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Forest Controversies
Article #361 August 2024
By Bill Cook

Now and again, I am asked for my opinion about “radical environmentalists,” which is a legitimate question to put to any forester.  However, it is often a loaded question with an air of conflict already built in, presented almost as a challenge. 

    What is a “radical environmentalist?”  What is forestry?  What are the issues that apparently separate the two groups, depending upon how the groups are defined?  After a little reflection, I might respond in the following ways.
    To answer the question about my opinion of radical environmentalism, I assume radical meant emotionalist pleas to support some imaginary vision of nature, possibly based on poor scientific methodology.  I see nothing but harm in this breed of environmentalism. 
    However, radical could also mean cutting-edge ideas, supported by sound arguments, which shake up the staunchly anti-change crowd.  This kind of radical environmentalism may have real merit.  But change can sometimes be difficult, requiring sensitivity and patience.  It’s better advanced with quiet reasoning rather than from a bully pulpit.
    Lumping people who are concerned about natural resources into loosely defined categories is not an especially useful practice, especially categories that might arouse emotional responses.  To some folks, I could be characterized as a radical environmentalist, or at least a moderate environmentalist.  After all, I support the conservation of rare species and habitats.  I believe our water, soil, forests, and wildlife should be protected against abuse and waste.  I love to paddle, backpack, and camp in pristine areas. 
    On the other, I am indeed, proud to be a forester and wildlife biologist.  This is not a position on the far end of the spectrum.  Sound management of natural resources does not always appear politically correct or fit popular myths about “nature primeval.”  Nature itself often doesn’t fit these myths. 
    People are a natural part of the landscape.  We need to consume resources like any other species.  Harvesting timber, for example, is an important activity that helps drive the economic and environmental engine of the northwoods that we all depend upon.  Healthy economies can be directly tied to healthy environments.  When the engine sputters, environmental safeguards are one of the first casualties.
    There are those people who will not consider the needs of human beings in their perspective of nature.  The Sierra Club, for example, has a national policy statement to end all timber harvest on all federal forests.  This is wrong-thinking for many reasons.  Furthermore, many Sierra Club members do not subscribe to such excessive statements. 
    Then again, if you read the mission bullets on the Sierra Club home page, the rhetoric could come right out of a modern logging manual.  The similarity is uncanny.  However, the practices differ “radically”. 
    At the same time, other folks believe there should be no control at all over harvesting practices.  This too, is wrong-thinking.  These folks are short-sighted, failing to consider future generations of people and forests.  Few loggers, foresters, and resource managers would subscribe to these antiquated statements of a century past. 
    Yet, it is these minorities, on opposite ends of the spectrum, that define the polarized “camps of thought” we are all supposed to fall into.  This pattern is divisive when we should be looking for unity.
    A better approach is to look at the issues and discover areas of agreement first.  Using this approach, the environmentalist and the resource manager probably have more in common than some may think.  They might agree on some issues but disagree on others, instead of disagreeing on everything just because they come from different “camps”.  Moving into a debate from common ground, in my experience, is far more productive than using preconceived and antagonistic notions of each other.
    Most environmentalists are truly concerned about society and the economy of a particular region.  They are not operating in a vacuum, as some think they are.  Most resource managers and loggers also truly want to provide a healthy environment for the future.  They have dedicated their careers to it.  I believe there really aren’t too many truly fanatical environmentalists or reckless timber beasts.  I suspect that most people don’t care enough to engage one way or the other. 
    Understanding that most players in the natural resource game are more similar than different, we do need to acknowledge that extremists have caused real problems.  Unfortunately, extreme positions generate sensationalist press, cause choking litigation, and sometimes convince policy-makers to support poor decisions.  Today, there are trends in society that seem to foster emotionalist environmentalism over more conventional and scientific-based reasoning.  Alston Chase discusses some of these trends in his 1995 book “In Dark a Wood.” 
    Perhaps, it would behoove us all to recognize fringe ideas that appear in society and actively resist them.  Don’t accept these ideas as normal.  Speak out.  After all, a democracy doesn’t work if only the bold and outlandish use their voices.

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Finding common ground might the best way to move forward.