It was more than telling when a recent letter-writer tried defending clearcut logging in the Quabbin Reservation by referencing his education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst “in the late 1960s.”
So-called forestry has come a long way in the nearly 50 years since.
Today, we are confronted with the climate crisis and must consider what our children and grandchildren will be faced with as a result of our actions.
Part of that consideration must be the protection of our forests and forest soils where CO2 is sequestered. When loggers take out large swaths of trees and disturb the soil and soil organisms the stored carbon is released into the atmosphere.
It takes many decades for those forests to recover that lost carbon, decades we do not have the luxury of waiting for.
Further, studies show that the trashed forest usually never recovers its earlier vigor and exotic invasives often degrade the forest’s ecology.
In the 21st century, we must rethink much of what we have been taught in the past and reconsider what we do today, if we are to leave a habitable planet for future generations.
Don Ogden
Leverett