Jim Tantillo Opines:

>This I take it is the point of Perley's making a fine *distinction* between
>different forms of preservationism.  Preservationism *can* stand in the way
>of accomplishing the environmental good, a point that has been touched on
>in our recent discussions of Stephen Budiansky's book and a point that
>Perley himself has amply illustrated with his examples of forest management
>(or "non-management") in New Zealand.  I might add that this is a point
>that is also well made in Michael Pollan's excellent book, *Second Nature:
>A Gardener's Education*.

The distinction that Chris Perley provided was not a good one at all. He was
referring to two places. One place was one which Timberlands was denied the
opportunity to log on about 150,000 hectares. This area was preserved
despite Timberlands intentions of carrying out sustainable forestry. Chris
Perley quite clearly indicated that Timberlands motive was to earn revenue
from harvesting timber solely to keep the ecosystem healthy. There was no
evidence provided in an objective way that (1) the area was unhealthy (eg.
Pest Nursery), and (2) that there rate of harvest in the area was
sustainable for more than 15 years. 

Chris said that this provided an example of 'unethical preservation' since
Timberlands would only harvest select groups of trees with a helicopter.
Timberlands would do this only once every 10 to 15 years. 

To harvest once every 10 to 15 years means that each year on 150,000
hectares about 10,000 hectares would be logged. That in my professional
experience as a forester exceeds any rate of harvest that I have ever heard
of in the world. The largest licencee here that I work for harvests only
2000 hectares per year and they have about 600,000 hectares. In addition we
have selection forests here and we only harvest about every 30-50 years each
hectare. 

But can you imagine an area as large as 10,000 hectares being logged each year.

No. In fact Jim Tantillo is basing his opinion on opinion without any
scientific evidence. Ted is correct, the only thing that is unethical about
preservation of an ecosystem is not the protection that it confers on
threatened and endangered species, but on the opportunity to make money from
endangering further the species and habitat. we have so many examples of
depleted resources in the world where species have had to be preserved (cod,
whales, spotted owls, salmon) that there is absolutely no truth to Jim's
opinion. 

Jim's opinion is just that: an opinion without any evidence. He presents an
opportunist view that nothing should be locked up because it may be unethical. 

The case of protecting endangered species and threatened ecosystems simply
does not make any moral sense to an opportunist. The only effective way to
debate the issue is to attack the persons who are threatening them from
their notiont that opportunism is perservation. 

Some firms have been sucessful in logging parks in BC. But they have not
been very successful. They claim that the logging must be done to get at bug
killed timber. So where there are some trees attacked by bark beetles they
have successfully logged them on about 500 hectares or less. 

The interesting thing in this example is that in each and in all cases the
trees were dead by the time the loggers took them (99% of the time). The
larvae in the bark had matured and the adult beetles had flown away. The
other interesting thing is that most of the parks here in BC where there are
bark beetles are very large. The main bark beetle problems are in remote
areas that could not be accessed. The bark beetles therefore always fly away
to new live trees. But in all these parks even though the damage from the
beetles is cyclical, and some trees die (mainly pioneer species), the dead
trees provide more habitat than ever due to the abundance of carpenter ants,
that live in the standing snag or in the fallen log. 

There is no evidence that preservation in BC is immoral. Only an
opportunistic person that wanting to make money thinks it is unethical. Is
the making of money more ethical than protecting representative areas of
forest for future generations, and for forest health?

Anti-preservationism is based on ad hominem argumentation. Just call the
science of conservation biology foolishness, and have done with any
discussion because in the end there all that timber will simply fall down
and rot. 

john foster













"When an idea is new, it is seen as crazy. This is followed by a period in
which it is viewed as dangerous. After this, there is a period of
uncertainty. In the end, you can't find anyone who disagreed with it in the
first place".  

Stephen J. Gould



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