Letters from Our Readers: Summer 2008

Go Gentle on the Trees

I take issue with Sharon Levy's characterization of the typi­cal forest landowner as a rapa­cious clear-cutter ("The Giving Trees," Spring 2008). For almost 20 years our family has owned and managed a 2,000-acre redwood forest in northern California. We have yet to clear-cut a single acre of that forest, and we never will. We manage under a Non-Industrial Timber Management Plan, a voluntary California program designed for small landowners. The program mandates that we maintain a forest with trees of all ages and no clear-cuts. We are stewards of our land, enjoying and encouraging wildlife, forest flowers, and hiking trails. There are 722 of these voluntary management pro­grams in California, representing 315,197 acres of family-owned forestland, and every one is working to achieve the same goal.

Peter T. Parker
Altadena, California

As an activist I have been advo­cating for more than a decade that we start a nationwide public school program through which students plant one tree every year they are in school. Fifty million trees would be planted annually and the public would be educated about trees and their value to our environment.

Jeremy W. Gorman
Wilmington, Vermont

It's important to acknowledge the role that nontropical forests play in carbon sequestration. Our organization, the Armenia Tree Project, is working on tree plant­ing and environmental educa­tion programs in the Republic of Armenia, and we appreciate new research such as this that helps the public and even foresters to better understand these impor­tant ecosystem dynamics.

posted online by Jason Sohigian

Did anyone hear the audiobook of A New Earth? It's on Oprah's book club Web site. I am taking Oprah's class every Monday night. She talks about the trees and the forest too. This reminds me that life is so pre­cious; trees breathe just like we do, and they die just like we do.

posted online by Penny

Of the River

After reading Tim Folger's excellent coverage of the southwestern United States' water woes ("Requiem for a River," Spring 2008), I felt some sympathy for the likes of rancher Cecil Garland, but not much. He admits to an ongoing process of stripping native vegetation to plant an ill-adapted, water-hungry for­age crop, alfalfa, resulting in the loss of topsoil to wind erosion. That scenario doesn't belong in an arid region any more than a housing development or golf course does.

Ron Blackmore
Hamilton, New York

Often it is not the water but the water managers who need to be managed. We in Snake Valley, Nevada, do not trust Pat Mulroy. One critical point is her spin on conservation: Las Vegas uses far more water per capita than, say, Tucson or Albuquerque. Mulroy has a long way to go here to be credible on conservation.

posted online by Terry Marascok

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