obama gives hope not beeing (sp) a marionet of profit for small group"
Check out the strings on his hands and shoulders heading right up to Goldman Sachs, the FED and Obama's friends.
www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/inside_the_great_american_bubble_machine
IT IS CRIMINAL!
Thanks Cathy for reporting on the Government efforts to preserve our Old Growth Forests in the NW. It would have been great to have the same quality of Old Growth in the East, but there are none. A look at the satellite photos of Georgia today will show the radical transformation from forests to agriculture and development. The forests remaining today are strands along major river corridors and those managed primarily for timber in the national forests. What BS Zone says had some validity in Davy Crockett's era, but the mountain lions, red wolves and virgin forests are long gone. Black bears are struggling. The hyperbole so quickly and eagerly expressed by Scoot and BS Zone show no knowledge or understanding of this reality. The fact that we really do have the capability of destroying major ecosystems is an unreasonable, unbelievable concept for them. They frighten me. Scripture tells us we have stewardship over this earth. I for one don't want to explain to our maker why we ignored...
...Continued....our responsibilities to look after and properly manage this earth. Now all you people out there that say that protecting forests and wildlife species is not important because it costs jobs or hurts our economy, or that the the natural world is here for us to use as we please remind me of children who soil their diapers. That is OK for very young children, but not for adults. It is past time that we grew up and accepted our responsibility to look after this world instead of trying to find ever more sophisticated ways to exploit it. It is also a reality that every natural community cannot be roped off and left to its own course. We must learn to manage our world in a way that protects our natural environment, sustains us AND insures that we will have a healthy world for our grandchildren and our great, great grandchildren to live in and enjoy.
Al, what a great comment.
Thank you.
:- )
Al Tate, do you think the early settlers should not have settled and used the resources at hand to build homes and other structures?
To you people, earth would be better of without humans?
THIS country has managed our resources BETTER than any other! ANY!
And stop with you ad hominem attacks. It ruins your points.
BS Zone, The conclusion of my previous remarks was that we must manage our resources wisely, and should not rope off all natural environments as the way to do that. Our forefathers lived in a different time, had a different and more abundant inventory of resources to work with. They did make some serious errors with the natural environment but we have learned a lot since then. The old growth forests of the NW are not now being cut to provide homes for pioneers. Most of that timber is being shipped to Japan and China, or whoever the highest bidder is at the time of harvest. I would argue that those forests are worth a great deal more to Americans (and everyone) as habitat for native flora and fauna, as a tourist attraction, as a climate buffer, and as a living laboratory to learn more about complex ecosystems, potential new medicines (like the Yew), species interactions, etc. Truthfully, I don't know how our management of natural resources compares with all other countries, and .....
...Continued.... I seriously doubt that you do. I do know that we can do a lot better job of looking after our natural resources than we do now and that OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. There are certainly some good examples of Natural resources management around the world that we can learn from. Teddy Roosevelt, one of our most forward thinking Presidents understood the importance of protecting natural areas and began our national parks system. When was it that Conservatives stopped being Conservationists? As to the "You People" question: the very real threat to producing a "world without humans" is to wastefully deplete our natural resources. We have almost completely run out of new places to get them. In the early 1800's Passenger Pigeons were probably the most numerous birds on earth. They declined rapidly after the Civil War. The last one on earth, a female named Martha, died in a Cincinnati Zoo in 1905. It is just unthinkable to ignore resource conservation. Think about it!
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