Razing the Forest Primeval

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The timber industry in the Pacific Northwest has begun to adjust to the post-old-growth era already, and it will have to complete that transition expeditiously whether or not it is allowed to mow down the last of the old growth and the owls and other creatures with it. That means retooling equipment in sawmills so they can handle smaller logs efficiently. It means altering equipment used in the field to handle the smaller, second-growth trees. It means, in essence, putting the idea of cutting down thousand-year-old trees out of mind, forever.

To repeat, this will happen soon anyway. If there were no lawsuit, if there were no protestors installing themselves in the tops of old trees in a desperate attempt to save them, if there were no resistance whatever to logging old growth, industry could keep cutting for only a handful of years at most.

And when time ran out, except for the remnants now protected in wilderness areas and national parks, the trees would be gone, the owls would be gone, and the loggers and the mills would be facing exactly the same situation they will face if the suit succeeds.

The difference is that if the lawsuit succeeds, there will be a small but respectable amount of primeval forest, complete with spotted owls and a hundred other creatures, to proudly show to our children and grandchildren. We'll be able to tell them we took the painful but necessary steps, and we took them in time.

Tom Turner, a writer and editor with 20 years' experience in the environmental field, is staff writer for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, an independent environmental law firm that represents many organizations across the country. It is supported principally by private donations. For more information, write Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, 2044 Fillmore St., San Francisco, CA 94115.

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