"New" Strategy to Save Forests is as Old as Some of the Trees

The front page of the Seattle Times today trumpets a New Strategy to Save the Forest: Logging.

In the story, reporter Lynda Mapes uncovers "a shift in thinking" among environmentalists, who "not long ago" would have opposed all tree-cutting as an affront to their principles. Now, however, they recognize that forestry is actually preferable to strip-malls, and are working to try to keep land in tree-production rather than allow timber companies to sell it off, or convert it to homes and driveways. Environmentalists, we're told, have even devised a "friendly new term" for the practice: "working forest."

It's an interesting, well-reported story with one glaring oversight: This "shift in thinking" happened a long time ago. Why, this humble Seattle Weekly scribe chronicled the very same thing in May 2000! Here's an excerpt:

There was a time when logging was an environmental scourge, the symbol of everything hateful to green activists. But now, a number of environmental groups and green-minded politicians are coming round to a new attitude...."Even environmentalists have come to believe that it's better to have active forestry than shopping malls everywhere," says Nancy Keith, executive director of the Mountains to Sound Greenway, which has championed this idea for a decade.

Indeed the "friendly new term" that the Times tells us about today was already causing eye-rolling among those in the industry ten years ago:

"Everyone thinks 'working forest' is wonderful," says [Weyerhaeuser's then-spokesperson Frank Mendizabal], "until the chain saws start up and the trucks start driving by."

There does appear to be one new change in strategy afoot--one that Mapes doesn't address at all. Federal legislation allowing the creation of "community forestry bonds" seems to have evolved since the idea was first being proposed a decade ago (see my story, linked above). Back then, environmentalists were talking about buying up forestland themselves with the bonds, and then using timber revenues to pay off the debt. Now, it appears, big timber companies would be allowed to use the bonds to fund their own activities. Or at least so the story implies. I'll look into this further in the coming days.

UPDATE: Though Mapes' story says lands purchased with the bonds would remain "in private hands," the bonds could be used only by "non-profit conservation organizations." So, "private" in the sense that it's not the government. But not in the sense of private timber companies.