This letter was written in response to an interview with Mr. Jim Lyons, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of  Agriculture in the Society of American Foresters (SAF) monthly newsletter, The Forestry Source.  A shortened version was to be published in a recent issue of the same paper.
Alan Page
AFMO
A FOREST MAINTENANCE ORGANIZATION
125 BLUE MEADOW ROAD
BELCHERTOWN, MA   01007-9586
PHONE: (413) 323-4401    FAX: (413) 323-5193
June 7, 1997
Letters
The Forestry Source
5400 Grosvenor Lane Bethesda, MD 20814-2198
Dear Editor:

Thank you for printing the interview with Mr. Lyons. I wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't been in his own words. The fact that the short sighted and error prone period of mismanagement of the last ten years originated in the SAF is cause for major concern. The fact that Mr. Lyons gives credence to the public's desires for recreation at any price (and has nothing to say about the level of resource consumption in this country, the impact of continuing immigration via the Family Reunification Act on water supplies, infrastructure, coastal ecosystems, etc., the impending impact of climate change on forestry decisions, and many other truly earth shattering consequences of the promotion of unsustainable thought world-wide) in construction of forest management policies should be cause to completely rethink the process of policy formation both within the SAF and the government as well.

We are confronted with a society addicted to the frivolous use of non-renewable resources. The SAF should be an advocate for rational thought about what is going to be here after the consequences of the resource choices now being made have had their full effect. The SAF should be leading the discussion about sustainable systems. Forests in all forms are what will be there after everything else stops. The "protection" of land by setting it aside without being sure that there can be no long term human caused climatic effects is penny-wise and pound-foolish. The SAF should have and should be educating young policy cadets who can carry on such in depth dialogue with the public and our government representatives.

There are many sources of increasingly alarming information: The World Watch Institute, U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Ehrlich's new book, Roy Beck's "The Case Against Immigration," the summer 1995 issue of "Issues in Science and Technology" has two interesting articles on energy and the global coastal population boom, to name a few.

The SAF policy on Community Stability is not worth the paper it is printed on. It and Forest Service research on same completely miss the dependence of communities on energy conversion competitiveness. Forests are energy sources. Foresters are charged with the planning of these energy supplies. The lack of cogent thought and communication about energy issues by foresters, the government, and industry with the public is about to become an unfolding tragedy. We have ourselves to blame. The Northeast has lost nearly a third of the commercial species of forest trees over the last 100 years. Hopefully, we have avoided the loss of the sugar maple by the Asian Long Horned Beetle! How many more incidents like this is it going to take for us to wake up?

Sincerely,
Alan C. Page, Ph.D.
HOME